Harbour View Apartments

I had written an extremely long and angry review, but here’s the gist of it. I was contacted through Unilocal by Capreit Rental Agency which owns this location. They demanded my personal information and threatened me. They then contacted Unilocal and had my review removed for not being a «first hand experience».
Here are a few of my first hand, personal experiences over the time I’ve lived here. I have personally experienced everything listed.
Cleanliness: Dog feces everywhere. Garbage room is always full enough that you cannot open the door, the smell is strong enough to burn your eyes. Bed bug, mice, rat, and cockroach INFESTED no matter how clean you keep your unit. Garbage left on the roadside.
Safety: Ice & snow in walkways. Deep puddles in walk ways. Ground floor units FLOOD in heavy rain. Cameras do not work! Entry doors to buildings lock, but the locks are often broken and anyone can walk in. In my unit, the front door and window locks did not work and were not fixed for 3 months. Still do not have window locks or window screens.
Quality: Loud and rude neighbors, including bark dogs and parties. Had bleach, leftover food, bloody underwear, used tampons/​pads, garbage, etc thrown into my yard. Closet doors that don’t close. Took a month to see an exterminator for the rats in the yard. Took FIVE MONTHS to fix a huge leak in my ceiling every time someone bathed. Took THREE MONTHS to fix my front door which didn’t lock. Been waiting ALMOST ONE YEAR for screens for my windows.
Staff: Ignore you.

Do not move here. For those who don’t think it could be «that bad», it is. After only a month of living here, we have had to deal with the unthinkable. We moved from a different province and on our move in day, came to find out our suite had been flooded and we were unable to move in. They didn’t even call us and let us know beforehand after we had paid for transportation and moving services. Ever since then we have had to deal with bed bugs and water damage issues — both of which they said they have fixed but have absolutely not. They offer «first month free» but don’t actually give it to you. You think you don’t have to pay but then you’ll end up with a note under your door threatening to evict you and charging you with a late fee for not paying. It seems like every time I turn around there is a new issue arising but when I try and go to someone about it, no one listens. You have to chase after management if you want anything done because they will ignore you. I was supposed to be given a $ 100 laundry to cover costs of THEIR bedbug problem but ended up spending money out of MY pocket for the 2 weeks I waited and repeatedly asked for this card. I was beyond patient with Harbour View and never complained, but after reaching out to management and Capreit numerous times and not getting the slightest bit of concern or understanding in return, I am fed up. These people only want your money and do not care about you. Stay away.

There are always lost of dramas happen no matter what kinds of days… for that lower price, I endure for a long time… everything in here are worst! Those people are like wicked and annoying. Wtf that is similar to come from the poorest jail, trust me, do not come no matter how cheap there it is

I’ve been a tenant her for about 2.5 years. I’ve had some good and bad experiences here. To begin, things have finally started to change with the building once Capreit bought it. The lobbies have been updated and painted, the underground parking garage is currently being renovated and the grounds are finally being taken care of.
As far as the units go. I actually like my unit. I am on the top floor and have a corner unit. I have an amazing view of the city and the harbour. I am close to downtown where I work, and it only takes 15 – 20 minutes to walk there. They have installed new heating deflectors in the radiators and installed a new toilet since I’ve been there. The bad — my patio door leaks even though they said the roof was the cause of the problem (they have also replaced the roof in the last year) but every time there is wind along with the rain water still gets in.
My biggest complaints are their lack of consistency with parking and parking enforcement as well as their linked fire alarm system with the other buildings. First, its really annoying to get a letter saying that they have hired people to enforce parking and then months later still see the same problems. Good on you for hiring people to ticket — I think it’s needed. People are too self-​entitled and believe they can park wherever they like. I unfortunately believe the majority of people in Halifax are too stunned to park properly on their own and need to be fined to keep them in line. However, that DOES mean you have to do it. I have seen enforcement of the 2 spots for rental office parking — which is good, but I also see the same cars park in visitor parking day in and day out. You’re not a visitor if I see your damn car in the parking lot everyday for 2 months. You’re too cheap to buy a parking pass, or too lazy to park on the street like everyone else who doesn’t want to pay for a pass.
Secondly. The alarms are crazy annoying. At least 2 of the 3 buildings fire alarms are linked. That means you may have a fire alarm in your building go off, and the person that set it off isn’t even in your building. That gets old fast.
The good: Dog friendly — its practically impossible to find a large dog friendly building. So props on that. That’s the main reason I’m here. Also, the proximity to downtown is great. I’ve never had any issues with bugs (although I know in the past bed bugs have been an issue) — I haven’t even had a fly in my apartment. The turn side to our great dt location is that low income housing is right across the street, so we have every wanna-​be gangster a few blocks from our building. I’ve never personally had a problem, but I know several people personally who have had crap happen to their car (windows busted out, mirrors taken off, etc).
I would recommend this building to those interested in a dog friendly, close to downtown or the naval base apartment. I find the building quiet and friendly. The staff is nice, and I honestly find them helpful. The units are decent and a good size. One person commented about rent going up every year — welcome to real life buddy. It happens everywhere — it’s called inflation. That being said, if there were other dog friendly apartments close to downtown I would consider moving to get away from the surrounding «community» of those sitting on their front lawn smoking in their sweatpants or pajamas, listening to some wacked version of rap on the newest version of Iphone while I go to work everyday to pay for them to have those nice things. Thanks a lot welfare.

