Villa Marie 1 - DMS

Worst experience I had in renting. I’ve lived at this build for over 8 year since it was own by Homestead. Homestead I thought was bad because they would take 2-3 month before they fix anything in my apartment but let me tell you, these new guy dms property never show up. Everything will stay broken. The building is also full of pest. Cockroaches, bedbugs and rodents. One time I catch 30 mice in my apartment until I was able to find where they are coming in. They don’t clean the building. The underground parking lot is sink and dirty. There is also someone in the build who walk around and steal your package and mails. Stay away from they place because it’s that bad.

I lived at 43 Forest Ave for 2.5 yrs btw 2019-22. The place is generally okay if you intend to stay there for a short-medium term, but its not the kind of place you would like to call dream home.
1. Pest/ Roaches/ Bed Bugs - Yes they all exist. Nevertheless during my time there, I have seen the building management make some decent and unsuccessful effort to get rid of these through professional pest control services. Through basic common sense you can keep bed bug in control, like using diatomaceous earth and mattress encasement. Rats were a big-time issue for me, which was never addressed during our stay there (we always had to properly keep our foodstuff covered).
2. Apartment Maintenance - For minor fixes, I found that they did send someone to look into it after some time.
3. School - The nearest English school is Central Public (not Queen Victoria), which is a massive 10-15 mins walk (one way), and certainly not the kind of thing you would enjoy doing twice on a daily basis.
4. Community services - The place is known for its hospital and allied medical services. For social activities (like gym, library), you would need to go to Jackson square.
5. Demographic - Mostly senior citizen live there. You would also get to see a lot of Indian students studying at Mohawk college, and few medical students from McMaster. Otherwise it is a decent mix of working class couples, and families from all ethnic backgrounds. Generally people living there are okay, and will occasionally exchange greetings with you in the elevator. The building is not a preferred location for Pakistanis, nor for educated professional immigrants.
6. Shopping - The nearest supermarket is in Jackson square, for Foodbasics, No Frill and Walmart you would need to drive/ take a bus.
7. View - If you lucky enough to get a road-facing apartment then you would get to enjoy a good view.
8. Location - Just next door to the Hamilton GO station, which makes it attractive if you need to commute to Toronto by public transport.

Oh my god where do I start. We've only been in this building for two months. We moved from out of province and the only place that approved us was here. I figured that for $1700 a month for a one bedroom it should be ok, I was wrong. A month after moving in our entire apartment flooded. A radiator in a unit above us blew and flooded every unit beneath, water was pouring from outlets, light switches, the ceiling, etc.property management refused ANY compensation, we missed work, had to stay in a hotel for the night and had property damaged. They won't even reimburse for the hydro used for the 4 industrial fans and dehumidifier they placed in here, or the laundry that had to be done. They actually blamed the flooding on the tenant, it's summer, why would a radiator blow? We couldn't even do the laundry because they've shut down the laundry room. It was supposed to be available 3 days ago but upon looking, there isn't even drywall put up after 3 weeks.
The damage in the actual unit from water is extensive, the wall is buckling, cabinets are coming away from the wall. The leasing agent (the only employee with half a brain) deemed it uninhabitable yet, no one has been in to check on it in 3 weeks.
The apartment was supposed to be a newly renovated one but the counter tops are bubbling, mudding is super sloppy as well, cabinets look second hand.
It's also about a million degrees in the whole building, good luck getting a good nights sleep, you can barely breathe. We've had a large portable a/c unit running and it barely makes a difference.
I've heard from other tenants that the mouse problem in this building is out of control and I've personally found cockroaches in my unit.
Management is also bullying the lower paying tenants by refusing maintenance in their units. Just so they can get them out and rent at a much higher rate.
Do not rent here. DMS are absolute slumlords and do not care about anything but money.

DMS is not a lot different from Q Residential: Lots of enthusiasm at first, then you start noticing a different person is in the Office every time you go (high staff turnover). Then the emails they don't want to deal with simply get ignored. Phone calls go to the answering machine, and it says "Mailbox full".

The building itself seems to be under constant renovation, with contractors tying up elevators all day long. But nothing seems to ever actually get done - the ceiling in the main hallway for P1 has been gone for a year now, light fixtures hanging by wires etc - DMS has shown they are no hurry to fix it, despite it looking terrible with punched holes showing pipes and wires. Water shutoffs have been at least once per week lately, and now they are threatening hydro interruptions for this work that never ends. The underground parking lot seems to be always wet and frequently smells of raw sewage.

The stairwells have been given over to immigrant teens who smoke weed openly and damage the railings - "call the police" say DMS staff; same for homeless people found asleep in the stairwells. Dried urine on the stairs seems to take weeks to get cleaned up. The DMS staff make more of an attempt to keep the more visible common areas clean, but the tenants are the kind that leave dog (?) feces in the elevator and Lobby floor and make messes in the laundry room every single day. Thumping music, tenants who don't go to bed until 4am, and spit-covered elevator buttons are everyday occurrences.

If you are a regular person with a job, perhaps working at St Joe's - don't consider any of the four Villa Marie buildings on this block. All are overrun with undesirable tenants who will not be leaving any time soon due to spiking rents. The repairs seem unending, and balcony drilling/reconstruction is on the distant horizon. The Oakland Square buildings down the street are nicer, as are any of the highrises in Durand. Save yourself future heartbreak and don't even look at these buildings.

I lived here for over three years, when it was owned by Homestead and later by Q Residential.

I was paying $800/month plus hydro for a one bedroom apartment in what I would describe as third world conditions. During this time, I was sprayed for bed bugs between 16 and 20 times, and it DID NOTHING. In the last year I was there, I chose to self-treat, which eliminated the issue for the remainder of the time I lived there. There were constant issues with roaches that were unresolved by management and pest control. Only when I self-treated, it mitigated the problem. Funny enough, after the roaches and bed bugs left, the mice moved in.

