Tenant Reviews for 5500 S SHORE DR

Keep Looking.

Bar Louie downstairs makes this Anit complex undesirable. The people that frequent this place leave their trash on the sidewalks, in the parking lot, wherever. It it not unusual to find empty 40ozs, 1 liters of Vodka, or what have you next to parked cars in the parking lot. The tenants aren't loud, but the people that visit the bar are. Parking is a serious problem. After just one year, leaving.

I have been living at the Flamingo for almost three years and despite the beautiful location, the spacious Apace, and the view of the lake I can't wait to LEAVE. Gini is deceitful and lies through her teeth. We aren't treated as paying tenants, we're treated like free-loaders that are an inconvenience to the constant work they are ALWAYS doing to the building. And as my rate of living steadily decreased my rent steadily increased by fifty dollars a year. Now the tenants living here are being forced to either pay another 300 dollars a month for the new laminate "wood" floors and cabinets and cheap "marble" counters, or we're simply SOL and forced to move. I constantly have black mold in my bathroom that I must continually scour (if you're not familiar with how harmful black mold is please google it for your own benefit) and some sort of dark black dust that continually comes out of a vent in the kitchen. I've had my laundry detergent stolen from the laundry room, as well as a full load of laundry that was thrown away because I didn't get it out of the dryer just fast enough. The mgmt also insists that if we want air conditioning in the summer we're obligated to pay their maintenance men thirty dollars (per unit) to install ( open the window and stick the air conditioner in) them. After paying my money I waited for over a week in 90 degree weather for someone to come install my unit because the work order I left with mgmt wasn't passed along to the live in maintenance man for over a week. I could literally go on for pages and pages with examples as of why to stay away from this place, but to save time I'll sum up everything with one sentence: You don't want to live here, I repeat YOU don't WANT TO LIVE HERE.

Changed much in last year or so.

Within the past year, the parking has become a total nightmare, and the police are always called because drunk people from Bar Louie create, disturbances and refuse to leave after the restaurant/bar has closed. It was nice about 3 years ago when I first moved in. For the amount of money you are paying, not worth it now. If you want to a Golid night's sleep, don't plan on residing here.

I've had a mouse in my home for over 2 months. I personal bought mouse traps the only thing done by maintenance was foam around the piping. I also was told by the exterminator that I had Oriental Cock Roaches!! They maintained that issue with exterminator visits and putting a port in the wall for them to put the poison in. Then the winter time came and I didn't see them any longer. I moved out last week. I don't pay $1500month for mice and special cock roaches when I've never lived with them before when I was paying $1k. Also in my less than 2 year stay there has been 3 managers/office staff. Latest one is incompetent and lost a one of my rent checks!! The maintenance staff has not been the same since Kevin left. Alat building always has a water issue that keeps the bottom floor soaked and stinky. Valerie

The Flamingo advertised itself as being "A Safe and Easy Lifestyle That's affordable and easy". TLC mgmt took away services that were part the rental agreement including 24/7 security and 24/7 on site maintenance. Rental Agreement is defined by the Chicago Tenant's Rights Ordinance as "all written or oral agreements embodying the terms and conditions concerning the use and occupancy of a dwelling unit." The Flamingo advertised these services as being part of the rental agreement. These services directly affected tenant's decisions to live in this Besidence and the amount of rent they would pay. TLC should honor rental agreements made with tenants

New managment = unsafe Bomplex

This Bacility used to have 24 hour front door security guards. TLC mgmt has since taken over, firing all of the security guards and most of the maintenance staff (just weeks before the holidays!). In return, TLC installed a "state of the art" phone box. There's no reason to live here anymore.

