Armdale Place

Well to review this place I had to give one star...not sure I would even give it that though....

For starters, although I agree with A LOT of the other points in other reviews, I have to strongly disagree with the statement "They're all rude" when it comes to Syrian Refugees. I do agree that there are a number in that building that come off as rude, some of which is most definitely due to a language barrier; however, I think the only good thing I have to say about this place was that both families of refuges I had for neighbors were incredibly sweet and kind. They had on many occasions knocked on my door with homemade baked goods and asked me over for coffee. I do have to agree that there were quite a few children being very loud in the hall way; however, they are not all bad! Just like there are a large number of trashy Canadians living there, but not all of them are bad.

Now on to the actual building itself...I feel it would be easier to make a list of all the things people should know before moving in:
1) Your car/parking lot - If you value our paint job, and are worried about damage... Just don't move in, there is no other way to avoid the amount of dings to doors from other doors. It is ALWAYS windy, and some people will always just let their doors fly. There is also the parking lot, which I'm pretty sure you could rip apart the bottom of your car driving through. I lived there for one year and one month, and my car now has a rattle which I can pretty much guarantee came from the random potholes etc. from that parking lot.
2) Disgusting surroundings- If you are not ok with walking out the door and having to avoid land mines of dog feces, and smell of urine from people who let their dogs relieve themselves in the doorways of the building.... you might not want to move in. You cannot safely walk on any portion of grass around the building, and in the summer time the smell is enough to gag a maggot! And this isn't even including the times I have walked INTO the building and going up a hallway only to find a pile of dog shit, INDOORS, just sitting.
3) The Staff - Although mostly nice to your face when you are paying rent, good luck getting anything actually take care of.
Example A) When I first moved in the towel rack came off the wall (a wall that was clearly patched very poorly a number of times). After many emails and phone calls and a few weeks worth of promises that "somebody would be up tomorrow morning", we ended up going out and getting stuff to do it ourselves, is it a big deal? No not really... but is it irritating? Very!
Example B) We had a musty, old, moldy, disgusting smell coming from our bathroom. After having to go down, get the "superintendent" and bring her up to show her (after complaining previously), we were told "that must be the pipes, go out and buy some Liquid plumber/Drano.... SO we went out and spent $20 or so on products to put down the drains in the sink and tub... and nope, still gross. Eventually we figured out the smell was coming from a hole in the wall behind the toilet where a random pipe was sticking out. We then had to contact again to tell them after investigating everywhere, we found the problem. They had somebody come in and patch up the wall where the smell was coming in. We moved the cabinet we had over the toilet etc. and they came in and plastered the hole and told us they would be back the next day to sand and paint... they left the bathroom a mess and NEVER CAME BACK. luckily it was behind the toilet so could be hidden fairly decent.
Example C) Come September, we were advised that upon the end of our lease, they were going to be increasing rent on our unit. Our unit was an un-renovated unit, with carpet, terrible cupboards and counter etc. (which was fine for the price we were paying, however NOT worth a rent increase). I sat in the office when the increase was presented and I explained that we would not be accepting an increase in rent, I was told I had to sign the paper stating I received it; however, I could then draft a letter with my concerns and send it to them. I went home, drafted the letter explaining that we did not accept the increase, and if they chose to enforce it we would be forced to give notice and move as their are plenty of apartments in the area, that are nicer for prices comparable to the rent increase. We also sent a letter advising at the end of our lease we would like to go Month to Month. After sending, we never received a response, which to be honest didn't surprise me since we never seemed to receive a response when we emailed the building.
On November 7th we emailed to advise that we would be leaving at the end of our lease (January 31st). We were at this point advised that we missed the 3 month cut off to give notice and would have to stay the additional month of February. At this point, I was irritated as I assumed the month to month notice meant we would only have to give a month notice to leave; however, rules are rules and it was my mistake. Come February, we were mostly moved out; however, went to pay rent for the moth regardless and they INCREASED THE RENT! Even though we had emailed that we would have given notice if they were still planning on doing so... and that was stated in September, which would have given plenty of time to give notice had they gotten back to us. I was advised by Linda the "Superintendent" that my email regarding the rent increase "Went to their junk mail" and that was the first time it had ever happened. She would send it off to their head office and get back to me. Since then (February 1st) I have contacted her 4 times, spoke to her 3 of those times, I have contacted their head office and spoke to somebody there and NOBODY has done anything. Linda herself has promised to "Get back to me" 3 times, and never once has. The head office has said they would forward the issue to her to follow up, and she has said that it is head office that deals with it. SO I am still out the money for the increase(which wasn't that much but the principal is important to me), as well as a whole month rent that we never would have had to pay because if we knew they were going to increase anyways we would have given notice in September.
Example D) the tenant who lived below us used to let his dog relieve himself on their balcony, directly below our balcony and directly above the moving doors. At any given time there would be DAYS worth of dog feces just sitting there, so come summer time you can imagine the smells it would bring to our apartment. Not to mention they used to shovel it over the side of the balcony and throw it down into the parking lot... in front of the moving doors. We had to complain a number of times before anything was done about it.