I wish I could rate it with 0…
PEOPLE STAY AWAY!
Noise, parties, garbage all over the place, management office don’t take you seriously unless you visit them 3 – 4 times with the same request, bed bugs, tenants don’t care about the facilities at all, mostly foreign students.
I can write 10 pages with complaints.
Zubair is absolutely right.
P.S: People from Capreit don’t bother replying to this comment. I’ve already made all my complaints and you DID NOTHING! And of course I’m already gone!
They only care if you are able to pay your rent. No background check no nothing. Just fill in the empty apartments.

This is by far the worst apartment that I have ever stayed in. They are always trying to take money from the tenants even if the rent and parking is paid. I have paid my parking every month and the guy who setup my parking didn’t give me the sticker that needs to be given. I have got a ticket even I’m paying them every month parking. They don’t even void the parking ticket even after I showed them all the transactions where the money went into their account.
Also, my smoke detector was not working from almost more than a week and I have intimated them about the same. They took the work order and forgot about it. Its been a week and I have seen no one coming into my unit and checking the smoke detector which is very crucial aspect of the safety. If that’s the case stay away from these management.

** Updated on 12 Feb 15***
Just wanted to let everyone know that they jack up the rent by about 4% every year. Also pay no attention to the comment from Capreit. It’s BS.
** updated on 29 Oct 13.
A maintenance person came to inspect the heating and told me that the heating hasn’t worked in this section of the building for years and to keep calling the front desk and maybe they will repair it. So that doesn’t really give me a lot of hope. I will call by law enforcement today and see if they can help me out with this because there is a by law that the temperature has to be maintained at 20 degrees.
***updated on 28 Oct 13.
This place doesn’t even deserve the one star it should be zero. After dealing with the carpet nightmare now it turns out that the heating doesn’t work either and it’s freezing cold in here already even though it’s not even November yet. Please do yourself a favour and stay away from this place. Personally I will never rent with this company again.
*****updated on 1 Sep 13 after one month of moving in****** I have reduced my rating from two stars to one star. I moved in to the unit and the unit reeks of pet odours. There are also several small maintenance issues that I was promised would be taken care of within the first two weeks of moving in that have still not been addressed after a month. When I took up the carpet odour issue with the rental staff they did not seem to care about it until I took it up with management. I highly doubt that the carpets in here were cleaned before I moved in even though the management claims that they were cleaned. Usually when someone moves out they are required to provide proof of carpet cleaning (a receipt) and the rental staff was unable to find any proof on file. I think it’s absolutely appalling that these people are willing to rent out units that reek of pet odour. The unit had been empty for one month before my move in date and it has been one month since I have moved in. It’s been a month since I brought the carpet odour issue up with management and it still has not been addressed properly. Also the building that has construction going on in the parking garage has ridiculously loud jackhammering noise all day long during the week days. I have not had any issues with bedbugs here even though there are a lot of bedbug reports out there on this building.
In conclusion I think the staff managing this building is either inexperienced or overwhelmed or they just don’t care. It’s convenient for me to live here because I work across the street but my advice to fellow Unilocalers is to stay away from this building as I currently feel that it’s badly managed. Even though there are several things that I like about my unit the positives are drowned out by the stinky carpets. I will update my review in case my opinion changes but I doubt that because they should have cleaned the carpets properly before I moved in or at least it should have been done by now.
Unsatisfied tenant.
***** old review (before move in) ******
I am moving in here next week. So far a bit disappointed with the staff that works there because they showed us a really spacious model townhouse with 3 bedrooms that we liked and got on the waiting list for. They gave us a rental amount for the unit that we saw and we liked it. When the time came to sign the lease they decided to change the rent, they said that the unit that we saw had hardwood floors and it was extra money for the townhouse with hardwood floors. They said that we could get the carpeted townhouse instead for the previously quoted rent. We were assured that everything else would be the same as the model unit but it would have carpet instead of hardwood floors. We decided to sign the lease anyways even though we were a bit disappointed. They did not show us the unit at the time because people were living there. Once the previous tenants moved out I went to see the unit and it turns out that it’s nothing like the model unit at all. The main level was much narrower and missing a large area that existed in the model unit. The countertops in the kitchen were not as nice as the model unit either. The rest of the stuff was being worked on so not sure what it will be like when I move in. However, since we don’t have time to look for another place we are moving in anyways. I just wanted to let other people looking into moving in here to not to go by the model units that they show you at this place.
I am also seeing a lot of bedbug reports for the building which I am not too excited about. I am hoping that there won’t be any bedbugs in our townhouse.
**I will re-​review once I move in but I wanted to get this out there for all the people moving in summer time. Just make sure you see the unit that you are moving into and don’t go by the model unit because the staff is not very straight forward. They also seem to misplace my file all the tim