Biltmore Apartments

BOTH elevators are currently out of service (and have been for at least a week now, with no sign of them being fixed any time soon). The fire escape stairwell is infested with pigeons and covered in pigeon feathers and feces, it never gets cleaned. The building is beautiful and historic but incredibly dirty and poorly maintained. The trash and recycling bins on the side of the building are frequently overflowing and trash gets all over the sidewalk.

Caution! This building lies about lots of stuff in Craigslist posts!
I moved into the Biltmore not long ago. It’s a beautiful, giant brick building in a great area of Capitol Hill. It’s charm, however wears off quickly when you realize that the «900 square foot» unit that you just signed a year lease to at $ 1700 is actually 650 square feet. Or when you discover that this building actually does NOT have «two working elevators». It has ONE shoddy, hardly useable elevator. That’s a definite drawback when you live on the 6^th floor. Coming home with groceries is TERRIBLE!
Other notable gripes: Laundry is SUPER expensive, lots of the mailboxes don’t have keys so the little doors are jammed and feel like you’re going to get stuff stolen, the electrical is old and a fuse has already blown, the plumbing is sub par.
I’ve heard lots of people say they’ve either lived here at some point or known someone who has. People are CONSTANTLY moving out /​in. I think that’s a bad sign. The building manager Jon is really nice, but this place is SOOO big, I think one guy can only do so much. And it’s seeming like not enough. The real management company or whoever owns the building obviously doesn’t care at all about it’s tenants and keeping housing affordable with the crooked prices they charge. They say it’s «market value» but I’m assuming that’s based off the insanely incorrect and inflated square footage they say the units are. It’s all about how little they can do and how much they can charge, it seems. Everything just kind of makes this place feel evil.
Will be moving out as soon as me lease is up.

Do. Not. Move. Here.
I lived here for a bit over two years, from about 2009 to 2011.
1. I don’t understand why bill is regarded as some «kind soul» on here. He’s a lying, out of control piece of crap. He isn’t some innocent unwilling pawn with his hands tied by management. He did stuff all the time like bang on my door at 5am and scream at me for 10+ minutes for a party on a different floor, in a different part of the building he was convinced we were somehow involved in, when me and my roommate had been asleep all night. I just got constant harassment and shitty attitude from him. I’m taking a bag of garbage down to the trash room? I must be the asshole who dumped stuff all over the place. This started pretty much right after i moved in too, it’s like he hated me upon meeting me.
2. The apartment above me had some kind of huge water leak, and it really messed up my living room wall and ceiling and even left some spots on the floor. It warped the window frame and one of the skinny window panes cracked. I reported all this, as it was happening, and they just did *nothing*. He later claimed i never reported it and tried to charge me for all the damage, including the obvious water damage, and repainting. We even anticipated the last one after another former tenant warned us and primed the walls.
3. I had small kitchen fire because of some kind of weirdness with the stove or… something. a pan basically melted even though it was full as it was heating up. There was no smoke detector, and when the fire department showed up they fined the crap out of them for that. The assistant manager ran in while we were talking to the fire department and put one up, then they tried to claim we had pulled the battery out. The firefighters and us just pointed and laughed, they had already written them a ticket. They stuck by this one though.
4. Constant water shutoffs, hot water failing, and heat shutoffs. And when the heat DID work it was either freezing or flamethrower, 90 degrees hot. Me and my friends still joke about the time i had a movie night when it started snowing and my window was all the way open with a fan running and were STILL all drenched in sweat. I also got reprimanded at work for being stinky because i woke up one morning to no water, and there was no water til 4. With no notice.
5. Incredibly flaky power. And the place uses fuses! Bill always acted like it was some huge imposition and you were an irresponsible asshole if a fuse blew, but it happened totally randomly when there were power surges/​brownouts (which have happened fairly often at every place i’ve lived in the area).
6. The biggest one though, was the process of moving out. They refused to do a walkthrough when we moved in, «wasn’t an issue and they’d taken pictures». We were young and didn’t know any better. When we moved out there was all that water damage they hadn’t fixed. They tried to blame EVERYthing that had been there forever on us, including stuff like chips on the tile in weird corners basically behind appliances. And the bathroom towel rack being bent (it looked like… a 100 year old towel rack). They just invented a bunch of crap until we were $ 600 OVER deposit, then when we said we were taking them to small claims when they asked us to pay… sent us to collections while round robining all the warnings/​pay now notices to our old mailbox even though we had moved out and provided a forwarding address. Except for one that was basically just a moveout report and didn’t mention that «debt».
7. You can smoke in the building. I heard from several people i knew who lived there and didn’t smoke that they weren’t told about this, and then smoke constantly wafted in their windows.
8. I made friends with 7 – 8 people who lived there, and several other friends moved in after i moved out. Every single one of them had a shitty experience, none of them got their deposits back, and all of them got dinged for stupid little things. Their regular M.O. was to charge someone for «damage» of something that needed to be done anyways like resurfacing floors, then basically get to do it for free. People also regularly moved in to places with already slightly broken fixtures and then got charged for them at move out, even if they were on the walkthrough sheet saying they had been «additionally» damaged.
9. Yes, it IS really loud. I’m totally used to it and can sleep through anything, but if you care at all about that it was just constant. If your windows face the courtyard, it’s all kinds of constant yelling and stuff. If they face the street, it’s… all kinds of constant yelling and drunk people and stuff. A lot of it comes from within the building though, definitely louder than any other apartment i’ve lived in.
10. The garbage room IS disgusting/​awful. If i could post photos, i’d post one of the time it filled up all the way into the hall and the hallway was just full of rotting garbage. Laundry situation is crappy as mentioned by others.

