Avery Philly — Attraction in Philadelphia

I have a lot to say here, so brace yourself. I'm a senior at Temple, so I remember how The Edge used to be when I was a freshman...ugly, dingy, smelled funny, etc. I've been in this building the summer of 2014 and now I'm leaving. Why? They want $850 for a studio when I could pay $850 for a nicer and bigger place downtown. The walls are paper thin, so you'll be able to hear everything. Get used to it. My neighbor abuses his girlfriend all of the time, so I always have to hear him beat her up or hear my other neighbors blast music. Honestly I don't mind that since they hear me have sex all of the time, but if you like peace and quiet then think again. The building is super convenient and is near different bars(four in total and they're all about 40 seconds away) and tons of food places. IThe train/sub is outside of it essentially. I'd say that it's pretty safe in this building and it's in a safe, busy location as well. You need a proxy card and apparently you need your actual ID to get in, but this might be just for me since the light skinned Allied Barton girl with burgundy hair and glasses didn't ask anyone else for ID. Maybe she did, but she definitely didn't ask the people who came behind me for their ID. DO NOT LOSE YOUR PROXY CARD! THEY WILL NOT REPLACE IT AND WILL MAKE YOU PAY FOR IT EVERY SINGLE TIME! No cash either...only money orders or checks will be accepted. Whatever. You can be locked out up to two times I think, depending on the guard. Miss Liz (stylish with a bob and bangs)has let me slide a couple of times and said that it was my first lockout, but I'm not sure about the ones ones, like the one who looks like a midget version of Charlamagne Tha God or really any of the older guards...or the light skinned ones.v The management is ridiculous. It was much better when Rey Suvil ran this place. The new, short, stumpy and partially balding guy is a patronizing fraud. The nice workers are gone, and the new employees are incompetent. The light skinned girl is by far the worst since she has an uppity attitude and speaks with a condescending tone to her coworkers, and some of the people who live here as well. Custodians don't both people or hit on you, which is nice. One of them looks like a better looking/handsome version of Tim Tebow or a relative of Tebow's so if you're into that, chat it up with him. The roaches are annoying as hell. They're small, but it seemed like there is always a critter infestation somewhere in the building. My friend across the hall had roaches and he is a neat freak. It's the building or dirty neighbors for sure. Not sure why, but the washers and dryers here have destroyed some of my clothes. They claim that you can't smoke in here, but I can smell people smoking weed all of the time. Again, I don't mind it but if you're an anti-weed or anti-smoking person then don't come here. Anyone can live here now, unlike previous years when it was student housing only, so be prepared to have to live near a family and hear a crying baby. This wasn't the case on my actual floor, but I've heard small children crying on the 12th floor when another friend lived here. Trash days, especially during the summer, are awful since it's a combination of all the stuff that everyone has thrown away and apparently some people have thrown away dead animals. It gets a little too fragrant during the summer, but it's fine any other time. Forgot to add this: the computer rooms don't even have functioning printers. The printers are for decoration I guess. They never have ink or paper. The gym is fine if you're like me and just use the same basic machines. Some of the stuff is broken or simply not plugged in at all. The TVs are small, but that's only annoying if you didn't bring your own. If you're super poor, you can grab stuff from the place that is outside of the elevators since all of the leftover items are now for the public apparently instead of donating them somewhere reasonable. The elevators don't always work, even though there are...

If when looking at their website you that “this is too good to be true”, you were correct. As a transfer student at Temple I wasn’t given any housing options through the school besides the Edge. That is utterly despicable. I say this not to complain that the building itself is much worse than is shown in pictures, but also because I genuinely fear for my overall health while living in this building. I’m not sure what my biggest gripe is, it could be the heavily stained couch we were given, the hand sinks which build up mildew in just moments, the water which no matter how much filtering and boiling you do just doesn’t taste right, the leaky sink pipes, the refrigerators which are constantly freezing and thawing all the foods I do not want which makes me wonder if my next meal might kill me, the cockroaches, the lack of any sort of central ventilation system in the building which leads to everything in your rooms developing a nice layer of grease and dirt from the air around, the pre chewed gum on my wall which they neglected to remove after having a vacancy all summer, the filthy personal air conditioning unit in my room which makes me debate whether I want to turn the heat on when it’s 3 degrees outside because I don’t know what kind of toxins I’m breathing in, or maybe, just maybe, it’s THE MOLDY CRAB CLAW I FOUND IN MY AIR CONDITIONING UNIT.

You can’t make these things up. The Edge experience is like living in a roach motel everyday of your life. To go along with their lack of concern for your general well being, they also blatantly lie to you. They say each room comes with a refrigerator, it’s a mini fridge. They say you have a kitchenette, one stove top burner is broken, the othe is tilted and will take you over an hour to build water on the hottest setting. Back to the kitchenette, there is no counter space, and you feel concerned preparing food because your wondering if there are any bugs close by.

The staff is awful and couldn’t care less about your needs. Don’t ever expect to receive a follow up on your maintenance requests.

They tend to do just everything wrong. For example, what self respecting building manager sends their employees to go walking into residents rooms unannounced to check the fire alarms which are being tested at 9 AM for some reason.

Rapid fire points : the gym sucks, building smells of marijuana, vomit, and garbage, they tend to forget to let you know you’ve received a package and send it back to where it came from, people get stuck in the awful, disgusting elevators constantly so expect the fire department to be around a lot.

The lobby may look nice and renovated, the sample room may look clean, the online description may be great, but prepare for what lies underneath the facade. Prepare to pay a lot for the worst experience...

Do not live here unless you want to test your sanity. Seriously. Since moving into this building August 1, I have been met with nothing but bad experiences. As I’m sure everyone is aware, there are ROACHES throughout the entire building. I have seen one at least once a day in my apartment since moving in, some days more. I even see them in the hallways. I filed a maintenance request and they did some kind of treatment but I am still seeing them constantly.

They claim in all of their responses to these reviews about roaches that “pest control is on site weekly”, but they’re not actually following up with anybody, at least they haven’t with me. They did ONE treatment and nothing else. Anybody who knows anything about treating roaches knows that it has to be ongoing. I have resorted to purchasing my own treatments but even then, I still see them.

I think the worst of it all is that some of my friends who live here found ROACH EGGS all over their apartment. Seeing roaches is one thing, but seeing eggs is just vile.

Living here has been a truly uncomfortable experience and it has affected my mental health as well. Every time I walk into my apartment I have to scan the area to check for roaches since I have seen multiple crawl through cracks in my doorframe. Every time I walk into my bathroom I also have to scan for the same reason. I have to wear shoes or slippers constantly in case I see one. I started taking pictures every time I saw one (attached). Keep in mind, all of these pictures are only within the last 10 DAYS (and it's not even all the pics I have). It is truly unbearable. I know a solution from the office has been moving people into different units, but seeing as this is clearly a building-wide issue, that would actually do nothing.

Even if there weren’t roaches, living here would still not be an enjoyable experience. The staff is rude and half the time they don't actually do anything to help. It seems as though they do everything they can to get you to sign, and then once you do, they don’t care about you. This is speaking from my own experience, but also from other people I know that live here too. The rooms are tiny, and for what they are charging us per month, there should at LEAST be a full kitchen in the rooms.

So overall, no, I would not recommend living here, in fact I strongly encourage against it. The only thing that could MAYBE make this terrible experience better would be getting out of my lease in May instead of July 31 so I don’t have to pay to live here any longer than what is absolutely necessary.

The only good thing about this place is Terrance the concierge....