Tenant Reviews for 14 W ELM ST

I loved living there because of the location and the price. I got one month free and only paid $700 first year and $730 last year for my studio. The elevator stopped once in a while and toilet stopped working occasionally during the winters, but they took care of the maintenance soon enough.

Was given a letter of eviction from SAM and told we were evicted so we moved out and then were contacted by a lawyer and charged SEVERAL THOUSAND DOLLARS for the remainder of our lease. SCAM, I guarantee they had someone living in the apartment we had to pay for and were double dipping! Management is an ABSOLUTE nightmare. They waited so long to sue us that we no longer had the eviction letter... When having problem with the actual building management we tried contacting the upper management for over two months with no response and when we actually got on the line with someone we were told they would call us back and they never did! Never received packages, they would be sitting on the desk but no their problem it s the doorman (who was awesome when we lived in the building). Mold in the walls and allergy problems, broken elevator ALL the time, drunk people stumbling in and pissing in the stairwells.

I have lived here for a year, and will probably renew my lease soon because I like the area and don't want to physically go through the move. I have had several problems with my apartment and the building, and I have paid attention to the way the management handles tenant issues. Honestly, I do not think the problem is the Property Management as much as it is the Management office in the suburbs. This building is extremely old and outdated, there are many issues with the heating, air conditioning, and plumbing that will continue to surface until the owners decide to renovate and actually make things better and up to standards for the area. The Property Manager is rude to the tenants and treats them as if the problem is THEIR fault, because he probably can't do much about it. They are very quick to overcharge you for anything they can to make a quick buck, and dont' give you anything in return. The trash chute is always backed up and smells up the floors. It is extemely loud if your window faces the alley, since it is a passageway between popular bars. You will hear garbage trucks all the time, and drunk people all hours of the night. The fitness room is a joke. Laundry is okay, but a couple of the dryers have never worked since I've lived here. The elevators have problems constantly, and the building maintenance guy lives about an hour and a half away - so if there is an emergency, there is no one to take care of it. The plumbing backs up too, and the water pressure isn't consistent. It is FREEZING in the winter because the radiators are so ancient, and they will try to charge you $200 to put in an air conditioner that was made in 1975 that will run your energy bill up and make you blow breakers when you flip another light on that is connected to the socket. Not to mention, the "Door Man" is extremely unprofessional and will keep track of your business, telling anyone who asks who visits you and your routine. Before I moved here I read all of the bad reviews and thought to myself "How bad could it be? I will be fine....I won't have any problems" and sure enough...I have. Sewage backed up and overlflowed out of my kitchen sink on and off for 3 weeks and I COULD NOT get them to fix it for 2 weeks. I had about $300 in damaged items from the water damage and they still will not even address the issue of crediting my rent for what I went through. You can't even get anyone to pick up the phone at the management office or call you back. There is no accountability for any of the problems with this place. Most of the tenants are young and the building management preys on that, allowing many violations to go by and poor customer service because they think its okay to screw us over.

Nothing works, Management is poor, the list goes on, YOU NEED TO READ...It is literally an adventure to try and take a shower, if you can even get hot water to begin with be careful because during your shower the water will go from normal to beyond scolding hot whenever it feels like it...Comcast couldn't get my internet in the room to work...My phone line for the 1st month was connected to another line in the building, so evertime my phone rang it was for someone else in the building...For the first several months my heater was broken AND THEY WOULD NOT FIX IT until after I had to ask them six times throughout the course of weeks (that was awful)...You can hear your neighbors and people down the hall having sex(So no little kids)...yes, its noisy outside from bars and fire-trucks, but that's city life...The apartment building leaks form every angle, the piping under both my sinks, the basement is always flooded, Its even had serious leaks in the lobby muiliple times and in the entrance way where everyone had to get wet as they walked in or out underneath the water coming from the ceiling (for weeks)...Then there is the AC I was supposed to get for free, it is now june 5th 2008 and they said I MIGHT be getting it tomorrow. Today is 90 degrees and I have had to endure hot temperatures for at LEAST 2 weeks. On top of that I have asked every week when we are able to get the AC and they told me each week that it would be the following week. ADDITIONALLY, when I signed up to get one they tried to charge me for it when my lease says its free. I asked management "My AC is free right?" and he replied "Why would it be free"...I just thought that was really rude...Then there is the door man, Im not sure exactly what he does and hes only here at night for a few hours........There is more to complain about 14 w elm but on the bright side I think my apartment is good looking and it is in a really good location

I've read all of the other reviews and it seems like they were all written by angry people right after something bad happened. I've had a fairly pleasant stay here and while it's probably one of the shabbier and less well-maintained buildings in the area, it's also one of the most spacious and cheapest. Pros: - Spacious. I took the floor plans for the apartments to an apartment-finder familiar with the area and she looked at them for a while and said "wow...these are huge." - Cheap. Water and heat are included in the rents, which are among the lowest if not THE lowest in the neighborhood. - Friendly staff. Sam and Chris (office), Mike (doorman), and Victor (maintenance) are always polite, helpful, and responsive. The one problem I ever had was when I accidentally poured some hamburger grease down the sink and that was fixed the morning after I put in the work order. I did have some backflow once (my sink started shitting bubbles from someone else's dishwasher) but that fixed itself and has never happened again. Cons: - Objectively, the accommodations are pretty shabby: -- Hardwoods floors are decent but old and badly scratched up. -- Kitchen is cramped - single-well sink, no space for a dish rack to drain into the sink, barely enough room for the oven to open. -- Water pressure is inconsistent in shower. Most of the time it's great, but sometimes it's really frustrating to stand there under a trickle. -- Bathroom is mold and mildew prone and needs to be cleaned often. -- Incredibly noisy. This is my biggest complaint. There's a bar downstairs and clubs on the same block so there is noticeable loud music Thursday through Saturday and some weeknights as well. Also, noise travels easily through the walls and I frequently hear the dysfunctional couple upstairs yelling at each other and the laughter from the loud parties next door. A lot of cons that are definitely annoying, but the space and the price are so great that overall I'm still pretty happy.

