Tenant Reviews for 5214 S WOODLAWN AVE

Do not rent here. Rent is expensive for a small box. Outdated appliances and thin walls. U can hear your neighbors conversations. Laundry is too expensive and always breaking down. Mgmt changes often and each one is unprofessional and terrible at their job. They are rarely in the office. && don't even offer solutions to residents' complaints.

We moved in here around two years ago and they moved us into a room that wasn't fixed up. There was a hole in the wall amongst other maintenance issues. The fridge and freezer constantly turned on and off and the toilet was leaking. The window blinds were broken and they never repainted our room like they said they would. The staff is very nice but never got around to fixing anything in our room. Good location with plenty of parks, restaurants and a great community theater.

DO NOT RENT HERE! I lived in this building for about four years in two different apartments on two separate floors and had mouse problems in both apartments. They have exterminators visit each apartment every month and yet, I still had mice. A few neighbors of mine also said they had mice as well. They also have problems with installing a proper lock for the outside door. On various ocassions, it took me about ten minutes to get inside. I'm glad I wasnt being chased! Also, the front office had major turnover. They had about six different people during my four years and most of them are unfriendly and rude. This is a decent neighborhood especially if you're a student at univ of chgo so if you must live in this neighborhood, don't bother with this building unless you like mice, cracks all in your apartment, and rude leasing managers.

The Manager is never in the office and almost never passes on work requests to maintanence. So to get something like say your HEAT fixed you have to hope to catch the engineer in the hall. There are rampant mice problems and we never get notices when the exterminator is coming to our apartments. One day they knocked and I was in the SHOWER! The halls are dirty and this building in LOUD. My lease is up in a month and I am getting the HELL out!

I rented here at Woodlawn around August of last year. All I have to say is I love my apartment. I have a one bedroom with a view of the park across the street. Everything is so convenenint and within walking distance. The Property Manager Sheila is great at getting all my needs met within the apartment and she is very helpful and gets everything done witin a timely manner. The maintenence staff is good and knowledgable. The only issue I have is parking is not available on the street as often as I would like. Other than that I love taking strolls through the park and just walking around the neighborhood. The neighbors and the community are ver friendly and I would highly recommend living here if you're looking for a nice affordable place to stay in Hyde Park.

I am a current tenant and cannot wait for my lease to be up. It's my own fault that I am here, as I waited only a few days before I needed to move to find a new place, and this building was the only one with available units. Now I know why! The office manager has changed 3 times in the 10 months I have been here, and they get ruder and more incompetent each time. They act as if it is an inconvienence anytime you go in or call for any reason. My name was never put in the buzz box outside (which is the kind that calls your phone, not a direct buzzer to the apartment) when I moved in, and long story short after months of calls to the office to resolve the issue, my name is still not in there to this day. I will say though that the maitenence staff is extremely nice and helpful with whatever they can do. I am in one of the corner units, which are the largest in the building, but at a cost of almost $1000/month. The rest are extremely small and equally overpriced. The heating is horrible. For the first month or two the radiators were on, they were extremely loud and would wake me up multiple times every night. Once they started to quiet down, the heat would only come on once or twice a day (no matter what the temperature is outside) and it has been that way ever since. My apartment is almost always freezing. The front door doesn't always completely shut, the washers/dryers break frequently and are expensive (and water leaks onto the floor every single time the washer is used), and the walls/floors/doors are extremely thin. I can hear full conversations of the people above me (and everytime they have sex). The floors constantly squeak. They have exterminators come very frequently (but with little to show for it...there are tons of bugs!) and they can enter your apartment without you there. I would never recommend this building to anyone.

Sadly, I lived here for a while out of laziness - moving is expensive and a lot of work. So, I put up with the dirty carpet, noisy neighbors, MICE (on several occasions) and even insects. The laundry room was frequently an issue because the washer/dryer failed often. The rent raises considerably and the staff changes often (and it is hit or miss whether or not they're good to work with). The front door didn't always latch properly and my concerns were not addressed, which made the building feel somewhat unsafe. In addition, I had a package stolen here upon its delivery. There are many other places in Hyde Park where you can have a safer, cleaner, friendlier environment ---- many times for less than the rent they charge. Steer clear.

The apartments are small unless you rent one of the corner 1BR units for a premium price. Despite their monthly routine extermination visits, the building is still infested with mice. The first day when my lease started, when I went to collect my keys and move in, I found I could not, because they were "shampooing the carpets." I had to delay my move, and when I did so, I found the carpets were filthy and saturated with dust and dirt! It took me several vacuuming cycles to finally clean it up. I lived on the top floor of the building, and woke up one fall morning (3am) to water dripping on my face from the ceiling! It was storming outside and a leak had formed and cracked into my bedroom. It took them over a month to get to repairing the problem on the roof and to fix the damage to my apartment. I got no compensation for any of the inconveniences and had to move my bed into the middle of the room so the roof water wouldn't drip onto me. Annually, when renewing your lease, they try to raise the rent more than 6%! I called management in attempt to negotiate, but my calls always got diverted and I was never able to speak with any representative. When I finally decided not to renew, they tried to bully me into paying a higher rent rate for the remainder of my lease, saying that this was what I had signed at. The last month of my lease they had contractors constantly coming and going making "improvements" to the apartment. I wonder why they hadn't done it before my move in date and why I got stuck with the butt end of the deal. Oh, and the heating is great... when it works. Laundry room downstairs, two washers and dryers, but often times one of each is malfunctioning, and loads tend to run on the pricier end ($1.60 each). I would not recommend living here, as there are more welcoming and spacious and easily more affordable places to live nearby.

So my husband and I moved here from 320 miles away and the pictures looked good online....never judge by pictures. Definitely not what we thought. We've had soooo many problems since we moved in. When we got here, no one was even here to give us our keys from moving 320 miles!!! We FINALLY got in and there was gas leaking and the fridge was disgusting. There are plenty of bugs to go around and the place is incredibly small. 3 months into our stay we had a wall full of mold!! Our ceiling leaked and it took them 3 weeks to fix it and there's mold in the bathroom windowsill. This place is NOT worth it. The laundry room is sick too, there's some sort of something leaking up from under the tiles. Yeah, don't live here, I've saved you some time.

Units are so small you can barely turn around, but okay if you're accustomed to a small space and a neat person. The problem is the noise--you can hear practically everything--sex in the a.m., midnight, music whenever someone deems they want to hear it and when YOU DON'T. They need to re-renovate the building and fix the walls so the sound attenuation is much better! I hated it! :)