I am not a tenant here, nor have I ever been. Once, several years ago, I contacted Bill to check out the property when I was looking for a Cap Hill apartment, but chose not to rent here.
Today, despite my contact with him being at least 3 years ago, I received an email from him asking for help in a personal matter of his. It took me Googling his name to figure out who he even was, and I’m still not sure why three years after viewing an apartment once he thinks it appropriate to contact someone who never had so much as a business relationship with him for personal assistance.
Be wary, if you are thinking of moving here or looking at an apartment, as this is not appropriate professional behavior from a property manager.

Please, please, please save your time, money, and heartache and DON’T LIVE HERE!
Let me admit that I thought I knew what I was getting into when I signed my lease at the Biltmore. I read the Unilocal reviews. They sounded bad, but I convinced myself that the relatively cheap rent (for Capitol Hill that is– rent is still a killing) was worth it. After all, where else could I get such a large hardwood studio for 900 dollars a month? I had heard the manager, Bill, was ineffective at best and a bit unpredictable at worst. Still, people said he had a good heart. I want to be very clear in this review– Bill does the best he can. My intention is NOT to slander him. He has a very difficult job. Unfortunately, his kindness does not translate into efficiency, and is not able to singlehandedly make living at RHP a positive experience.
When asked, Bill mentioned that the reviews were quite old and things had changed. I really wanted to believe him. As long as the building manager seemed somewhat legit, I figured that mattered more than the fact that the management company was a scam.
So, I convinced myself to move in.
I lasted three months. Here’s why.
1. My fridge broke. Bill replaced after about two weeks. I noticed that when the repairmen were in that my kitchen towel had been used to wipe up the fridge grease. EW. I went to Bill, who was sympathetic. However, it gets worse. The repairmen had to come in again. I then noticed then that MY LAPTOP HAD BEEN LOGGED INTO. Bill admitted he had not been in the apartment as he should have been because he trusted the guy. At first Bill was very apologetic but later tried to rationalize the incident. Later, I found MY LIPSTICK HAD BEEN USED. EW EW EW. Bill WAS nice enough to change the lock, but I felt very sick at this point.
2. The characters in the building are quite sketchy. When I applied, there was absolutely no background or credit check. I was approved on the spot. I’m assuming that’s why.
3. Bill does indeed try his best, but he’s a pawn of the system. When I moved out, Bill almost refused to do a walkthrough with me. I felt bad bothering him, but I needed to get the walkthrough done, for my sake. He got very angry and yelled at me before acquiescing– it was unsettling.
4. After I moved out, I was mistakenly charged $ 150 for leaving a bed by the dumpster that I did not leave. I moved out on the first, and I have NO IDEA how management thought it was me. To his credit, Bill was very nice and advised me to call the management company. I did. Many times. It took about two months and a debt collector calling me for the charge to be removed. You know what I think? I think management routinely does this because they know people are too tired to fight back.
After three months in this apartment, this management company has my $ 600 deposit and countless amounts of stress. I read the reviews. I thought it would be ok– I lied to myself. Please don’t waste your time.

