Ability Plaza, E8

Please tell us about the good and bad aspects of living in your local area:

Good: - Cool local bars and ample food places - Several parks nearby - A Lime bike ride away from Central and the City - I’ve lived in a few parts of London and this was the most enjoyable and convenient. Bad; - Local Tesco closes randomly for periods of time - Overground is good but can shut on weekends so check ahead. One time it closed unannounced leaving a lot of people stranded. - Can be noisy. We did have to call the police once about a party in one of the rented commercial parts of the building that just seemed to get louder as the early morning hours hit. Also you get the random screaming in the street but unfortunately that’s a theme for most town centres nowadays. We also did get a random mini anti-Israel protest on a megaphone at 8:30pm on a Tuesday night singing bella ciao (badly) … that was annoying. I think people forget that others do actually live in the buildings around this area. - Parking cost an extra £125 a month on top of rent which felt extortionate considering people would often leave dog poo in the car park and we did get locked in on Christmas Eve night as we tried to leave for Christmas with half the Christmas Day dinner in our car! 3 hours later, after Grainger’s out of hours line lied (they hadn’t raised a ticket) and clocked off mid-call at 5pm (so much for an out of hours line) the guy had thankfully given me the number for the gate maintenance company so one of their engineers walked me through manually opening the gate.

How has the building management responded to any problems or issues you have raised:

HAHA. Good joke. “Building management responded”. Yes, no, they don’t respond.

Please share one thing (or more) which you wish you had known before you moved in:

I honestly enjoyed the lifestyle there in that part of town and our flat but everything else was stressful and the rent and parking was extortionate.

Please tell us about the good and bad aspects of living in your local area:

Local area is fine. Haggerston overground stop is few steps away. Local shops are nice East London vibe

How has the building management responded to any problems or issues you have raised:

Typically they don’t respond. When they do, they do with lag, and layers of intermediaries which make the communication lost.

Please share one thing (or more) which you wish you had known before you moved in:

I whish I had know how the property was managed. I wouldn’t have rented.

Please tell us about the good and bad aspects of living in your local area:

Dalston is amazing - loads of cool wine bars, it’s busy but our building’s off the main road so we’re not affected by street noise. Dalston had places to go out and also to shop, great food spots and easy to get all over north London on the overground. Down sides is no tube and the overground can sometimes be unreliable.

How has the building management responded to any problems or issues you have raised:

We haven’t raised any yet but hopefully they will respond well.

Please share one thing (or more) which you wish you had known before you moved in:

Not enough storage in the kitchen/generally impractical kitchen. Also absolutely nothing left in the house in terms of appliances, very very minimal furniture etc. not necessarily a bad thing for some people but annoying if you’re used to some level of stuff upon arrival.

Please tell us about the good and bad aspects of living in your local area:

Very well located next to Haggerston overground location. Plenty of cafes and parks in walking distance.

How has the building management responded to any problems or issues you have raised:

They’ve fixed a broken window and washing machine.

Please share one thing (or more) which you wish you had known before you moved in:

They only do 12 month term as they raise the rent every year

Please tell us about the good and bad aspects of living in your local area:

Haggerston is a great area. Tesco Express and a few other shops are super close, and there’s lots of nice bars and cafes. The street is a high street in London so is quite busy with cars and sirens at night, but not too bad.

How has the building management responded to any problems or issues you have raised:

Generally they’ve been pretty responsive and get people sent out quickly. However, the quality of repairs and maintenance visits seems to have reduced since the switch to the new supplier. For both plumbing and kitchen issues we’ve had to call contractors out multiple times because the issue wasn’t fixed (or was botched) the first time around. I hope to see this improve.

Please share one thing (or more) which you wish you had known before you moved in:

How bad the layout of the building is and that you NEED to be in when parcels are delivered, otherwise they WILL be left in a communal area and you might not see them again. Give clear instructions to delivery drivers about how to get to your front door, and be ready to receive deliveries.