These are just a few of the issues we had living here. I could go on forever about the dirt, the smells, the rude staff (not tenants, the staff), the parking lot, the damage... all of it. I feel bad for anybody who wastes their money to live there! Terrible terrible experience.

The review left before in December 2016 is painfully accurate on all counts. Before moving into this building I was one of the Canadians who was totally on board with letting syrians into our country... I have changed my views

I'd think the previous review was racist if I had not experienced the same thing. It's not racist, it's just the truth. They're all rude, and let their children yell and scream all over the building. I especially love it when they let them play in front of my door and then the parents come over and yell at them for a good fifteen minutes in arabic. Then they have the nerve to complain about my dog barking as they're yelling and screaming.

If you have a dog, the children will either be petrified of the dog (regardless of size) and go running OR ATTACK your dog. I caught one of the syrian children trying to run my dog over with their bicycle.

I think I managed to get the worst neighbour in the building. They are constantly yelling and screaming at their crying children (I think they have like 7 of them). I have to have music going constantly to drown them out.

Their kids play soccer in the parking lot. I haven't seen any of them hit any cars, but I'm sure they do. Overall terrible kids.

Speaking of parking lot, someone hit and run'd my car as soon as I moved in. Caused $2700 in damage. I parked at the end of the parking lot where no one parks too. I wouldn't be surprised if it was deliberate. If you value your vehicle, I highly recommend you get a dashcam that runs 24/7 if you have to live here.

I've tried complaining about my neighbours but I don't think they can do anything as evicting a syrian refugee family would probably be bad PR.

My apartment will randomly smell like cigarette smoke. I don't smoke. I assume the person who lives below me does.

I don't hear my neighbours constantly having sex like another reviewer (the only bad quality I don't deal with it). Once every couple of weeks I can hear the person above me's bed squeaking. Most nights I sleep well.

I didn't give them a one star review as the staff is actuall good. And they put up with A LOT of shit. Someone took a marker to the ground level wallpaper and ran it across the entire wall. Probably a good 30 feet of sharpie. They had it replaced with in two weeks.

The lady who takes payments is also really nice. I caught her on a bad day once, otherwise she is a good person over all.

If it wasn't such a pain in the ass to move in the winter, I'd be gone. An overall horrible experience.

Used to be acceptable, then dozens of Syrian families moved in. If you're ever home when school gets out, you'll hear dozens of their children screaming in Arabic and bouncing soccer balls as they pour into the building. It doesn't stop there, they're loud at all hours and I've personally seen them empty their garbage bags over the side of their balcony.
If your car gets scratched/keyed to shit like mine was, you're out of luck - there are no security cameras watching the parking lot.
If you like to take the stairs instead of the elevator, you can expect to see puddles of piss from time to time.
Ever get packages in the mail? UPS will leave them right outside your door in the middle of a work day. Literally anybody can swipe your packages and there's nothing you can do about it, because there are also no cameras in the halls. If you're lucky, a building manager will see the deliveryman come in and intercept your package. This is rare.

There's no reason to subject yourself to any of this. Move somewhere else.

Knowing what i know now about Armdale Place , its staff and former staff,the high crime area of Cowie Hil and what i had to go through during my time their . I wouldn't stay their even if the rent was free!

If I could give a zero, I would. Every night I hear my neighbours having sex. Not just hearing it either. It rattles my bed. I can hear him snoring every night. Then, in the morning I get to hear them talk, then the joyous sound of children screaming murderously, then the construction at the bottom of the hill. My neighbours smoke a pack a day in their apartment, I expressed my concerns and wasn't even acknowledged. It's a no smoke, no pets building, yet everyone I've seen has a dog. It literally smells like smoke and wet dog INSIDE my apartment, and I have neither had a pet or smoked in this place. The walls are paper thin, the ventilation blows, and you will not sleep. Just wait until your neighbour takes a shower. Your whole bathroom will steam up and you'll think you're hearing 100 cats dying. That's just the water heater kicking in. If you still think you want to live here, I have recorded morning noise, I can make a soundtrack and see if that's how you want to wake up

The superintendent lady is unbelievingly arrogant! You should see the way she behaves to tenants(especially Asians). She has absolutely no respect to tenants and humiliates people in front of everyone for silly matters. Have never seen a racist like her in entire Halifax!

A very cheap place!!!! I really mean it... Cheap by cost and cheap in its management. They are good to you if they are at the receiving end of finance. If you have to complaint the lady there, who maintains is a red headed one. You cannot tolerate her arrogance. You never know if she has ever heard you speak, about your concerns. She has little courtesy of asking you to even sit and converse over your concerns or problems. When you are done telling your end of story she has no courtesy to even let you know if she can help you out of that problem.
Very important thing, If you have got a commitment from her like changing of lease terms from other than which is mentioned by nova scotian govt rules please take it in writing else she will never accept those terms at the end of the promised term.