Peeling paint, a leaky lobby ceiling, and “hair-raising” cooking smells: residents of U of T’s Student Family Housing buildings are complaining about the environment and upkeep of their apartment towers.

The buildings, at 30 and 35 Charles St. W., are for students with a spouse or children. The rent is low, from $527 per month for a bachelor apartment, to $863 per month for a two-bedroom. But some tenants say the building’s management is not maintaining the apartments as well as they should.

“It looks pretty ugly,” said resident Daniela Rosu, describing the building’s common areas.

Rosu, a PhD student in Computer Science, moved into the building in October. She said the worst feature of her building is its “unbearable” ventilation. Cooking smells from each apartment linger in the hallways and seep into adjoining apartments, irritating the residents.

Rosu said the building’s management told her there was nothing they could do about the problem.

Rosu said the building’s managers, Greenwin Property Management, respond promptly to requests for maintenance, but sometimes do substandard maintenance work. A poorly-sanded door gave her splinters in her hand, she said.

Rosu also had complaints about her apartment’s flaking ceiling paint. “It’s falling off in my food,” she said. “It’s O.K. if I eat this stuff?” she asked sarcastically.

She said the building’s managers told her they don’t paint ceilings.

Rosu also said her apartment’s heating was not functioning properly on the coldest winter nights, dropping the temperature to 18 degrees.

When she complained to management, Rosu said they told her to buy an electric heater. But Rosu added the problem seems to have been fixed.

The building’s hallway paint is peeling and chipping, with unpainted patches on many floors.

Rosu said her building, 35 Charles St., will be repainted shortly. 30 Charles was repainted recently.

“The main concern is incidents around temperature or cleanliness,” said Kendra Coulter. Coulter, the vice-president internal at the Graduate Students’ Union, said she had received many complaints about Student Family Housing.

She blamed a “less than effective mechanism for residents—students and their families—to express their concerns and have their concerns addressed,” for the building’s problems.

“There doesn’t seem to be a particularly active tenant association,” she added—although posters in the buildings advertise social events and information sessions hosted by Student Affairs or the tenants’ association.

Coulter also put some blame on the university: “There needs to be better management…. The university has a responsibility to facilitate that process.”

Currently, Coulter said, the waiting list to get into the Student Family Housing buildings is “about 14 months.”

She said letting students know their position in the waiting list would help prospective tenants make decisions: “Students get this time, but they would like numbers to let them know how many students are ahead of them.”

Coulter said the buildings are important to the university community, especially with Toronto’s high rents.

“The university should be proud of housing family students, and we need to make sure that students are happy.”