Over the three years, there were frequent power and hot water outages. At some particularly bad times, they would occur 1-3 times a month. I used to have to boil water on my stove in order to shower sometimes in the winter. The elevators broke almost weekly, which was not a huge issue for me, but there are many seniors and people with disabilities living there.

The building security was atrocious. The locks on the stairwell doors were broken, and I called multiple times to management about this, but they did nothing. This meant that many people propped open the doors so they would be able to get back in. There were very often homeless people loitering in the building, and numerous times I found evidence of IV drug use in the stairwells. I had to call the police one night because a homeless man overdosed right outside my door after about 10 minutes of screaming and pounding on the walls. EMTs and police had to escort him out on a stretcher.

I don't actually know what the management does, to be honest. The turnover was so high, there was a different manager sometimes every 3 weeks. The state of the premises was deplorable (please see attached photos!), so clearly they weren't spending their time cleaning. I don't know how any company could justify charging people to live there.

The companies that owned these buildings and allowed this to happen disgust me. CHILDREN, THE ELDERLY, REFUGEES, AND PEOPLE WITH MENTAL ILLNESS AND PERMANENT DISABILITIES LIVE THERE. THEY DESERVE BETTER.

All of these photos were taken the week before I moved out.

Great location! A couple of blocks from the Go transit station and 1 block from John Street or James Street for easy HSR bus service. Minutes walk from Downtown area, Jackson Square, Locke Street area, multiple small parks and a couple large parkspublic tennisbasketballrunning track and dog parks. Right around the corner from the Augusta Street bar area (but far enough there's little to no sound). It really is a fantastic location, especially if you're without a vehicle.

It is an older building and is fairly worn down at this point. Since I moved in about 10 years go there have been numerous management companies and the building was kind of in a state of limbo the last couple of years but it seems the current company is doing a lot of work upgrading and modernizing the building so I have no complaints about the building maintenance right now except to say that in-suite maintenance is SLOW - I have 3 outstanding maintenance requests from a month ago now but they aren't urgent (taps leak x3, balcony screening needs replacement) so it's an annoyance but not crucial.

As for bugs and pests, I'm not going to lie, there have been issues in the past with mice, roaches and yes, even bed bugs, however, the most recent management company did a full whole building-all suites-thorough clean/treatment and since then (since end of February to now) I haven't seen a single bed bug or roach ANYWHERE in the building, it's lovely. I do occasionally see a dead mouse in-suite (I have 3 cats so I don't get to see them alive) and sometimes I can hear what I assume are mice scurrying about behind the walls and in the underground parking area a couple months ago I saw a HUGE rat hanging out in the ceiling, however, I do accept that at the time of seeing the rat, they were doing extensive repairs in the parking garage so he could have entered from outside.

They are redoing all the suites as people move out so if you're thinking of moving in, you should get a newly renovated suite. They new suites look very nice. From what I can tell, it's not just paint/new flooring, they appear to be redoing everything (complete reno) and they are beautiful and appear quite nice quality. I have an old suite and it's showing its age honestly but I can't complain for the price I am paying.

Underground parking is available and it's nice to not have to clean the car off in the winter.

The other thing that the new management company has done is set up an online portal to get all messages, check on payments, maintenance requests etc. I really like this and it makes it very easy to get in contact with the building supervisors.

As I mentioned above, the new company is doing a ton of renovations to the entire building. We received a booklet explaining they are redoing the elevators, balconies, water system, parking garages etc. (basically the entire building) so right now there is a lot of construction noise and garbage about but there isn't much that can be done about that.

The best thing about the building is the location for sure but in a year or a couple years once all the renovations are complete, I really think the building will be quite posh and I like the new management company and feel they are attentive but I do wish they were a bit quicker with the in-suite repair requests.

The only other odd issue that I didn't have with the previous maintenance companies is that I have (on a few separate occasions now) received a 24-hour notice for maintenance to come in and fix various repairs, and so I take the time to prepare the suite for their arrival (make sure cats/stuff are out of the way etc.) but then no one actually shows up. This most recently happened to me last week (according to the paper they were going to fix my balcony screen). I'm not sure what's going on there and it's very minor but it's just an odd thing I've noticed.

Mice roaches and bedbugs.also broken promises of maintenance actually happening. Q Residential and DMS/Starlight are equally bad.

The worst place and employees are the worst.
I haven't refunded my parking lot key deposit for a half year. They always saying “I will call you back” and never replied

New management has done wonders to fix the mistakes and neglect of the homestead owners. Finally have caring landlords.

Am not recommended this new company Villa Marie Apartment poor service lack careless rentals, whole building bed bugs no fixing waters no hot water poor quality rental office

Worst place ever I advise people looking for apartments to stay as far away from this place as physically possible. Otherwise you might get bitten by the roaches fleas and mice that reside there. Also if you think the building managers or staff members will care about the roaches and other animals there think again. You will find roaches in your cupboards, food, sink toilet, and yes even in your bed from time to time. I am even getting itchy just thinking about this place. Please I wouldn't wish this place on my worst enemy. Building managers are also extremely rude and unprofessional.

This building is stinky. Cock roaches and mices everywhere plus bedbug. It doesn't even deserve 1 star. The facilities is old and the landlord doesn't bother to fix them. Staff is unhelpful. Any work order will take them weeks or months to fix. And sometime they say they can't fix it. Winter time is terrible. Temperature is higher than 20 degree. Called the office and they said because the heater was too old.anyways, find a better place!