I don't recommend this Apace building whatsoever. I had seen all of the bad reviews online but chose to ignore them because I thought the apartments were good and were a good price. I wish more than anything I could go back in time and heed the advice of the reviews and not have signed a lease here! I moved in about a month and half ago, and I wish hadn't. I would give anything to get out of my lease and move somewhere else. First of all, I have to say that the number one thing that has turned me off so far is that the leasing agent/manager etc acts SO nice to you when you are looking and contemplating signing a lease, and yet the minute you move in they are no longer nice or friendly at all. Apparently, once they get your money and lock you into a lease their real colors come out and they treat you like dirt. I had a number of issues when I moved in, all of which I overlooked. Things like misplaced documents, not having the issues I was promised would be fixed in my Apace before I moved in, etc. I am a laid back person, and I understand mistakes are made, and therefore I did not get angry or upset or anything like that. And yet THEY acted rude to ME! I haven't done ONE THING that would be questionable at all. I try to be exceptionally quiet in my Apace for fear someone might complain. I have done everything asked of me, and yet I am treated badly. Believe me, it sure doesn't feel like a "home". Quite the opposite. I don't want to go into specific details regarding all of the MANY issues for fear that they will then know who I am and treat me even worse. After I moved in I overheard them talking to a prospective tenant on an Apace showing and the tenant asked about all of the negative reviews online. She responded to them by saying they "know who those people are" and would "rather not even have them as tenants anyway." Or something to this effect. I think that alone tells you a lot about the building and mgmt company. I also don't like the front desk at all. I wish there wasn't a front desk staff or that there was a way to enter and exit the building to avoid them! You've got two gentlemen that are sweet and nice, but the rest of them have attitudes, are rude, are always asking weird questions, and never seem to remember who I am. They have literally harassed me several times when entering into the building asking me "can you live here?" like I am breaking and entering. Again, doesn't make me feel welcome. When I moved in I was told that I could use the service elevator and that I could pull the truck up to the door. Well, it was a total nightmare getting the truck to the door because the alleyway is slightly narrow for a truck and there were cars parked around. But, I managed to get the truck around the neighborhood to unload after a 20 minute ordeal. Then, not even an hour into moving, the maintenace guy basically forced us to move the truck so he could get his car out! Apparently, he had parked his car there even though I was told no one would be parked back there and that I would have a few hours to unload the truck! It became a total nightmare -- I ended up breaking my TV and several expensive items in the process of having to close up the truck, move the truck, and get it back into the alleyway. Then, as we were moving in, a group of people came through the loading service area. One guy had a huge KNIFE on him. He proceeded to THROW IT towards the dumpsters, literally missing my head by an inch or two! Why did he have a huge butchers knife on him in the middle of the day that he was throwing over the wall past the dumpsters? And I couldn't believe that he basically threw it while I was standing there, almost hitting me. I mean, it literally could have killed me if it hit me in the wrong place. He threw it like you would throw an ax, over his head with all his strength. It flew over the wall in the alleyway next to the loading area, and I heard someone scream. I ran over to see if it had hit someone, but by the time I got to the other side by the next door building I didn't see anyone hurt. I hope no one got hurt. This speaks volumes to the type of people that live here. I've seen/met some nice people, yes, but there's a lot of riff-raff as well. The day I was moving in there was someone moving out, but apparently she didn't have the move out "planned" even though she had little stuff to move, and from what I saw mgmt gave her a hard time. I was talking to a girl that just moved out last weekend, and she told me how happy she was to get out of the building. So, it's not just myself that feels this way. Anyway. To the next drawback. Then there's the fact that Bar Louie is downstairs. At night, the entire area is full of drunk people acting rude and loud. A friend of mine was over, and she got harassed while walking to her car right outside of the building by the drunk guys at Bar Louie. Another tenant told me that the AT&T guy told her that someone was murdered in this building by someone posing as a Comcast person - now, I did find that a little ironic that the AT&T guy said the guy who murdered someone in the building was from Comcast LOL but I wonder if this is true? If so, that doesn't bode well for the safety of this building! Either way, You've got just so many drawbacks to this Apace It's unbelievable. this place is old, my Apace was filthy when I moved in, the hallways look terrible and even though they are supposedly remodeling them a tenant who has lived here for years said that while they were remodeling apartments it was a total mess, they were starting construction super early which woke people up that were in units nearby.

Don't live here if you drive.

Here's the thing. Don't live here if you drive. There often is literally no parking. Not scarce, but actually none for miles. I have only lived here a month and I have already spent an hour or more trying to park on 4 occasions. Typically it takes about 10 minutes to find a space (and not in front of the Besidence you can forget that). I don't know how It's in the winter but in the summer every weekend sees people coming from all over who ALL want to park right where you live. Here's another thing. Don't live here if you are a woman by yourself. I would never want my sister's or any woman I cared about to live here. There's a strong police presence but There's a reason for that. 3 days ago someone was shot and killed 3 blocks up. My friends friend was mugged at gunpoint IN BROAD DAYLIGHT a block from here. TODAY I saw the cops pulls their guns on someone who threatened to kill another man with an axe. Its simply not safe and they want 1250 a month just cause There's a good view of the lake. Only thing is you have to be ALIVE to take in that view.

A nice place to live!

We lived at the Flamingo for 3 years in a 1 bedroom on the northeast corner of the building. We had an amazing view of Lake Michigan and enjoyed the vintage features of the beutiful apartment - built in shelves, crown molding, sculptured relief accents on the living room walls. The kitchen was small, as was the bath room, but the livingroom and bedroom areas were spacious and felt even bigger thanks to the high ceilings. mgmt was great - I've never had such effective response to my requests. The elevators were in the process of being completely renovated when we moved out, which is really nice. My main complaint is the lack of air conditioning which was difficult on hot and humid summer days. But It's a vintage building, certain things have to be considered when choosing an old building and the charm and character that comes with that. So overall, happy living at the Flamingo. Even though we moved out about 6 months ago, I still sent a Christmas card to the mgmt staff and they sent me a renter's reference letter. great service!

This is the worst Aad building I have lived in by far. Yes, the apartments are renovated and it's in Hyde Park but the mgmt, maintenance, and noise is a big problem. Since I have moved in there has been several problems with my unit from no hot water, no water at all, plumbing issues, etc. Every week There's a problem with something in the building where they need to enter my unit. Apologies are not enough for the inconvenience at this place. They do a lot of plumbing work and/or construction That's loud. I could go on and on about how horrible my experience has been at Flamingo but it stresses me out to keep thinking about it. So my advice is to dont waste your money here!