My girlfriend and I rented a Wylie Holdings apartment at 4521 Butler Street. We were residents of the apartment for one year between 2007 and 2008.
We were initially charmed by the location of the place. Butler street has many nice shops/bars/etc. And there was a Giant Eagle within walking distance.
The charm quickly wore off, however. Our first night in the apartment had our sleep interrupted often by ""Yellow"" and ""Sonoco"" trucks barreling down Butler Street. There is a hub for both of these companies further down Butler Street. To make matters worse, the traffic lights turn to blinking yellows around midnight, so these 18-wheeled behemoths thunder through the intersections at 40mph+ all night. Not exactly Wylie's Fault, but food for thought before considering living on Butler Street.
Once winter rolled around, we realized how ramshackle this dwelling was assembled. There were two large windows in the living room/kitchen. I have a video of a candle burning next to the window. The smoke from the candle is blowing -SIDEWAYS- into the apartment due to the draft from the poorly fitted windows. Our gas bill hovered between $180 and $200 per month. Way out of line for the small 2 room apartment this was. As a note, my girlfriend works in an ice skating rink. So we are accustomed to cold temperatures and never set our thermostat above 65 degrees.
Our neighbor moved out about 6 months after we moved in. A cleaning crew came and the space advertised to us as a ""shared closet"" suddenly became a ""fire escape"" when the cleaning crew stole each and every possession we had stored in there. No help from management either in recovering our belongings or being compensated.
Speaking of the fire escapes on this building, I'd take my chances with the flames. The fire escape structure that services the rear of the building could not even be trusted to structurally support some flower pots. Let alone panicked stomping fire evacuees. And as if that was not enough. Once one got to the bottom of the fire escape a 12 foot drop to a concrete parking lot awaited you. (the retractable stairs that are normally a fixture of functioning fire escapes had been removed). Imagine a pregnant woman trying to negotiate this situation.
Wylie Holdings is a large company with a lot of property. I'm sure some of them are pretty nice. This one at 4521 Butler Street was not. I give them a rating of 1 star ""Eh"" because that is the response I received from our building manager while trying to recover our stolen possessions.
Pros: Convient walkable neighborhood location
Cons: fit/finish and quality of dwelling
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