Worst place ever! Bed bugs, no heat, took two weeks to fix my kitchen sink when I first moved in, and now they are suing me when I had to break my lease because the bed bug problem was so bad (doctor visits, missing work, waking up with eyes swollen shut) I had to move out. Bill is a horrible manager and plays the sympathy card. DO NOT MOVE IN!

This is the absolute, hands down, worst place I have ever lived.
Besides the beautiful façade in the summer, the building itself is falling apart. The property management company (Metropolitan Management for those who are interested) are slum lords in the extreme (a quick BBB search will show you how many complaints have been filed-​myself included). The manager, Bill, is the nicest guy you’ll ever meet, but it appears the management company has him terrified for some reason. My guess? They’re taking full advantage of his fragile health and I would imagine have threatened to replace him if he doesn’t comply or if he fights on the tenants behalf.
The water is shut off constantly (often times without notice) to address this or that plumbing emergency. One would think that after collecting tens of thousands of dollars each month from their victims, I mean tenants, repairs could be done for the greater good. But no, instead of insuring the satisfaction of their tenants through routine upgrades and maintenance, our over priced rent is lining their duplicitous pockets. And let’s not forget about the ability to flush the toilet (or the lack thereof) while they’re making yet another plumbing repair. Awesome, I just love the smell of human waste wafting from the bathroom without a damn thing to do about it. Biltmore Apartments? More like Third World Apartments.
Afraid of bed bugs? Don’t move here. The building is crawling with them. Refer to many of the other reviews of this building for more on that blood sucking topic.
Feel like cooling down in the middle of summer? Don’t try it here. It’s already July and the management company refuses to turn off their radiator heating (which goes on at 5:15 am and clanks VERY loudly for 45 minutes. It’s lovely waking up to the sound of what seems to be road construction in your living room all the while awash in your own sweat from the stifling 80+ degree inferno your apartment has turned in to.) We’re not allowed to control the temperature of our own apartments, despite the freakishly expensive rent. «Open a window» is what we’re told. Thanks, never thought of that…
Mike the maintenance guy is awesome, but every time I see him I’m reminded of someone trying to save the Titanic. Pointless. This ship went down a long time ago.
Garbage piles up and overflows from the trash room (which smells so foul I actually gag when I go in there). The washing machines in the laundry room break down constantly AND steal your quarters ($ 2 to wash AND $ 2 to dry. Yet ANOTHER way the management company is robbing us blind).
Several tenants who live here are young, loud, drunk/​high and RUDE. Dog owners let their animals use the halls as their own private doggy toilets.
In addition to all of this mind bending, third world terror of an apartment building, they like to RAISE THE RENT ON YOU! Because, you know, you should have to PAY for the water you can’t use and the HEAT YOU DON’T WANT BECAUSE IT’S 85 F***ING DEGREES OUTSIDE!
In short, this place is a nightmare. Bill’s hands are tied because he’s not healthy enough to re-​enter the work force and get a HABITABLE apartment, so the tenants are at the mercy of a big company that cares nothing for them. AVOID THIS PLACE AT ALL COSTS. THEY WILL STEAL YOUR MONEY FROM YOU AND SCREW YOU IN EVERY POSSIBLE WAY. This place should be shut down, bull dozed and forgotten. What a nightmare.

Kind of dumpy but the people were not bad at all. The reason for the 1 star is that my deposit was not returned and my lease has my end date scratched out and written over. That ended up costing me a LOT of money and I know that if I should seek legal council I will be vindicated but at the moment I’m to busy to deal with it. Elevators are broken a LOT and the carpet is frankly quite disgusting and I mean DISGUSTING. On the positive side it is a decent group of people for the most part as long as they are not starting fires or screaming in the courtyard at 3AM. The neighborhood cannot be beat and if you walk a block down the hill you have a great view of the space needle.

