450 North Few St Madison WI 53703

Ashleigh and I previously lived at 450 North Few St in Madison, Wisconsin (53703). We rented apartment 6 for one year starting August 15 2009.

Things we liked:

• The grass was kept clipped.
• The wood floors had been refinished within the last decade.
• The neighborhood was nice, almost all single-family homes, full of very friendly people.
• The building was walking distance to Tenney Park.
• The rental company returned our full security deposit.
• When the refrigerator broke it was replaced with a new one.
• We experienced no crime or fear.
  

Things we did not like:

• Odd layout included a wasted, useless "dining" space which normal-size people could not comfortably fit into.
• The windows were ancient, drafty, and filthy. The lease explicitly excludes them as a maintenance item.
• Lead paint peeled from every wall and especially every window jamb.
• The kitchen was so small that a single person standing in one place could reach around and touch all the walls. Two people could not work together in the kitchen.
• From time to time the water turned brown (see video). This happened more frequently than a reasonable person would expect, and could not be attributed to flushing water mains.
• There were not enough trash and recycle cans for the ten apartments, and almost every week trash would pile up along the side of the building.
• The ridiculously disgusting and worn-out carpet in the common hallways was literally thirty years old, as witnessed by people we met who lived with that carpet in the early 1980s.
• Although the lease stipulated that heat was included, only one paltry radiator was provided in the entire apartment. In the bedroom and bathroom were electric baseboard heaters, paid by the tenant. To be fair, though, that one radiator was usually hot when the weather was cold.
• The landlord, John Wright, has a very bad reputation for shady rental practices, and in our experience he was negligent responding to certain requests. For instance, when we bought our house the bank spent over a month trying to contact him for reference, and he would not return their calls. For another example, he refused to work with the 2010 census workers to allow access to apartment buildings, as required by law.
• The kitchen counter wasn't screwed down. It was just set on top of the cabinet.
• The oven was very old and inefficient.
• The front door lock was unreasonably sticky, and the landlord knew about it but wouldn't fix it.
• The lease required the use of difficult-to-find picture-hanging hooks of a very certain type.
• The hallway windows were sealed shut, guaranteeing sweltering temperatures in the hallways during the summer.