I moved into this studio in early 2004, not really knowing Seattle's neighborhoods at all. Aside from the 8-decibel traffic noise from Broad St., it was fine the first 8 months or so.

One of the things I realized waaay too late was, there is NO sound insulation between units. If someone is talking in a normal voice in the next apt, you can hear everything.

In 2005, I had a few screaming matches with one neighbor who wanted to blast his precious shower radio and video games at all hours but things were OK for the first two years.

In late 2006 a guy moved in who was mentally ill and had a criminal record in New York. But good ol' Capitol Hill Housing Improvement Program (CHHIP) gleefully rented to him. Why'! Because the CHHIP admins didn't have to live next door to him!

This sleezebag set up a meth lab in his unit. End result: we were all 'evacuated' one afternoon in Dec. 2006 while the Seattle Fire set up a HazMat site around the building. It took the terribly slow turning wheels of CHHIP nearly 6 weeks to finally get this ----wit evicted. And CHHIP continued to deny that it was a meth lab -- even after the cops did!

Of course, his tweaker buddies stayed and continue to prowl the halls of this low-income building (which houses children and retirees) to this day. They wander in to vomit on the hallway carpet (which CHHIP has probably paid several thousand to have cleaned, not that you can tell), leave used syringes sitting in the laundry and leave empty beer bottles and crack pipes sitting on the landings of the stairwells.

When the various druggies (this is Section 8 and 'transitional housing') have fights over their drugs they set off the 'big' fire alarm for the whole building which could flood the place as there are industrial sprinklers installed in every unit.

Still, when I look across the street I see apartments that start at twice what I'm paying here and go up from there.

Since getting a new resident manager in 2008, who is a nice person, almost nothing's been cleaned. The back stairway looks like it hasn't been mopped since 2005 and it's sticky with spilled garbage. The hallway carpets are positively sooty from all the foot traffic, spilled beer, etc.

CHHIP continues to rent to retirees on fixed incomes and the occasional 'normal' tenant like myself and then blithely rents to ex-felons, people on probation from King County Jail and Rehab Program rejects.

I'm pretty sure these properties will not improve until one of the degenerates that CHHIP rents to (or the degenerate's friend) kills one of the legitimate tenants and someone sues CHHIP's non-profit ass into oblivion.

Then these will all go private and the rent will triple.

User Responses
From: unhappy2905	Date: 05/08/2009
Yoohoo, Chris have you checked the back hallway lately? Better run check that door quick!!! Ya know there's drugs you can take to help OCD? But hey whatever helps you save more money for --- porn, right? ROFLMAO.
From: Anonymous	Date: 05/08/2009
Really! you have stayed 4 years! Yes that guy was crazy but even crazy people like yourself have rights, and I talked to the cops when he set off the fire alarm,it was not a meth lab otherwise they would have shut down the building. Move out,your such a drama queen and what you posted except for that NY guy (and by the way, he had no record) is all conjecture. I like the building.

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