I live here, and can’t wait until I move.
This place would get 3 stars normally, considering the following factors:
1. Bill, the manager, is a really nice, sincere guy who goes out of his way to make this place as nice as he possibly can. Considering the inconsiderate tenants (not all, but some) who let their dogs pee all over the porch and poop without picking up in the areas around the building, Bill has his job cut out for him. John, the maintenance dude, always tries his best to keep the place nice, but again, they’re outnumbered.
2. The building is vintage, so you get to enjoy all the cute vintage features.
3. It’s near downtown, so if you work downtown like me, kudos!
4. It’s dog-​friendly, so if you’re a dog fanatic, you get to enjoy all the lovely tenant dogs and fawn all over each one you encounter.
This place really gets1 star from me and for the following reason:
It’s owned and run by a slum lord management company. Ever notice how people who work in real estate are the most soulless, compassionless aholes out there? They live in nice real estate, and let their renters live in substandard housing.
Notice how one of the 5 star reviews here was written by someone who OWNS the building units and has Biltmore Associates/​RP Management looking after and managing the place for them? Of course it’s in their best interest to highly rate the place. They don’t live here and can’t fathom what it must be like for their renters. They only care about the bottom dollar.
I was assaulted, physically, by two little punks who live in the basement, ex-​friends of mine. One of them is a tenant here STILL, as of the writing of this review, and despite my written letter to management requesting that they be evicted (police were called, I had to go to the doctor regarding my injuries), and despite that I left a voicemail with «Loren/​Lauren» from the property group, NOTHING has been done. They pretty much don’t care about the safety of their tenants.
So now, I’m stuck running into these little punks, everytime I go down to the basement to drop my trash off or do my laundry. I live in fear of them sabotaging my laundry if they see me entering and exiting the laundry room. I run into them when I walk my dog at night, which makes me feel very unsafe. I really regret not filing for a protection order against them, as now time has passed… and I regret living here.
Do yourself a favor… I know, you’re probably on a tight budget like me, so you’re considering one of these overpriced but still on the lower-​end-​for-​cap-​hill units at the Biltmore. DON’T LIVE HERE. DON’T GIVE YOUR MONEY TO THE SLUMLORDS.
I“m moving out soon enough after a condo purchase. and it can’t be soon enough.
F* you, Biltmore.

With 18 months just about finished at the Biltmore, I’m sad to say I can only give the place 2 stars. It has a lot of positive aspects: location, authentic 20’s-style apartments & building, kind and concerned manager, kind and concerned maintenance guy, very pet-​friendly.
But:
This is the 5^th month running that our apartment has been without a properly working kitchen sink. For the first 4 months, our hot water would not turn off (it just flowed at almost-​off-​but much more than a drip really a pretty good stream) at all, ever. It flowed 24/​7, down the drain. After months of repair requests, the management company’s plumbers came in and said we’d have to wait a few more weeks as the problem required turning off the building’s water, and they wouldn’t do it just for us. We had to wait for a regularly scheduled water shut off of some sort. All those weeks later, the hot water was fixed. The next day, the cold water stopped turning on. At All. The cold water in the kitchen sink hasn’t turned on for more than a month. Several repair requests and we’re still waiting for another regularly scheduled building water shut off. The building water has been shut off a handful of times in these 5 months, but apparently none of them warranted the management company’s plumbers coming to fix our kitchen faucet. 5 months and counting.
The sky-​high price of this place, per square foot, compared to others in a 4-​block radius of our location, makes this intolerable. As other posters have mentioned, the management company raises the rent the highest legally allowed amount at the end of each rental contract. At the end of our last contract, our rent went up around $ 200/​month. The company raises the price of a new contract for new leasers practically every month, so, as it’s been explained to me, they lose money if they don’t raise a re-​signing lease’s rent to match.
Paying premium rent, I expect the kitchen sink to be repaired in less than 5 months time.
Understandable explanations we’ve been given are, to me, excuses.
But, lest the wrong people be blamed, here they are:
1. The management company treats the plumbers poorly so they don’t want to come fix things here. They don’t pay the plumbers well.
2. The management company hires the cheapest plumbers they can find. Therefore, they are also unskilled crappy plumbers.
All the other stuff posters complain about is, to me, just whining about the same old same old that happens in some form or another in every rental situation. I wouldn’t normally rant out a place or service, but I am deeply disappointed in this 5 month ordeal without a proper kitchen sink, considering the price we pay and our status (or so we’ve been told) as exemplary renters. Very bad product for the price. Booooo.

