9500 Erickson Drive Apartments / Metcap Living

If you’re thinking of moving to this building, don’t.

The floor I lived on was infested with bedbugs (including my unit), and the entire building has an ant issue that the owner does not seem to care about addressing, so management just throws money to bring out pest control to take the edge off the residents and make them feel like they’re doing something. The power, like many have addressed, went out more times than I can count in one month with no answer as to why this kept occurring.

There is also mold along the window panes that I’ve been told is present in every single unit of the building.

This place is a total dump and needs to be investigated as a health hazard.

Black mold, single pane windows without screens that let all manner of water/ice in all winter, terrible management that doesn't adequately address the concerns of residents, frequent power/water (!) outages, no accessibility for those with mobility issues (exacerbated by the frequent elevator outages. REALLY) and absolutely zero communication from the parent company/owners. They're lucky that Burnaby is so overpriced already or they'd be run out of town on a rail. A health hazard but we can't afford to live anywhere else. Cool.

Was treated exceptionally well by the manager Sonya when moving suites. She was more than helpful in making for a smooth transition. Also many thanks to Bruce and Bev, managers at Tower East for going extra steps to help me out.

Do yourself a favor and do not rent here. Management company does not do the repairs. We have not had heat in the building 9502 Erickson Drive for over 2 weeks. They keep saying that they are looking into it. It appears that they are waiting for the weather to warm up so that they don't have to fix the issue. The space heaters they have provided do not help as they trip off the fuse. They get one star because there is no way to give negative stars. >: (

Don’t live here. Horrible management. The heat does not work. They sent a plumber who spent less than 2 minutes in our unit saying there’s nothing he can do. We even called their head office and they didn’t do anything.

The current manager seems irritable and avoidant. The adult son works the emergency line and it's a family trait. The lesser seen main areas (laundry room and tenant hallway carpets) are very infrequently maintained. They started to maintain the garbage room after the photos went online, but the concrete flooring is NEVER disinfected despite food being dropped and left on the floor. Seems like
a health hazard to be walking through especially with Covid. Also with Covid they have the moving blankets permanently installed, which is VERY discomforting considering they never come down and you can't sanitize them. The heat is RARELY IF EVER on and It's FREEZING to the point of needing gloves and a coat. You are told to purchase space heaters. The building is concrete outside, while the core is dry walled. Dry wall with a lack of carpeting means thee is NO sound proofing and the noise bounces around. If you phone about a noise complaint, you are told to go around the building and locate where the noise is coming from before they will address it.

We were asked what suite we were interested in and we chose the $1899 plus parking at $75 per month. We went to look at the suite had the price put on the application form and got it all filled out. We were so excited to get approved and then got a call offering a more expensive suite and told that the one we saw was rented a week and a half ago. So why show us that suite if it had been rented already? Not cool!

I lived there fore more than 2 years, and things got really bad overtime. I had several issues in my suite, such as leaking in the kitchen and heating not working. I've paid for parking and someone broke into my car overnight. The current manager is really unprofessional, right after the incident the first comment when I called was "it's a Sunday and I am off today". After questioning about the fact that there are no cameras or security, I heard that if I was not satisfied I could park outside in the street, even though I was paying for parking. I tried to contact Metcap directly about it, and still I have never heard back from them. There is no in-laundry suite, and the shared laundry has often dirty wash machines. Even after moving out the bad experience continued, they took more than 2 months to return my security deposit, after I had to question them constantly for weeks to receive it.

Rude management, dirty laundry areas, disgusting garbage room, wont fix broken appliances. Terrible dont live here

Don’t live here if you don’t like cold, the heater system is so old and inefficient that it is not able to warm the apartment over 18C during the winter, I already complained multiple times regarding this problem but the management prefer to waste money in useless renovation like changing the elevator floor 3 times in the last 3 years for no reason instead than invest money to improve the heater system, also a lot of junkies and noisy people started living in this building

Loved living there for 3 years, then had to move out due to the horrible MOUSE problem in my suite. Caretakers and exterminators did what they could but the problem was too extensive. Nesting in my closets, under the stove and dishwasher so could not use them. Literally they were everywhere. If you decide to live there be sure it's not on the first floor.
MICE. MICE. MICE. MICE. MICE. MICE. MICE

Overall a great place. Prices are competitive with market especially with the amenities included and within the area. Lorena & her husband Gale are a wonderful team in Tower East. They would give you the shirt off their back. Maintenance requests have always been dealt with quickly and routine maintenance is scheduled and communicated clearly.

I have two friends that have moved in since myself and they have been loving it! The recent renovations have the units looking slick and modern, the balconies are all finished and are spacious, and the walls a thick so it feels like you truly live on your own. The fitness and aquatics facility downstairs make you feel like you are living the lux life and the Lougheed Village Mall is a gem with a great little Cafe and wonderful bar/grill.

Lived here for 2 years and I regret nothing. The Lougheed area is quickly developing and these apartments are doing a great job trying to stay relevant. I hope that the put some effort into cleaning up the botanical garden area. If so this would be an absolute steal of a place.

