finding an apartment in pittsburgh (Bellevue, Franklin: realty, hoa, insurance)

[Henna]

My boyfriend is interviewing for a job in downtown Pittsburgh. It's a fantastic job and we are both hoping he gets it. In anticipation, we have been looking at various housing sites including craigslist and certain realty sites like Mozart Management. Also, we have spent time looking at the map and reading these boards for info about commutes and safety etc.

He would ideally love to live in a single family home. He will be renting. However, money is a concern and at the beginning he is thinking it may make more sense to rent a one-bedroom apartment to keep costs down. He is not too interested in renting an apartment in a house and would prefer (if he has to be in an apt.) to be in a larger building. He is thinking he will look in the $650/month range at first and increase it if he doesn't find anything suitable at that price.

My concern is that I have spent some time as well on apartmentratings.com looking at comments for the apartment complexes in Pittsburgh and have seen mostly poor comments for most of the buildings. Comments range from management is terrible, plumbing doesn't work well, bldg has roaches, walls are paper thin, cars are vandalized in parking lot, maintenance not performed in timely manner ETC. The comments for Mozart Management were particularly bad, which is unfortunate because they seem to have some beautiful-looking buildings with reasonable rents.

My bf says safety is not his primary concern, but i have tried to impress upon him that 'bad' neighborhoods would not just affect his potential safety (and mine when I visit) but also his quality of life -- such as people not keeping up their property and having car stereos blaring on the street etc. He has arrived here recently from living in a war zone so that is why he feels security is not an issue, as he survived at least a few years with the threat of being car bombed or shot at (and was shot a few times) on a daily basis and he is extremely well trained in the art of self-defense. And after going through all of this he basically doesn't have any fear about anything at all EXCEPT he still does have a phobia about cockroaches!

I guess my question is, if he gets the job and we go to look for an apartment for him, how can we find out if a building is a good building to live in, besides looking at apartmentratings. com, which seems to suggest that no building in Pittsburgh offers a decent place to live?

I've lived in this country my whole life but seem not to have acquired the knowledge about how to evaluate a potential rental situation.

Thanks.

[barneyg]

I'm afraid I don't have that much useful to say except two things:

1) if you rent an apartment and become really pissed off at the way things go with the apartment or your landlord, you're much more likely to post bad reviews on websites than you'd be if you had just a fine experience and had nothing else to add.

2) large apartment complexes are businesses and they are run like businesses. Especially in the Oakland area (where many large buildings are), many tenants are students, who are both a) price-sensitive and b) going to leave anyway in a few years. As such, for a building management company, investing in a great place and offering great service to tenants is probably not the most profitable strategy. As far as service goes, I think renting in a house (with an owner who lives nearby and doesn't have 50 houses for rent) is probably a better bet here.

I haven't had any direct experience with Mozart, but I know some people who have, and haven't had any problems with them. The same goes for Forbes Management and Franklin West (whose apartments are usually more in converted houses than large buildings). Of course, things can happen..

[Henna]

I thought of that too -about the apt. ratings site. I also know that when I look back at my apartment in Brooklyn I have very fond memories of the place and sort of wish I was still living there. however, truth is that if I had to rate it for other people, I would have to say there were mice, occasional roaches, domestic arguments one floor below, dirty hallway, unrenovated kitchen, cigarette smoke wafting in from somehwere, some noise from the bar two floors below, noise from the street, ETC.

Yet I was quite happy living there despite those problems.

Even in my bf's current apt. (which he loves), we could write a review one of two ways -- one would be to give it a 4 or 5 (top rating) and say we loved it and things were pretty good overall, or the other way would be to list all the slightly annoying things that happened while he was there - including management coming in without proper notice one time, the heat not working in the bedroom for months during the winter, lots of bike thefts outside, and not being allowed to put an a/c in during a scorching summer.

That's why it's really hard to tell and I guess no one can really help me with this. But if anyone has any feedback in general or specifically about their apartment building or the search for an apt. that would be great.

[Tallysmom]

Originally Posted by Senecanyc

I thought of that too -about the apt. ratings site. I also know that when I look back at my apartment in Brooklyn I have very fond memories of the place and sort of wish I was still living there. however, truth is that if I had to rate it for other people, I would have to say there were mice, occasional roaches, domestic arguments one floor below, dirty hallway, unrenovated kitchen, cigarette smoke wafting in from somehwere, some noise from the bar two floors below, noise from the street, ETC.

Yet I was quite happy living there despite those problems.

Even in my bf's current apt. (which he loves), we could write a review one of two ways -- one would be to give it a 4 or 5 (top rating) and say we loved it and things were pretty good overall, or the other way would be to list all the slightly annoying things that happened while he was there - including management coming in without proper notice one time, the heat not working in the bedroom for months during the winter, lots of bike thefts outside, and not being allowed to put an a/c in during a scorching summer.

That's why it's really hard to tell and I guess no one can really help me with this. But if anyone has any feedback in general or specifically about their apartment building or the search for an apt. that would be great.

My husband and I own a janitorial company that work exclusively for HOA associations in condominuims. One of the condos we clean is built like an apartment building -- long hallways with units left and right, interior courtyard, four flours with stacking units.