I have lived in the Biltmore for 2.5 years, and am not looking to move anytime soon. I’ve read a lot of the reviews here, and yes, a great deal of the content is valid and true. But it’s important to note that this place, like any other apartment, isn’t perfect. But I’ve been much, much happier in this apartment than any other I’ve lived in before. :)
I’ll break this out easily for those skimming:
THE PROS:
— This is an absolutely gorgeous building in a fantastic location. The building is huge, looks gorgeous when the vines on the sides of the building are full, and is incredibly easy access to everything you could possibly need (bus stops, food, grocery, COFFEE!)
— Bill is 110% the best building manager I’ve ever had. He genuinely cares about the tenants and the quality of this building. He also is likely to give the tenant the benefit of the doubt if anything comes up, and he is incredibly flexible and understanding.
— My apartment… is HUGE. I have a great corner apartment with a ton of space, a great view of Capitol Hill, and hardwood floors in almost every room. It’s just great. When searching for an apartment in this neighborhood, I never found anything as large for the price.
— Worried about stolen packages? If it comes FedEx or UPS, Bill signs for everything and keeps it for you until you are able to come get it. Huge benefit if you’re gone and miss a delivery. Saves me a lot of headache.
— They’ve recently updated the washer/​dryer machines. I agree with past reviews that the headache of having machines down or eating quarters was a huge problem, but it’s all fixed and over now! :)
— There’s an onsite maintenance guy named John who is so kind and always happy to help you. I’ve never felt like anything took too long to get fixed or was completed improperly. It’s so wonderful to have him there when/​if you need him!
THE CONS (with explanations, not rants):
— I will agree that the basement level gets dirty often. And yes, there has been mention of bed bugs — it’s a known issue in the basement level. But I’ve seen a significant effort in the last several months by the management to make the building cleaner. On top of that, the building does appear to take prompt action when bed bugs come up. I haven’t talked to anyone who had them, but from what I’ve seen it’s a controlled if not eliminated issue.
— There’s no denying that this building is old. But there’s a difference between old and falling apart. Due to this building’s age, it does require a lot of upkeep. Things like the elevator can have trouble from time to time and they have to shut off the water almost monthly for maintenance, but it’s not the end of the world. I think when you move into a building this beautiful and old, you kind of have to expect things won’t be like a brand new high-​rise in Belltown. But if you can accept that the building is older and therefore needs a bit more TLC, then you’re set. I personally prefer this over any brand new building, hands down.
— Yeah, the radiators are loud and it can get cold in the winter, but see above. The building is old. I’ve talked to Bill about this before, and he always works to find a solution asap.
—
I give this place 4 starts instead of 5 only because I know it’s not 100% perfect, and I wouldn’t feel comfortable saying it is. But I can’t drive home enough that this building is older, but far more beautiful on the inside and outside than anything else I’ve lived in before. It has it’s problems, but no building I’ve lived in before was problem-​free. It’s just perfect to me. :)
If you want a place that’s reasonably priced for a good amount of space in a prime location, I cannot recommend the Biltmore enough. The building manager, Bill, is superb. The maintenance is always working hard to keep the building on the up and up. They really do the best they can to preserve this gem on Capitol Hill.