My experience with the maintenance has been great. Things are fixed promptly and correctly the first time. The old doorman was great too and helpful with packages and any misc. problems that might have come up. There’s a new doorman now, but he’s too new for me to form a good opinion (not to mention I rarely see him). The apartment really is in an absolutely amazing location. Anything worthwhile to do in Chicago is within walking distance or accessible via the Red Line stop not two blocks away. Newer thing they set up recently that has been real helpful is a website to setup automated rent payments and maintenance requests (although most other apartment complexes I’ve been in have had this kind of thing for years).<br><br>Everything else about the apartment is just horrible: the absolute worst place I have ever lived in my life.<br><br>Parking is just a nightmare and/or expensive. If you have a friend coming up from out of town, don’t even think of having him/her try driving unless they want to pay an arm and leg to park. I got lucky and found some parking for about $180 a month, but the going average I found was about $200 to $300 a month. This apartment complex has no parking available to its residents. My parking spot is in another apartment complex’s garage about three blocks away.<br><br>The heating and air-conditioning is just ridiculous. You have to pay the management to get barely functioning air-conditioning units. If you get your own, you have to still pay the management to allow you to put it in your window. There is no central air. The heating is done via radiators which get extremely hot during the winter. It’s been so hot that I’ve actually had to open the windows during the winter just to cool the apartment down since there is no way to turn down the heat.<br><br>The elevators are barely functioning. I’ve actually been in the elevator going down to do my laundry in the basement stop on the first floor and then literally drop to the basement. During the spring through early fall, the elevators break at least twice a week. Combined with the people continuously moving in or out, it just makes getting in and out of your apartment a nightmare. Then again walking up and down seven floors to my apartment is good exercise I suppose. I’d feel sorry for the people on the 17th floor. Without question, the elevators are very dangerous.<br><br>The management is the most unhelpful set of people I have ever experienced in all of my years living on my own. Just getting a package is like going for a root canal. They’ll tell you that they can’t give you your package when you get home from work at 5:30 PM and to wait for the doorman who gets there at six because they don’t want to be bothered from their work (if I told one of my coworkers to take their problem somewhere else ‘cause I was too busy, I’d get fired). If the doorman actually shows up, he’ll tell you to come back after an hour after he does his walkthrough. The old doorman was a great guy as said previously, but I never see this new guy.<br><br>For the price I’m paying for this place, it’s just not acceptable. I’d go find another place one or two blocks away.

When I first moved in, I thought the apartment was pretty great; great location, pretty decent price, nice place. Then I started to have a lot of problems with the management. The heat was never on in the winter in our apartment. We actually had to go down twice to get them to turn it on. The noise isn't too bad at night from the clubs, but the walls are paper thin so you can hear pretty much everything. The doorman, and maintenance guys are great. The people in charge of the building, however, are not. They never answer the phone, don't return your phone calls about servicing the apartment, and sometimes sit in the office, but refuse to answer the door. I would not recommend this apartment to anyone, even though it's a great location, because of the horrible experiences and management. Beware! They seem really friendly at first, but are horrible. Also, if you don't like the smell of smoke, this apartment building is not for you.

OFFICE PEOPLE ARE INCOMPETENT

I have lived here for 2 years. When I moved in, the staff was very nice. then came the new girl ---------. She sends nasty grams to the building, treats you like total crap, does not return your calls and has a massive attitude problem. --- is super nice, but she is such a -------------- that his niceness hardly makes up for it. <br><br>The place is loud. The heat uncontrollable. good luck when you want your A/c installed- you will wait for ages(and if they catch you putting one in yourself without paying them, they fine you). The elevator seems to break once a week. Everytime I do my laundry I end up going back down to find my clothes are still sopping wet in the dryer. The bathroom is in horrible condition. The kitchen is small. I have seen roaches.<br><br>Wait, why did I stay here for that long?<br><br>Oh - because the location is great and the rent has been cheap. it goes up every year and is no longer worth it. Move on - other biuldings right here are much nicer, quieter and could never have a bigger ----* working in the office.

I won't go too much into the details about my experience with the management at 14 west Elm, but it's sufficient to say that I don't enjoy being lied to, and then being called a liar myself. I'm a very nice person, but that didn't get the repair I needed done, so after a year of asking nicely, I was fed up. The management team (--- especially) didn't appreciate my candor, probably for good reason, but hey, after a year of cleaning up ------ toilet water, I was done. Then, I was blamed for the problem! After another few arguments, they even had the nerve to say I was lying about the whole thing. Oh well, shady people are everywhere, especially in Chicago, so if you like being treated like you don't matter, but still pay a ridiculous amount of cash, 14 West Elm is the place for you!