Stay Away from 565 Sherbourne Street My Advice

After more than five years renting at 565 Sherbourne Street, Toronto, M4X 1W7, with my girlfriend, we have decided to move out this year. I have also decided to write information here and expose the real truth, in my objective, as much as possible, view about the renting practices and quality of services, or, in other words travesty and lack of services by Medallion Properties for this building. It has been a terrible last two years here. At the beginning, it was not so bad, standard things that you can expect in a rental building. But, with the management change and with entrance of a new property manager, and with new construction and renovations in the building and in the surrounding area, on the horizon, things changed radically for worse. I truly hope you will find this letter informative and that it will help you to make objective and right decision for you when you consider renting at 565 Sherbourne, and I really hope you will avoid renting an apartment in that building and stay away from 565 Sherbourne. Professionally, I work in education, and my girlfriend is in healthcare industry. Since we frequently work in shifts and sometimes weekends, I can not recall a single day that we could do any work at our apartment or have a sleep in after a long night of work. Sometimes my gf needs a good sleep after a third shift, and often I need to review and mark work of my students during the day or later, during the night. In many cases it was not possible at all, because of the excessive noises coming from continuous repairs in the apartments, dictated by property management, or noise made by other tenants. And, with all due respect, the smell in hallways is hardly bearable, and it enters apartments too. Here is the summary of many issues that exist and continue to exist at 565 Sherbourne: Unpleasant smell in the hallways because of cooking. Almost every floor. No action taken by management. Drilling, hammering, banging, rubbing throughout the day in many parts of the building. Since the specific armature of the floors, the noise can be heard several floors up an down from the apartment where repair is done. Hardly you can do any work or sleep longer in the morning on any given day. Late night door slamming. New design of the ALL doors have a strong hydraulics that slams the door close. All door frames are replaced with steel ones, so you have metal on metal hitting with huge force. You can hear this, again couple of floor up and down. Please check this when you visit apartment to check for rent. Parties by students, from neighbouring Ryerson University and George Brown Campus down the street. Druggies and junkies swearing, fights can be heard through the balcony and they can be seen often quarrelling in front of the building. Saturday morning work and cleaning. Forget about sleeping in after a work week. There is a complete disregard for your leisure time and reasonable enjoyment of your apartment you paid for, by landlord, because landlords hiring of contractors to do work any time they are pleased and any time that serves their best interest and not yours as a tenant. No lights or ventilation in garbage chutes Lack of ventilation in elevators during summer

Just check other horrible experiences with renting at 565 Sherbourne at, from other tenants at http://bedbugregistry.com/location/ON/M4X/Toronto/565-Sherbourne-St/ Tenants are frequently contacting the following numbers for unresolved issues with landlords: Investigation and Enforcement of Ontario Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing 416-585-7214 Compliance Officer at Landlord and Tenants Board 416-645-8080

Unbearable Smell in Hallways That Goes in Your Apartment Too, in the building at 565 Sherbourne Street
Its a terrible to, sometimes, but more often than not, smell a strong odour of various cuisines. With all due respect, and respect to tastes, tenants should keep their door close while cooking. Several complains were made to the management but with no substantial solution.

Excessive Noise in the building at 565 Sherbourne Street

Since University of Toronto, Ryerson University, and Gorge Brown College are close by, student parties are common throughout the year. Music, screaming, jumping on the floor, broken glasses and bottles on the balconies, noise in the hallway can be heard frequently throughout the year, mostly late night or early morning. Also, since there are quite a number of families with more than four members, screaming babies are common sight. During the summer, since there are no air-conditions in the rooms at 565 Sherbourne, screaming babies are brought on the balconies hence disturbing all other tenants. Any complain to the Security or landlord will be left most of the time unresolved, issued prolonged, and you may be met with arrogance by both, Security stuff and management, for your complains. There are instances where the issues have been resolved, but most of the time there will be problems that they are not willing to tackle and will try to intimidate you to stop complaining. Barking dogs, left on terrace while owners have night out, also appear to be an issue.

Deception of the lobby at 565 Sherbourne Street

Except for the seemingly nice lobby and a small gym that can be seen from the lobby, and both were additions to the building once the future construction were certain, in the last two years, everything else will make your life more than miserable inside the building. Lobby is deliberately created to lure you in and to make the first

impression that building must be nice. But, dont be mislead, or deceived, it is a well constructed deception. Go pass lobby and you will see the real truth. Dont forget, you can see only limited, very limited things and get very limited information during your 15 min to 20 min visit, during the day. This letter will describe what is going worng during day and night if you decide to rent here.

Burglary and car breaking at 565 Sherbourne Street

Since the building is surrounded from its east and south side by St. James Town social assistance buildings, the criminal activity spills over too. Car breakage and apartment burglaries are present. Please ask in writing from your Medallion Properties representative the hard copies of the number of burglaries that happened in the last three years. There is a place for security guard in the lobby, but, despite the claim by Medallion Properties that the guard is there 24 hours, it is not. The security guard walks around, it can be accessed quickly by phone, however, they are not in the lobby non stop. I would like to urge you to create a checklist to confirm all these issues with the rental representative if you even begin to think to consider renting at 565 Sherbourne. Ask to obtain, in writing, and signed photocopies, of their answers about everything you feel, will be important and will have significant impact of reducing or eliminating your reasonable enjoyment of renting at 565 Sherbourne Street. Please see below Toronto murders statistics for the area where the buildings 565, 555, 545 Sherbourne are.