Still love this place. I don’t get what all the negativity is about. You people must live in the basement. I would be mad if I lived down there too but that’s what you get for living in a BASEMENT. Even with that said, the basement here isn’t bad, it’s just easy access for people on the outside to maybe want to break in and for some reason people who live in the basement seem to be a bit on the slob side. The trash room gets a bit gross, but once again it’s inconsiderate people who make it that way. There is only so much one person can do to clean up after this many people. Come on people! Pick up after yourselves and help keep this place looking awesome. The building is beautiful and it could be even more so if people helped to keep it that way.
Onto our apartment. Our apartment is rad. For it being a studio, it’s huge and we get tons of light. The location is amazing. Good price for this location as well. There is everything you could want/​need within walking distance. Coffee, food, bars, shopping, bus lines, you name it, it’s here!
I think my major complaint is some of the rude people who live in the building. I don’t understand why you would let your dog poop/​pee in the courtyard in front of the building and NOT pick it up. YOU LIVE HERE! you really want a bunch of poop all around where you live? Gross. You want your dog to hike its leg right in front of the front door? You are so cool! Some people think it’s awesome to slam the freight elevator when I am trying to sleep which sucks. Some people also think it’s rad to set off the fire alarm at 3:30 am and think it’s rad to bring all their drunk inconsiderate friends into my building past 10am to be loud, yelling and screaming up and down the halls. Some of us actually have jobs and have to be up at 5am! So basically it’s YOU, not the building or the manager/​maintenance. This is still one of the quieter places that I’ve lived in (despite my ranting about some of the other people who live here) and I am really happy here. Best apartment I have ever lived in hands down.
Oh and Bill the manager is the coolest manager ever! No, he did not pay me to say that. He is always available if you need him to be and he is nice to visit with. He honestly cares about the people who live here and seems to just want everyone to be happy. Jon who is the maintenance guy is a good dude who is always looking out for you as well and does his best to take care of business in this place!
This is a good place to live people! Lets get some more cool tenants up in here!

The management company for this place are known extortionists. I’ve been told as much by people who work for them. Please do yourself a favor and live somewhere else.
We cleaned up everything and turned in the keys on the day the lease was up and 3 months later I get a letter saying that the keys were never turned in so there are hundreds of dollars in charges. I called the property manager and refreshed his memory and he acknowledged on tape that I had given him the keys.
When this information was provided to the management company, they «reviewed» my file and decided that since the key charges weren’t valid that they had «given me a break» initially on some «cleaning charges» and wouldn’t you know it – the total for the new «cleaning charges» are the same as the old «key charges».
Blatant Extortion. Believe what Tony B, Derek M, and the other reviewers say — These landlords are the definition of ‘predatory slumlords’.

One star just for the ivy and beautiful building.
If only the people were as nice.
Since living here we have had nothing but bad experiences, swat teams and shootings, bed bugs, attitude from staff, maintenance workers entering our apartment with out prior notice or warning.
Also this is the loudest apartment I’ve ever lived in, and I’ve lived in quite I few different places in Seattle as well as others.
I’ve always thought the biltmore was beautiful, I’m sad that we are now counting down the many months until we can get away from it.

