I've read all of the previous reviews about Quality Hill Towers, and I felt the need to write about my experiences here for the benefit of anyone thinking of coming here to live. I want to give an honest account of what I have seen after living here for over four years.
First, a few untold facts about Quality Hill Towers:
1. Quality Hill Towers is a mixed income living facility, which I have found means that about sixty percent of the people that live here are from state-assisted populations. These include mentally ill, drug abuse and welfare populations, most of whom don't work and don't go to school, leaving them with plenty of time to create disruptions.
2. The buildings are in a continuous state of disrepair, ranging from clogged drains to leaky pipes to toilets that need resealing, and you will hear loud banging and drilling on a regular basis (about two or three times a week in my case) as insufficient patch up jobs to thirty year-old plumbing continue to be a problem and carpets are replaced almost daily as a result of continuous move-ins and move-outs. One day, without any warning, what I assumed was a maintenance man ran a long drain snake up through my sinkhole that scratched my dishes and ran all the way to the kitchen floor. I never reported a clogged drain and there was nothing wrong with my sink that required this action. I've also experienced simultaneous leaks in the kitchen, bathroom and living room that left all three areas soaked with greasy water. Knocks on your door and unsolicited entries with keys into your apartment to check for clogs and leaks are also typical. Walls and doors are thin, so you hear EVERYTHING that goes on in both the hallway and adjoining apartments. In the wintertime the radiators throughout the building make clanking noises all day and night that sound like someone repeatedly hitting your ceiling with a metal pipe.
3. The adjacent Case Park is a breeding ground for a variety of disturbances, especially late at night in the summertime, when roudy groups of teenagers like to roam, yelling and cursing and playing loud music at two and three o'clock in the morning. It is nearly impossible to get a good night of sleep during the summer months.
4. The security measures are poor. A security person may walk around the property once or twice on random nights, but the only continuous presence is a security camera in the lobby, in the elevator, and at the side entrance - all "assumedly" connected to a 24-hour VCR. The locks can be easily broken, and there are no peepholes to identify strangers. No doorbells on the doors either, so you hear a lot of banging on doors from adjacent apartments. On a dozen occasions false fire alarms have been set that ring throughout the night, and at least a dozen people leave the building during that time, looking up in the windows for the non-existent "fire". When the fire squad finishes checking the building they never turn the fire alarm off.
5. If you like your mail delivered directly to you there will be a problem, because the mail carriers like to deliver packages to the rental office at 929 Jefferson to save the trouble of delivering door-to-door. Sometimes (depending on the individual mail carrier) you won't receive a notice in your mailbox telling you a package was delivered. On one occasion a package of mine sat in the office for a month before I was told it was there. Also, on several occasions small boxes that could easily fit into the mailbox were delivered to the office instead.
6. All management correspondence (including copies of your lease with your signature and personal info on it) are attached to your door in full view of anyone who passes by your apartment. I once had to step over someone else's 10-page lease copy that had evidently fallen to the floor in the hallway.
Next, a few obvious facts about Quality Hill Towers:
1. The nearby trains sound their horns constantly day and night. This will be particularly annoying if you like to keep your windows open during the summer months.
2. The chemical smells from nearby plants can be overpowering. They range from a strong garbage odor to a bitter coffee grind odor.
3. The intercom system is connected to your land-line telephone and occasionally fails, so you might need for a visitor to call you from outside the building, and you will have to go downstairs to let them in.
4. The aforementioned Case Park yields scores of bugs and insects in the summer. Exterminators enter the apartments to spray about once a month to handle indoor critters like roaches and spiders, but sometimes you might be "surprised" by some survivors. The worst of the outdoor critters are the cicadas, which are large and extremely noisy, and dozens of flying ladybugs that get in through cracks in the windows and crawl up the walls.
5. All trash must be taken outside and heaved into a dumpster on the side of the building, which is no problem for me, but people with bad backs will need some assistance. Also, apartments on that side of the building can expect lots of noise from the garbage truck that empties the dumpster about twice a week, and lots of odors from the open dumpster as garbage mounts. This past summer the garbage truck had a problem emptying the dumpster and all the garbage piled up, blocking the side door completely so nobody could get in or out.
Last, a few of my own personal experiences at Quality Hill Towers:
1. For the entire length of my stay here I have lived next to a mentally ill neighbor who has harassed me day and night. No matter what the time is, whenever I try to use my bathroom or kitchen this person will hit against the adjoining wall, slam kitchen cabinets, and/or drop the toilet seat and flush (the plumbing is loud and "knocks" at the end of every flush). The management was ineffective at resolving the matter, so I stopped going to them for help. After over four years of this I have developed somewhat of a tolerance to it, but no one should have to put up with that. There is also a tenant above me that constantly drops heavy objects on the floor and opens the window to pour liquid onto my windowsill. I have spoken to management about this also, and nothing has been done to stop them.
2. A couple of drug addicts three doors down from me have continuous traffic in and out of their apartment, with constant pounding on doors, blasting of rock music and yelling up in the windows late at night and there is a tenant in the building who walks his dog off the leash at all hours of the night and screams at the dog to come to him without respect to the time or how he disturbs the neighborhood.
3. I've seen numerous displays of unsavory behavior, including mentally ill and homeless people screaming and cursing at themselves, at each other, and at residents in the building at random intervals. I've witnessed couples having sex in the surrounding park bushes across the street on several occasions, and one of these times was in broad daylight with children playing just a block away.
With all of the negatives that I've written about, the only positive things I can say about Quality Hill Towers are that the rent and utilities are very cheap (but what I described above shows why) and the location is closer to work sites.
Taking into account my personal experiences, I give Quality Hill Towers a failing grade all around. This is the worst place I've ever lived in, and I wouldn't consider renting an apartment here unless you're extremely desperate. Word to the wise - ask the right questions before you sign a lease anywhere, and check out the people going and coming from the buildings, especially at night if possible. It will save you a lot of future headache. I'm finally moving out of here soon, and I'm glad I found a much nicer place to live. It's more expensive and tougher to get into, but it's worth it.
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