During the years that my wife and I stayed here, Lorena and Galen Cabias, managers of the east tower, have done an outstanding job! They are reliable, quick to respond to our requests or concerns, and capable to handle the tasks. They listened to our needs, worked with us to resolve the issues and followed up later to make sure everything was OK.

There were a lot of problems during the renovations and residents were complaining, but Lorena and Galen handled it well, it could have been much worst if it wasn't for them.

Thank you guys!

Really poor apartment conditions. Heaters are on in June, off in December and been like this for 4 years now and the company is not willing to do anything about it. And this is not considering the fact that two elevators took them almost a year to fix and the balconies two years. We also have power shut offs at least once every two months.

The bad stuff
1) 3 months getting touch up paint. Since the painters are contracted nobody seems to know the paint colour.
2) Garbage is overflowing weekly. Advised metcap toronto of this issue. They told on us basically to our building management. No confidentiality.
3) My key fob opens both the upper parking and lower parking at the same time. Nobody really cares. The homeless guy that wanders in and out sometimes is very thankful.
4) No insuite laundry. This should really be a $200 discount off these prices.
5) Grounds are not well kept. Once again should be a discount off rental prices to look at the wasteland around here.
6) Water has been shut off more than 4 times a month since moving here.
7) There is a private company that administers hydro for $6 a month. This is a money grab for no good reason. They also charge to to hook up hydro and to cancel hydro.
8) Broke my lease sadly but got it re rented. Still take my damage deposit even though I am probably the cleanest renter they have ever seen. Also charge you for things that are their fault like the bathroom tap screen falling out.
9) They will nickel and dime you for every single thing here from contracted hydro companies to expensive parking that vandals frequently traffic.

Good stuff:
1) Great location being close to skytrain and the mall
2) Awesome dive bar in the basement
3) Pool, hot tub, steam room etc in the basement
4) Pretty nicely updated with decent appliances, subway tile, vinyl floor makes it feel clean and almost like a new building.
5) Hotwater heat helps with the heat bill
6) Quiet building and being concrete really keeps the noise down
7) Huge balcony
8) Pet friendly

Summary. Building managers try really hard for probably extremely low wages. Sadly I had to break my lease. The management and leasing agents really helped me to get it re rented although I had to post my suite and do all the footwork. Quiet building with exception of city noises and skytrain. I like it here but there are a number of small and maybe personal factors that add up.

During the hot summer, we're with windows closed due to the strong cannabis smell. The administration of the building is also not worried about the increase of criminals breaking into cars to steal anything you leave inside.

The Good: First off, we were so lucky to have great building managers in Tower West. Vladimir and Ludmilla would often go out of their way to help us with any request and I hope they know how helpful they were to us. If I could leave a review for just them, I’d give them 5/5. In fact, I tried to poach them to move along with us to our new building but things didn’t work out with that as we’d hoped.

The Bad: Lougheed Village as a whole though is a slum. In our 2.5 years living in Tower West, we were woken up often by the sounds of the bar below. The windows in the units are so old and thin, and our heat didn’t work for the majority of our time there. There was ants in our kitchen and bugs in our bathroom and we didn’t sign up for those little roommates to pay over $1600/monthly (plus $75 for parking and $20 for storage) the rooftop mezzanine below was once a beautiful rooftop garden, but has been left to die and become nothing but an eyesore. All good things come to an end I guess and Lougheed Village’s good years are far far behind them.

Nice experience so far and whenever I had a problem the manager helped me. The only thing bothering me is the garbage overflow.

We lived in 9500 for 1 year. We were told when we moved in in March 2017 that the balcony would be available to us at some stage during the Summer. We were skeptical, but we thought we would get it at least for Fall. 1 year later and it was still unavailable! Then we were informed that our rent was going up! This place is not cheap and to say we were annoyed was putting it mildly. We complained on multiple occasions but nothing ever came from it. We were told at one stage that we may get some reimbursement but nothing.we had other neighbors that moved in shortly after us and had their balconies within a few months (for Summer). They decided to prioritize some sides of the building over others, why they decided to do this is beyond me. Of course we were not informed of this when we chose the unit.

I frequently work from home and the construction is extremely invasive. Often there were drills, jackhammers, etc.going in multiple units around us, Forget about taking conference calls, etc. There is a lack of privacy with workers constantly coming and going. And as other reviewers have already mentioned there is a pest problem here. We had silverfish in our suite and very frequently had rats and mice cross our path on the grounds. They are quite brazen to the point it is almost possible to pet them! We even gave one a name - Rob the rat.

I think that given the state of the Vancouver property market it is easy for companies to take advantage or offer sub-par accommodation. We paid for an apartment on the 10th floor with a view and a large balcony and we did not get either. The windows outside were filthy so we kept the curtains pulled along with privacy requirements due to the builders going up and down the outside. We also had one or two nasty experiences with inappropriate comments from the builders working on the exterior of the building. The elevators broke down on a few occasions and the finishing quality of the units is also poor.

In short I would strongly recommend that you do not rent here.