The location of this building is top notch.
The building from the outside is beautiful, especially in the summer. The 1920s brick building is large, and dark, but not foreboding. The ivy «vines» are thicker than one’s thigh and add a lot of character.
The manager of the building lives on site, is friendly, community-​oriented, and does a great job given the obvious limitations imposed upon him and the maintenance staff by RP Management.
Those minor positives aside, the building on the inside is neglected and in serious need of a major renovation.
The radiators are loud, and tenants do not have direct control of when they come on. They come on twice a day, and not always at the same time. You are forced to be either too hot or freezing cold throughout the winter.
The lower 4 floors (sub-​basement, basement, 1^st Floor, 2^nd Floor) were always filthy, the upper floors did not seem to have the same problems.
I was exploring the building one day and went down to the sub-​basement (there are actually apartments down there!) and there was a layer of dead flies almost an inch deep. WTF!?! I half-​expected one of the doors to be glowing red with hell-​fire and for the Beelzebub himself to dwell within. It was the only time I was brave enough to go down there.
The basement floor housed more apartments, the trash room, and the laundry room. It was also the home of the «free room» which is to say the bottom stairwell overflowing with shit thrown out of people’s apartments that were too lazy to simply cross the hall and throw it away. The hallway housed additional overflow of crap from the free room, but this was mainly urine-​stained couches, mattresses, the occasional wood-​framed tube-​tv from 1972, and broken down refrigerators and stoves.
That’s the CLEAN part of the basement. The trash room was a disgusting mess of 3 small dumpsters and 5 standard/​large recycle bins (the 50 or 80 gallon ones). They were constantly overflowing and smelled to high-​heavens, a smell that leached into the stairwells, elevator, and main entryway on the first floor. The filth obviously did not generate itself, which means that there were a good number of subhumans living in the building who were comfortable with self-​inflicted squalor. These C.H.U.D. only furthered my disdain for the building and my 11 months there.
The laundry room consisted of 6 washers and 6 dryers with at least one of each broken at any given time. That’s 5 washer/​dryers for about 130 separate apartments. The cost to run these coin-​op machines was increased TWICE while we lived there.
If all of these complaints were straws piled on a camel’s back, that poor beast of burden would live a piteous life. We came across the straw that broke the camel’s back to put it out of its misery. The final straw was the discovery of bed bugs in our apartment.
We bought some new furniture right when we moved in, and we didn’t buy second-​hand furniture while living there. In February my girlfriend and I started finding tiny bumps that we first though could be an allergic reaction to new laundry detergent. Then more bumps appeared. Then we were itchy. We ripped apart our bed looking for bed bugs after reading a story in the Stranger about bed bugs and their comeback in a post-​DDT America. Nothing. Then finally, bringing out sheets up from the laundry room and while making the bed with said «fresh» sheets, there it was: a frickin’ bed bug. We freaked out and ripped apart the bed and found a few more. Then more under the bed in the wood frame.
That was it. We informed our building manager that we wouldn’t be staying in the apartment until they were gone. Rather than send exterminators the first time, they sent the maintenance crew who found «nothing.» After a second complaint they sent a real exterminator (2 days later) who found traces and left instructions that we had to pretty much pack up everything we own that night and leave the apartment since they would be back the next day to spray. 9 hours later, our stuff was packed or purged via double-​hefty bags. We came back 3 days later to find a note saying it was safe to unpack and that in 2 weeks we’d have to repack for another treatment. Without a bed to sleep in (we got rid of it) we weren’t about to buy a new one and contaminate it too. We had to live out of a small suitcase worth of clothes for a month in my mom’s basement on an air mattress while looking for a new place.
We submitted our intent to break our lease citing aforementioned reasons why the apartment was unlivable. They found new tenants to occupy our apartment by the first day of what would have been our last month. They lost no rent money from us leaving and STILL didn’t return our security deposit despite the 12 hour day of deep cleaning we did after moving out.
Stay away from the Biltmore. It’s a pit, and there are cheaper apartments on the hill with better management and much cleaner living conditions.

There are several things I LOVED about living at the Biltmore. My apartment was huge and (mostly) gorgeous. They’ve kept all the great vintage features of the building, and kept things up fairly well, with fresh paint and repairs. The manager (Bill) was very nice and very helpful — he accepts and holds packages for the residents. Also, anytime I had a concern or needed a repair, he was very responsive and made sure it happened right away.
The rent I paid was very reasonable… it went up once during the year that I lived there.
Oh, and the location can’t be beat — super-​close to several bus lines, great restaurants, Broadway, bars, etc.
And there were many treasures to be found in the «free room» in the basement.
The negatives were mostly due to the other people living there… a lot of young people who apparently don’t have to get up in the morning. There was a lot of late-​night noise and even several late-​night fire alarms. Also, my windows overlooked the front of the building, and all the cigarette smoke from smokers by the front door came straight into my apartment.
I also thought the common areas could have been better maintained (and better lighted), but I suspect that the inconsiderate graffitti-​writing people living there were also to blame for that.

+2 stars because my wife and I live here.
+1 star for our large living room
+1 star for all the storage space in our unit
+1 star because its a cool, six store brick building with ivy
+1 star for our top floor unit, southern facing widows, and Seattle view
–1 star for the tiny, tiny kitchen
–1 star because they just raised out rent by $ 100
— — –
4 stars
UPDATE:
–1 star because I no longer live there, and I’ve heard that they continue to raise the rent.
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3 Stars