Hot Water and Plumbing Issues at 565 Sherbourne Street

Numerous times during the year there are interruptions in the hot water supply. At least two times every three months. You will usually receive a notice about it few days in advance for the absence of hot water throughout the day. Unfortunately, in addition to these occurrences, hot water supply have been interrupted several times during the year without any warning. When you call Security, you will receive arrogant and irritated response, since you may be the 50th person calling for the info about hot water, and the Security personnel is pissed off by the calls. Security at 565 Sherbourne Street is completely insensitive for your distress calls. They simply dont care. Expect several times during the year for your apartment to be entered by maintenance personnel for plumbing or other work.

Lack of Elevator Service and Elevators Malfunctioning at 565 Sherbourne Street

There are five elevators in the lobby. During the weekends, very frequently, one or two elevators do not work. If you are given a tour of the building, please look for the elevators lights above the elevators doors. If you see SV it means that the elevator is broken and is awaiting service. During long weekends forget about all elevators working and forget about the service coming. As a rule, at least two of them have been broken during almost every long weekend so far. You can ask

any tenant in the building about it. Cleaning the elevators takes place in the morning, between 8:00 AM and 9:00AM, when the most people are going to work. It means that you will have one elevator always unavailable for usage by tenants. It means you will have to wait, in average, 20% longer for the elevator in the morning.

Bugs at 565 Sherbourne Street

Except few bugs I have seen randomly in the hallways I did not have any issues with bugs, however I have heard the complains that some bugs have been seen in elevators and in basement, and we have inspectors for bed bugs visiting our apartment, but no bugs were found.

Noise and disturbance from renovations of the apartments throughout the year at 565 Sherbourne Street
This is a high rise building, with more than 30 floors. There are less and less tenants in the building (that can be checked if you look through the hallway windows beside elevators, empty terraces and empty spaces can be seen) which means renovation is an ongoing activity. Drilling, rubbing, knocking, scrapping, hitting, hammering, wall, floor polishing, are the noises you will hear during the day, almost every day of a week. The concrete floors will transfer sounds and heavy, violent vibrations from one floor to at least five floors up and down, so, virtually, you will be disturbed by the noise all of the time. In addition to that, you can hear inconsiderate contractors pushing loudly their shopping carts through the hallways, slamming the doors, yelling, laughing, having their mobile phone conversation in the hallways, ringing with their tools all along. Contractors frequently dont close the doors of the apartment they are working in, so noise from the repairs is even amplified a and more loud, not to mention the smell of the chemicals they are using for cleaning, that spreads through the hallway and into your apartment as well. All this can happen from 7:00 AM till 5:00PM during the week days (contractors and building maintenance workers want to start early, to leave early) and on Saturday from 10:00AM. So, forget about sleeping in Sat morning, that wont happen. Frequently, contractors and maintenance personnel will prolong, illegally, their work after 5pm, so you will hear drilling even around 7:00PM when you come from work or school, or even at 11pm. If you complain to landlord, you will be met with politics, twisted answers, lack of understanding, lies, and, essentially no help at all. Medallion Properties landlords of this building will not help you in many instances.

Noise and disturbance from new Construction in the Area around 565 Sherbourne Street
As any tenant knows, there will be a new building and housing development by Medallion Properties and other developers, in this and coming few years,

right adjacent to this building, across to the Bleecker street, and on the intersection at Howard St. and Sherbourne, which is 100 yards from 565 Sherbourne Street. Please be firm when you ask the person who is showing you apartments to confirm in writing and give you ALL the information on paper, signed, about the extension, location and duration of these huge construction development around 565 Sherbourne. Please take a minute to stroll to the intersection of Howard & Sherbourne and see the public board with details approval from the City of Toronto about the new construction in that area. What does that mean to you? It means that you will be surrounded, day and most of the night, with roaring construction machinery noises, hammering, concrete drilling, and all the loud noises and dust that follows any building construction. Here are official details about planned HEAVY CONSTRUCTION in and around 565 Sherbourne Street: Construction Sites near 565, 555, 545 Sherbourne Street City of Toronto Application No.: 08 231178 STE 28 OZ Zoning By-law proposes development of the existing commercial podium at 565, 555, and 545 Sherbourne Street with the addition of a 43 storey residential tower and 3-story street level townhouses along Bleecker Street with 410 new rental units. A related Rental Housing Demolition Application, File No.: 08 231183 STE RH) has also been made under section 111 of the City of Toronto, as the proposal would require the demolition of 10 existing units. All these facts can be verified by calling City of Toronto, City Clerks Office at 416-392-7033. Also, just half a block north, at Sherbourne and Howard St., four residential condominiums are about to be built, each one having 46, 50, 53, and 56 storeys. For more info you can call anytime Citys Planner Office at 416 392-7363. or 416 392-7215.

Murders and gunshots in the area of 565 Sherbourne Street

What you can not discover within your 15 min visit and apartment show in the building, is the homicide, murder statistics in the area where this building has central position. Pease check yourself too from the most recent Toronto Star report and the accompanied map. It is not surprising then to see that Shoppers Drug Mark is guarded by HEAVY BARS and iopen only until 9:00PM: Toronto muders:

http://www3.thestar.com/static/googlemaps/homicidemap.html

Intersection traffic lights and roaring trucks in front of 565 Sherbourne Street
Isabella ands Sherbourne traffic lights are spot where heavy, multi-tonne transport trucks make their engines idle and then start them up with heavy roar. Since Sherbourne is the direct connection line from Gardiner to DVP and downtown construction spots, be prepared to be woken up and disturbed by heavy trucks Also Fire Trucks Sirens are heard throughout the day and night from 565 Sherbourne Street, since the Fire Station is just one block away.

My advise is, please make an objective checklist based of this review, and check all you can before even begin to think signing the lease at 565 Sherbourne. And, if you can, stay away from 565 Sherbourne!