My boyfriend and I have lived in Solhaus Tower for two years this coming August. Overall, it has been a fair experience in which...
My boyfriend and I have lived in Solhaus Tower for two years this coming August. Overall, it has been a fair experience in which our expectations were met as far as housing in such a price point and location would be, but there have been a few downsides I'd like to disclose to any potential renters.
Pros:
- Management is and has always been friendly through and surprisingly consistent. The same guy has been here through three different management companies, ever friendly and accommodating, if not here often.
- What little I ever see of our poor overworked maintenance man is friendly and open.
- It's very quiet aside from the traffic, screaming children in the childcare next door, and construction.
- Our South facing windows grant large, beautiful views, and our plants thrive in the constant indirect light.
- I've felt fairly safe here, no drugs busts, rowdy evictions, angry tenants, etc.
Cons:
- Management has changed three times since we moved in, and my information was lost at some point. I no longer receive communications from management through phone or email. I have tried to rectify this multiple times in person and through email to no avail.
- The only way we can contact SolHaus is through a call center with no direct line to maintenance or management. This could be a real problem if there was any life threatening emergency. A pipe burst in a stairwell one night, setting off the fire alarm, and the tenants had to let the firemen in to address it. No management came in the forty five minutes we sat with other tenants on the ground level.
- The construction quality of this building is not what I would have expected given the rent we pay, but it seems to be very consistent with these newer buildings. I can feel the building settling, and for several months, our bedroom door would not close all the way. We had to talk to maintenance about fixing our front door at one point because we couldn't lock it due to settling. Our floor is not flat, and the doors for the first year and a half would not stay open. You can see the bow in the ceiling when you are in the stairwell.
- We've found maintenance to be very spotty about getting things done, likely because it's spread so thin. The sink has been leaking for at least the last eight months when we turn it on. We put in a maintenance request, and were told by our one maintenance guy (who it seems by himself has to service our 75 units) that he didn't have the budget, and to tie a rag around it until he could fix it later (he said this months ago.) He said this is happening in many of the units because the sinks are low quality. They went through and installed a new shower head recently, and water pressure changed throughout the apartment, but never did fix that leaky kitchen sink. Our bathroom sink water now barely dribbles out. Our dryer's on button has been broken since last year, and our smoke detector has been our of batteries and we are both too short to reach to put it back up. We put in requests for both of these, and have never had the issues fixed.
- Issues outside of the apartment also take a very long time to fix. Sprinklers broken, key enabled doors that just wont open, and the garage door gets stuck up fairly frequently. When stuck open, it sounds an alarm constantly until closed. For hours.
- Our water/electric/heat bills doubled this year despite us using less energy than last year. They recently installed new thermostat systems as well, but we only saw our bills increase. Perhaps shotty construction around our windows is to blame, we're not sure, but it is frustrating.
- The windows in all their glory catch a lot of heat. The apartment gets to 80-90 degrees even in the winter, and opening the windows gives little relief. AC has to be run constantly in summer to keep us at 79-80 degrees inside with blinds half closed.