I've had two personal experiences with Kelly and can relay one experience from a close friend who rented from them. My two personal experiences renting from them were pretty good. I was in a house on Sherbrook St. in Squirell Hill and an apartment on Munhall Rd. in Squirrel Hill. My friend's experience was on Atwood St. in Oakland. For my Sherbrook experience, the thing that impressed me most was that they were willing to run a gas line for a gas dryer we had and installed grounded outlets near our washer. The house was old and not updated to three pronged grounded outlets everywhere so that is why this was required. I think they even installed new fuse boxes at this time as well? There were clean carpets and painted walls when we moved in which was a huge change over my other experiences renting from landlords who operate private gigs in Oakland. Heat was ridiculous but rent was cheap so it offset. The Munhall Rd. apartment had heat included and was great. My wife and I were one of the first ones in this recently acquired building and Kelly really did a lot to fix it up over the time we were there included adding additional outlets and upgrading the existing outlets, and installing an electric baseboard heater in the bedrooms in case the boiler ever went down. The maintenance man was also great. We dealt primarily with Tom at Kelly and he is extremely nice. The advice I have for people looking for an apartment in Oakland is set your sights low or be prepared to shell out big bucs or don't live in Oakland. I can't really blame Kelly if they have become callous towards their Oakland properties and while I can't refute the poor track record with maintenance in that particular area since two friends have affirmed it, I will say that I'm sure they get there fair share of the raw end of the deal in Oakland. Oakland is great for the college atmosphere but its not really a place to ""live"". If you want a place to live go to almost anywhere else and ride the bus or ride a bike.
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