Noise, cooking odors and vermin are ALWAYS an issue at large complexes. They will ALWAYS be an issue at these types of places, because people aren't as clean as you want them to be; they have lives, and fight, yell, laugh and cook stuff that smells gross; there are almost always trash chutes to dump your trash and garbage into the dumpsters, which are open air and only emptied a few times a week.

And no matter what the property management company does or doesn't do there will be people that it will NOT be enough for, it will not address the problem the way THEY want it addressed, the management will always charge too much for it. And these are the people that are vocal. And irrational. And willing to let every one esle know about it.

Your best bet it to either go there and see for yourself...

[subdivisions]

Originally Posted by Tallysmom

Noise, cooking odors and vermin are ALWAYS an issue at large complexes. They will ALWAYS be an issue at these types of places, because people aren't as clean as you want them to be; they have lives, and fight, yell, laugh and cook stuff that smells gross; there are almost always trash chutes to dump your trash and garbage into the dumpsters, which are open air and only emptied a few times a week.

I agree. That's why I was going to suggest that you find an apartment that isn't in a big building. There are thousands of really cool duplexes and remodeled floors of old Victorians in Pittsburgh made into apartments, where you only have to share the building with one or two other tenants. It's of course a matter of personal preference, but I personally would never live in a big managed complex over a duplex or triplex.

Let me know if you need a recommendation for a landlord. I know a guy who owns many properties in the city in various neighborhoods - he's very responsive, friendly, and takes great care of his property and tenants. Or you could try looking on this site that somebody here posted last week: Landorslum.com: The landlord rating website

[Tallysmom]

Originally Posted by subdivisions

I agree. That's why I was going to suggest that you find an apartment that isn't in a big building. There are thousands of really cool duplexes and remodeled floors of old Victorians in Pittsburgh made into apartments, where you only have to share the building with one or two other tenants. It's of course a matter of personal preference, but I personally would never live in a big managed complex over a duplex or triplex.

Let me know if you need a recommendation for a landlord. I know a guy who owns many properties in the city in various neighborhoods - he's very responsive, friendly, and takes great care of his property and tenants. Or you could try looking on this site that somebody here posted last week: Landorslum.com: The landlord rating website

Our first apartment was in Monaca, in 1983. It was an insurance office in the front of an old house, a small downstairs apartment and our 2nd floor apartment. We had use of the attic, too. My mother in law worked for the insurance agent and he was fine with our cats. Right after we moved there they closed the Rochester/Monaca bridge and that made our neighborhood quiet quiet quiet. We were next door to a church. I do believe the road was brick...

It was a cute place -- not too small, and not too big. I did love it there. Monaca might not be the cream of the crop but I have fond memories of it.

But that experience made us never want to rent an apartment house apartment. Give me a chopped up old house anytime.

My sister lived in Bellevue on an old brick street in a third floor attic apartment. While they had to contend with some gabled roof ceilings, they also had this immensely way cool landing area/dressing area. There was a back staircase that lead down to where the original kitchen would have been from the attic where the help would have lived -- after the first few steps it was blocked off.

The dressing area was a small alcove of wall to wall drawers, all dovetailed and pristine, with small closets -- probably an off season clothing storage area... all varnished wood -- looked like mahogany, but it could have been anything just darkened with time.

Don't get that in new apartments...

[subdivisions]

Originally Posted by Tallysmom

My sister lived in Bellevue on an old brick street in a third floor attic apartment. While they had to contend with some gabled roof ceilings, they also had this immensely way cool landing area/dressing area. There was a back staircase that lead down to where the original kitchen would have been from the attic where the help would have lived -- after the first few steps it was blocked off.

The dressing area was a small alcove of wall to wall drawers, all dovetailed and pristine, with small closets -- probably an off season clothing storage area... all varnished wood -- looked like mahogany, but it could have been anything just darkened with time.

I lived in an apartment just like that when I first moved to Pittsburgh, except it was in Sq. Hill, not Bellevue! It had funny steps and gabled ceilings, and a huge walk-in dressing closet in the living room that had wall to wall built in dressers and cabinets. It also had a large terrace out back covered in wisteria that overlooked the neighborhood. It would have been the greatest apartment ever if the landlady had been even the slightest bit responsible and kept the place up. It was so cute. I really have fond memories of the place.

[subdivisions]

Another great resource for apartment finding in Pittsburgh is Craigslist: craigslist: pittsburgh classifieds for jobs, apartments, personals, for sale, services, community, and events

That's where we found our last (great) apartment. There's also a section where you can post an ad for Housing Wanted and detail your requirements.

[Elder18]

One thing I would mention is that $650 a month for a limit will get you a pretty decent one-bedroom apartment in Pittsburgh.

I did this very search with a lower budget and found many one-bedrooms in Pittsburgh's better areas for less than your boyfriend is willing to pay.

I would suggest checking out the landlord rating website someone posted before as it seems some landlords get consistently bad ratings.

Fortunately we did not sign with any of them, and I'm sure your boyfriend would like to do the same.