Omar – Toronto
Our stay wasn’t as relaxing as we had hoped, but that was partly our fault for choosing an apartment near the downtown core. The following is meant as an explanation or our experience to help you make an enlightened decision before you rent, and not as a criticism of the renter.
Upon first impression, the area felt a bit sketchy. We arrived at the building parking early in the evening, and didn’t feel safe leaving the car there. A group of young people was hanging out in the park behind the building, playing music very loudly, and there was another group hanging around near the entrance. There’s nothing wrong with that, you will say. They were just young people hanging out, but what really got us concerned was when we saw a keyed BMW with three flat tires in the parking lot. That really added to our stress. The other cars seemed fine however, but we nonetheless made sure to leave nothing in the car that could spike interest, just to be safe. Thankfully, nothing happened to the car, aside from getting a parking ticket because of a glitch in the Building Security’s website, which, I want to point out, Omar was very quick to refund. Thanks Omar.
The little annoyances:
As for the apartment itself, it was mostly very clean. The only thing that left something to be desired was the bathroom mats which were a bit on the dirty side and a missing top sheet on the living room bed. We didn’t mention the missing sheet initially because it was past 11:30 pm when we went to bed and didn’t want to call Omar that late. I made do with my sleeping bag which I used as a cover and slept fine. So no harm done. Other than that, it was spotless and the beds were comfortable. We did sleep well. Our main problem was the key to the main entrance which we had to giggle forever and only managed to get to work 3 times out of maybe 20 tries. Luckily, people were always coming in and would kindly let us in. That being said, every tenant told us they often had problems with that lock. It’s the building management who should fix that. Not Omar’s fault, but it was still a problem. And I do want to point out that Omar told us to call him if we couldn’t get in, and he’d come open the door for us since he was nearby.
Through all that, we have to point out that Omar was really nice and extremely available. Always quick to respond and ready to help. The other tenants were also very nice which made us realize that maybe the area was not as bad as we had imagined. However, the first impression made us feel nervous throughout our stay, which is a bummer because otherwise, it was a nice, convenient apartment and Omar was nothing but really helpful.
If you bear in mind that you are renting downtown in an older building, and not in a super quiet suburban-type neighborhood and you don’t mind, then you should be happy with the place. You are very close to downtown (walking distance to a subway station and even the downtown core). The kitchen has everything you need to eat in, with brand new kitchen cabinets that give it a nice, clean feel. A good place if you want to be close to everything.