Where do I even begin' When I first moved to the Chancellor 2 years ago, the management was passable. They were typically fairly rude, but since the management has gone solely into the hands of Elaine Rush, it has made the former management setup seem perfect. She stands right outside of the property office doors regularly to smoke in a VERY professional manner (can you sense the saracasm'). She also leaves harassing messages on my answering machine and threatened to evict me when my rent was a few days late because I had emergency surgery. She then also charged me a late fee for that payment (and she was well aware of the emergency situation) and threatened to get lawyers involved if I didn't pay it. They also made changes in my lease without giving notice and then fined me when I didn't comply with the changes that they made, as well as sending me another harassing letter AND phone call. Apparently, she doesn't understand that you can't change a tenant s lease on a whim, without even giving notice of the change. The door people and maintenance staff aren t any better, as they stand on the stoop talking and smoking all day, blocking the exit/entrance to the building.

As far as the property itself goes - it took them THREE MONTHS to fix a broken elevator. ONE working elevator for 24 floors is completely unacceptable. And this was after months of one or the other elevators being down repeatedly. I live on the 10th floor - I'm not paying for a 10 story WALK-UP apartment. But in the meantime, the maintenance staff would use the ONE elevator that was servicing 24 floor to go up one flight from the basement. They weren t carrying anything and aren t disabled at all that would prevent them from walking up one flight of steps.

That brings me to the horrendous rent. My rent was raised $45 a year, and I am NOT renewing my lease as (in addition to every other reason this is a hell-hole) I'm sure there will be a comparable raise AGAIN. I spoke with one of my friends in the building and her increase in rent was less, even though she has the same style apartment as mine. The electricity charge is another issue, as we re charged miscellaneous fees, my electricity charge is ALWAYS more than is reasonable, and it seems to be that they in some way split the usage of the whole building between the residents (instead of charging what each unit actually uses). I was away for a few months in the summer. I did not leave anything on in that time and still had a large electric bill.

It has happened TWICE where my tub leaked into the apartment below me the only two times I filled the tub instead of taking a shower. The management was aware, but their answer was to essentially not use the tub. The thought of actually FIXING the problem never entered their mind. I submitted what was broken in my apartment when I moved in and I have had broken blinds for the past 2 years. One day, they fell from the framing, breaking a ceramic piece I had on the window sill. They are now on my floor and have never been fixed.

My favorite incident was when, at 4 in the morning, the pressure from my heater broke off from the pressure from the steam in the heater and my whole apartment filled with steam so much so that I couldn t see. I was forced to wait, in my pajamas, in the hallway at 4am with the steam ruining most of my books (lucky it didn t ruin my TV or stereo) until they could figure out how to turn the heat off in the whole building (in the middle of winter) and until they could get a maintenance person out.
The fire alarm has also gone off countless times in the middle of the night, leaving the tenants to wait outside for sometimes hours in the street. One of the times even once the fire department came and left the door person still couldn t figure out how to shut the alarm off and get the elevators working again. It took at least 3-4 hours to resolve the problem and the alarm had gone off around 3. I had to trek the 10 flights back up to my apartment and try to sleep with ear plugs in as the fire alarm was still blaring but I had to wake up for class early in the morning. So much for sleep.

The noise is not always from the fire alarms. The noise from the neighborhood is incredible. I once woke at 3am to the police using a bullhorn in the street giving the drunken/high people in the street a 10 second warning to clear the streets. I kid you not, he counted to 10 with his bullhorn. I thought I was dreaming and I wish that I had been. It s always better to encounter this from INSIDE your apartment and just hear it, than when you see it for yourself outside on your way in. Many seedy people hang around the multiple bars/clubs in the close vicinity (one next door to the building) and you have to walk through crowds of them to get to the door of the building.

As far as security half the time the guard isn t at the desk and/or leaves the door that is supposed to be locked at all times open. They also tend to leave the back door open where the trash is that goes to an alley. There is no security or lock between the trash room and the rest of the building, therefore leaving the back door as a great means for any sort of derelict from the neighborhood to gain entrance to the building.

It was also lovely to see a notice on the elevator the other day that every apartment ending in the number 3 (ie. 203, 303, 403, 503, etc.) had their gas shut off for a problem and to stay tuned for when they would have it back. Lovely.

The laundry room was also closed at one point for problems .. for AT LEAST 3 days. Good thing I do my laundry elsewhere.

I also have had MULTIPLE mouse problems. Everyone that knows me likes to joke about it and ask How s your pet mouse doing' Sadly, I don t find it to be a joke because I somehow always feel dirty knowing that filthy disease infested mice are rummaging through my belongings and if I dared to sit on the floor would come and watch TV next to me. One encounter was even during dinner. Nice. Maybe they think that I m lonely living a studio, but families of mice are really not my idea of company.

