Harvard House

Even though we did not rent the unit, I am a huge fan of the manager,
He came back early from vacation to show us both the place.
(August 2015)
Also — this place allows cats, which is rare on Capitol Hill.
He also seemed intelligent, caring and a good listener, as I asked him a million questions about the building, the unit, and bent his ear about the landscaping.
We decided that the place was too small for the two of us,
the unit itself was OK, though small:
it had Japanese doors and very good hot water,
and the kitchen was OK, though no dishwasher.
The building seemed secure enough.
They are in the midst of updating the cable, Internet, etc,
I would recommend the Harvard House to anyone looking for an apartment by
themselves, and who wants a centrally located place to live.
It is only two blocks from the streetcar (whenever THAT gets running)
and the Sound Transit subway (which opens in a year).
FYI I checked on this apartment at night, and there was no sign of
raucous neighbors, or loud parties.

The Harvard Hole is by far, the worst place that I’ve ever lived and I have now lived in seven apartments in the last five years.
I was lured in by the cheap rent — $ 795/​month for a one bedroom apartment in the middle of Capitol Hill? Sold.
Unfortunately, this unit didn’t turn out as cheap as I expected (add $ 55/​month for w/​s/​g, $ 30/​month for electric, $ 4 per load of laundry…) and technically, their one bedrooms aren’t actual one bedroom apartments — the bedroom doesn’t have windows, a full wall between the living room, or real doors. Also, they say they have parking, but once they lure you in, they tell you there’s a short waitlist and once it’s available, it’s only $ 60/​month — well, when it was finally my turn for a parking spot, I was told it was $ 120/​month — nice bait and switch. Other apartment complexes on the same block have parking for $ 85/​month for non-​tenants, so the year I lived there, I drove in circles for 30min to park for free on the street.
Neighbors at this building were a nightmare. Weeknight parties, yelling in the hallways at 3am on weeknights, band practice on the third floor with amplifiers, cops arresting my neighbor in the middle of the night every other weekend… this was the norm, and definitely not my lifestyle. If you have a 9 – 5 job, you’re in the minority here and you better have some ambien.
Building maintenance was also disappointing because nothing was maintained, ever. On my move-​in day, my apartment had a broken microwave, broken fuse in the kitchen and carpets that weren’t yet clean because the «cleaning guy got confused and cleaned the wrong unit». It took about a month and four emails to get a new microwave. It also took about two months to get my phone number on the buzzer by the door, but to this day, it still lists the tenant before me on the buzzer list out front and it rings to his phone number — fyi, this makes getting packages delivered to your apartment impossible. Also, the hot water heaters for the building need to be replaced, so six minutes of hot water is the best I ever got. My refrigerator was also problematic — the freezer was too cold and burnt anything left in there for two days and the fridge was too warm and wilted vegetables after a day. The building is an oven in the summer, and ridiculously cold in the winter. Black mold is plentiful at Harvard House with the single pane windows. Oh, and the building power seems to go off a lot — not the individual apartments, but the stairway lights, outside lights and the buzzer are always off when I get home from work. The laundry room is downstairs, so carrying a heavy bag of laundry down the pitch black stairs just seems like a lawsuit waiting to happen. The negligence here is incredible.
Typically neighbor and maintenance problems would be fine if there was a capable landlord available, but there isn’t. He may live on site, but good luck getting anything done. Many emails to him would go unanswered and if they were, it would be at 1am with a cheap excuse as to why nothing got done, such as him being out of town or that he’s working on it… for a year.
Another problem with the landlord is his lack of understanding the landlord-​tenant laws. For instance, an amenity listed here is bike storage, so I kept my bike in the designated bike area while I lived here, until one day, I went down and it was gone. I asked the landlord where it was and he emailed me and said, «it’ll be back soon :)». Two months later, it was back and the lock was cut. I asked him for a new lock and he said I ignored his notice and so he cut the lock, however there was no notice, he has no proof of that notice and even if there was, he would still have to wait 45 days to even touch my property. And upon moving out, he believed he could show people my apartment with less than 24 hour notice.
TL;DR: Do not move here. It’s not the cheapest option on the hill, even if it may appear so at first glance. It’s a giant pit with countless issues and nobody deserves the frustration of living here and dealing with the landlord.