I lived at 490 South Highland Avenue for less than a year as a graduate student.

I will break it down into pros and cons and try to be as thorough as possible:

PROS:
-The residential management was simply fantastic. I was pickpocketed my first day in Pittsburgh (I was exhausted from moving in and didn't notice the jogger ram into me) and lost my wallet, ID, everything. Kamin let me delay giving them my first month's rent and deposit until I had all new stuff made with new account numbers and information. This took over two weeks and Kamin never once called to harass me.
-When I terminated my lease early Kamin did not require me to pay the full termination fee because I found someone else to take my apartment.
-The day I moved in I found some issues that needed addressed: one cabinet had a collapsed shelf, the knobs on the stove had worn off lettering, the faucet in the shower ran incessantly, etc. I went to class three days later, came back and everything was repaired but the shower faucet (I guess since they paid all utilities they didn't care that much')
-My refrigerator was an old one and began to leak badly. Every time I'd open it water would come streaming from underneath. I told Kamin and in less than a week I had a new refrigerator. Moral of the story, they are very responsive.
-I never, ever, ever saw rodents or roaches in my apartment. Chalk that up to the solid old construction.
-Ample, if disorganized, storage space in the basement.
-Couldn't hear a thing in any of the other apartments except sounds above and beyond what you would expect concrete to block. My neighbor played the piano right up against the wall constantly, and if he had been a bad pianist I might have objected.
-Bus stop for the 500 right outside the front door, for the 71C a block away. It made getting around town very convenient (when the buses ran on time).
-Very safe, convenient neighborhood.

CONS:
-No residential management on site.
-The apartment complex itself was old, which is not necessarily a bad thing. In this case it meant that when the elevator broke down around Thanksgiving 2007 it took until March/April 2008 to get the part specially made needed to replace it. During that time we had to use the freight elevator which used an old-style sliding gate system (which residents would consistently fail to close when they would leave, stranding the infirm and out of shape on the ground floor until someone went up and closed the gate, returning the elevator to operation).
-The laundry room had three washers and three dryers for 60 tenants. These machines cost way too much...these machines often took your money...these machines often failed. I calculated that by the end of my tenure the machines had stolen $20 in quarters from me. (What had happened is the owners of the machines, a company separate from the management, hardly ever came by to empty the quarter trays, so when they filled up the machines would still take money but it would cause the machines to reset and display an error message). When I contacted management about this, they gave me the laundry machine's number to call. The company was not interested in returning such a small sum.
-The laundry could not be accessed by the stairwells unless you wanted to A) jump the railing or B) go outside [fun in the winter] and use another locked door to come in another way. When the main elevator was out for 4 months and the freight elevator was stuck on a floor because someone forgot to close the gate, this was the only way to access the basement.
-The place is no frills, so although everything major is fixed quickly, minor stuff and eyesores are left out in the light. The paint is coming off the walls in the stairwells, and the basement looks the insane asylum of a horror movie, but that's minor for the overall quality of the place.
-I really, really, REALLY wish they didn't have lawn maintenance outside my window at 9 in the morning on weekends. As a grad student, noon is considered sleeping in.
-If you have an apartment with a street-side window, expect the windows to shake with rap "music" at all hours of the night with traffic going to and from East Liberty.

I did not own a car, so I cannot comment on the parking situation. I would often see people park a block away to find a spot to make it to the building if they came back late.

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