So, for review, let s see what we have, shall we'
At any given time you can have the following:
- A 10 story walk-up (or 24 if you re the lucky sucker on the 24th floor)
- A wake up call at 3AM via the police and their bullhorns, the drunks in the streets, or worse, the fire alarm or steam forcing you to evacuate
- The inability to bathe
- The inability to do laundry
- Uninvited filthy, disease infested dinner guests (and I m not talking about everyone s notorious drunk uncle)
- The inability to use your stove
- Harassing letters and phone calls from your classless landlord (who, btw, pretends to be your best friend if you pass her in the lobby)
- A huge electric bill even when you don t use any electricity that month
- Random changes to your lease without notice, never mind consent.
- Your neighbors tub leaking into your bathroom from upstairs.
- Ineffective security
- The entire staff of the building hanging out and smoking on the front step, blocking the door so that it s difficult for you to enter or exit your residence

I pay $865/mo. PLUS their hideously made up electricity charges for a studio what a bargain for such entertainment!

If any of you that are reading this live in the building and would like to go to the news about this, please let me know. I m happily collecting other statements to do just that.

User Responses
From: Anonymous	Date: 06/11/2007
I have lived in this building for several years and have to laugh at these comments. It is true that the elevator was down due to a part being ordered. However the management and staff have been nothing but helpul and have always taken care of any issues I have had with my unit/
From: Anonymous	Date: 11/12/2007
Dear Anonymous: I don't know who you are or which floor you're living on at Chancellor, but I have to laugh at YOUR comments. I lived at Chancellor for 8.5 years and I can say in all honesty that pretty much EVERYTHING this reviewer has said is true -- right down to the noise in the street and the lack of security. I think the recent attack on one of the female students (in which the attacker wandered into the building and tried to strangle her with a phone cord) is proof of the lack of security. I can tell you that incident was not the first time an outsider looking for trouble was reported at Chancellor. (The office staff distributed flyers to the tenants on several occasions. The answer? It's the tenants own fault for not keeping the lobby doors closed). Chancellor and I go WAY back -- 1990 to 1998. The comments here brought back a lot of memories. One of the worst memories is waking up to hear the security guards talking about a student who had jumped out of his 10th floor window and ended up on top of Woodys roof in an apparent suicide. He was successful. My favorite memory is hearing the fire alarm go off the day after the "Storm of the Century" in '96. The doors to the Fire Towers were completely iced over. The security guard had to kick the doors to get them to open so that people could exit down the fire tower steps. Up until that point, we (the residents) had endured countless false alarms, so some people stopped taking them seriously. I left through the fire tower, as always. Once I got to the the 15th floor, I knew the fire was real because the smell of smoke was intense and almost overwhelming. Other residents coming down the stairs smelled it too, but we continued out to the street, hoping that the smoke inhalation wouldn't kill us. Yes, this was a real fire for once. An apt on 15 had been completely gutted. We could see the fireman up above us breaking windows to prevent the glass from exploding. Everyone huddled out in the cold, with nowhere to go and no way to get there because every street in Center City was buried in ice and snow due to the storm. The best part was that I had left my apartment so quickly, I had forgotten my coat. Thankfully, a kind soul loaned me his. I now live in NJ and pay $707.00 for a view of Cooper river. So now, 10 years later, Chancellor hasn't changed one bit. "Chances" are, it never will.
From: Anonymous	Date: 01/20/2008
Actually, a minor correction: Chancellor hasn't changed since 1987. Well, let me backtrack. The attitude of management hasn't changed since 1987. I lived - not in the Chancellor - but in the Lenox Apts (the building is down the street and owned by the same people) from 1987 to 1989. When I lived there, it was owner run, operated and managed (2 brothers lived on the 24th floor of the Chancellor, and mom lived on the top floor of the Lenox) and while the apartments themselves were nice to look at, I never knew of people so rude or eccentric in my life. We used to find particularly amusing (or pathetic, depending on how you looked at it) how the youngest brother who ran the building would go into RAGES on the tenants when he got upset. He was known for yelling so loud he would turn red, and foaming at the mouth all the while. And mom would fly into a rage when she saw furniture left in the lobby. Since then, I know that the mom has passed on, and the brothers have passed management on to a management company, but it appears they hired individuals with the same abusive mentality they had. And those problems only pertain to the management style. That doesn't address the fact that heat wouldn't go on until the last possible moment, regardless of what the weather was, you'd have to wait two weeks to get air conditioning units installed in the summer. The previous writer is correct - chances are, it will never change. Unless the owners sell it all.

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