We moved into a 1 BR apartment in the summer of 2008 in Crafts House (a courtyard level apartment).

Overall, this was a decent apartment. New appliances, large bath tub, high ceilings. We had a bi-level apartment, with our bedroom on the bottom floor. The bi-level format helped dampen sound, so we never really had problems sleeping.

There were some cons, though:

1) Maintenance entered the apartment multiple times without any warning. Nothing was ever taken and nothing was damaged. And they were fairly responsive to our calls. But it's slightly unnerving, and pretty irritating, to have them come in without being requested.
2) MICE. Holy crap. I know it's a city apartment, but I've never seen such an infestation. We had read before renting that mice were a concern but we figured it was isolated...it's not. Our first apartment we saw had mouse traps laid down, so we decided not to take that one. There were days when we threw away 2-3 mice in our traps and maintenance routinely dropped off glue traps for tenants. It's a real problem. I can't undersell that. Management knows it and they have exterminators out all of the time. It's gross watching TV and having a mouse, or 3, run by your feet. Once a mouse ran by my head on the back of our couch! And it's not as if we lived in filth.
3) We couldn't get our Queen sized box spring down the awkward steps into the bedroom in the basement. We asked management BEFORE moving in if people had problems getting them downstairs. We were told no. We saw no less than 3 boxsprings by the garbage over the year (and spoke to people who agreed) because they could not get them down the steps. This was a major problem for us. It would be less of a problem if you knew it coming into the move.

Really, I'd probably not recommend this place if not for its awesome Old City location. You're 2 doors from Sweat Gym (and about a half a block from Iron City). You're a block off of Market, 2 blocks from the 2nd street subway stop. Maintenance was prompt for the most part. Washer and dryer in unit is a huge plus. Courtyard was a nice perk as it insulated noise.

Recommended...but know you're probably going to have mice. If that bugs you, don't do it. It seems that most people don't stay here longer than a year, so that probably says something.

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