This is not a place that you want to rent an apartment. If you’re considering it, or you have an application pending – you should seriously reconsider your options.

The apartments are fine, if a little poorly maintained, and the neighbourhood is alright; very nice mix of people from all over, and you couldn’t be much closer to downtown for the price. We don’t have bedbugs, and we’ve only seen a couple roaches. It’s a nice, convenient location in St. Jamestown.

This is a huge building, of 32 floors, with about 20 apartments per floor, and an average of say 4 or so people per suite (likely a low estimate). That’s about 2500 people here. If everyone in the building needs to enter AND exit the building only once per day, 2500 round-trips on the elevator, with about 10 people at a time. 500 elevator trips; 250 up, and 250 down.

That’s a tough job when there are four working elevators.

Today there was only one working elevator.

When there’s only one, we’re dealing with a real problem here, with dozens of people waiting in the lobby, people cutting line, people with huge strollers and mountain bikes, who are taking up more space in the elevators, reducing that 10 person load down to 5 or 6 people. It’s not pretty.

It’s bad enough that the fire service elevator has been completely broken for months. You know, the elevator that the fire crew can use to lift all that heavy equipment up to the 30th floor should there be a fire? Yeah, that’s the one that’s been broken for months.

Today, there’s a second elevator that’s broken down, allegedly they’re servicing it, but when I got upstairs, there’s no sign of elevator crew. The super mentioned that someone was trapped in that elevator for some time today, and that it was being repaired; this makes two elevators that are completely powered down.

A third elevator has something of a tendency to stick on a floor with its door open. Where was it stuck tonight? Floor 31.

This left one elevator, and a sea of people trying to get home. At five o’clock in the evening.

This last elevator, when I did cram onto it with about 12 other people, appears to have no ventilation whatsoever. No fan, no air movement; nothing. Just a claustrophobic, humid little sauna.

To add to the amusement, super gets off at 31 to take a look at the stuck elevator, and someone gets off on 32. My floor’s button is pushed (PH – 32 floors, but no 13th floor because people are weird), but after the doors close from 32, the panel resets, and the elevator starts heading down. It’s gets to 28 before I can stop it; I have to get off and walk up those 5 floors. Not a problem, but a nice crowning touch to the day.

My real concern is that something bad is going to happen – there’s going to be a fight over elevators that is going to turn ugly, someone is going to need a paramedic who can’t get to them, or the building is going to burn because firefighters can’t do anything to stop it.

They’ve contracted an elevator firm to fully replace the elevator system; cars, electronics, motors, etc, but they’re not even going to START until August or October (I don’t remember – it was a month that started with that long A sound). How long does it take to fully replace an elevator? I don’t imagine it happens quickly, but it needs to start immediately; it’s years over due, and people are going to get hurt.