Apartment Review for Cleveland Terrace Apartments - Saint Paul, MN

My fiance has lived here just under a year, and before that, her sister lived in the same unit. Since she moved in, there have been marks in the walls, a missing screen, a broken screen, what appears to be dirt or mold damage on the ceiling tiles in the bedroom, a bump in the carpet which will not go away (and seems to have wires under it), a broken electrical socket, a fuse box that will not close, and electrical outlets that only work about 1/2 the time, if that. We have been promised at least 3 times that these issues will be looked at. Not once has this happened, and after a couple weeks, the paint in the window in the shower began peeling, and there is a definite mold problem in the bathroom. Management has promised for weeks that these issues would be addressed, but not once has this come to fruition. Often times, when my fiance has visited the office during office hours to try and purchase laundry tokens (the laundry machines do not use coins), she has had to try three or four times to try and get them because the manager is nowhere to be found. At times, she has simply given up and had to do laundry at her parent's house-- no small feat without a car at her disposal. During the winter, the steps began to crumble (six months later, this has NOT been fixed), and it was often several hours before sand or salt was put down or the sidewalk was shoveled. More than once, I slipped and fell on the stairs because they were not salted or sanded several hours after snowfall. Answering a simple question about if a spare key could be made took over a month to answer. The answer was that she can have a spare key to the apartment but not to the building itself. This has not been a problem, though, as about half the time, the security door to the building does not latch/close all the way anyway. My fiance says she was told she needed to provide her own smoke detector inside the apartment. When she asked for assistance or if she could borrow a stepladder from the community to change the battery (which has not been checked by management ONCE in the time that she has lived here), she was very rudely told no, she would need to find a way to change lightbulbs or batteries on her own. She is very small in stature, and even with a stepladder, she is too small to safely change the lightbulbs or batteries on her own. At least one dryer or washer is broken at almost all times, leaving the building with one washer or dryer for all its residents. During winter--and in Minnesota, they can get vicious--the entire building was without heat for over three days. There are elderly people in the building as well, and this could have been deadly to them. As of right now, the lights in the hallway and at the entry way have been out for over 2 nights, and NOW we have no running water. At all. This is at least the 3rd time I know of where this has happened. When she moved in, there was actually lead in the sink, coming out of the pipes. It was the manager at the time who informed us it was lead, not just our assumption--we figured it was just dirt from a plumbing problem. The wall of the shower is separating from the wall of the building, causing sand to spill into the shower itself. Why sand? Because the building is made of brick, which is crumbling. There have been tiny bugs in the shower as a result of this as well. As for safety, most of the residents are wonderful. But there is frequently noise late at night (despite a nasty letter from management that says this will be dealt with-- it hasn't been), and my fiance's wallet was stolen and her remaining belongings which weren't stolen from the wallet were scattered around the garbage room, which can only be accessed by residents (it requires the same key that is used to get into the building itself). There is a lot of pot in the building-- in fact, we frequently smell it outside the manager's apartment-- and my partner has developed an allergy. The bathroom has never had any hot water, period, and has no cold water either about 10% of the time. Supposedly, there are storage units for each apartment, but we've asked about 5 times about having one for this apartment, and keep getting blown off. We have gotten memos saying don't call the maintenance emergency line because they live 60 miles away... there are like 5 scenarios where they say it IS OK to call. I've witnessed some of these, however, and despite being a maintenance emergency, it is often left unchecked for hours, if not days. They just switched laundry tokens; twice, the tokens have broken in the machines. Update: After about 4 hours, we have water again, but no hot water. The building is cute enough. The neighborhood is OK; walking distance to a lot of things. You can get a LOT more for your money, though. Do NOT rent here if you value your health or sanity until it is under a new management company. The building itself is actually OK, and although I think the Property Manager has no business being in his job, he has redeeming qualities as a person. (After all, he's never woken me up at 2 AM to complain about the music being too loud at 9 PM when we were the only ones living in the duplex.) Please, do NOT rent here until it's no longer under Roseville/Clover Management. It's not worth it.