Review for 707 West Sheridan Apartments

The place itself isn't bad. I have a good size studio with separated kitchen and good closet space, which is nice. Built-in AC unit and new windows make for pretty good cooling. The pool is warm, if not a little creepy because the locker rooms that you have to pass through seem like they'd be featured in an "I Know What You Did Last Summer" flick. One other plus is that the maintenance guys are super friendly and very efficient, which is nice.

Despite these small positive qualities, some aspects of this building are frustrating enough to make me happy to be moving

out of here. The biggest one (and the main reason I'm actually bothering to write a review here) is the management staff. They come across as nice enough at first, but after any length of time dealing with them they quickly lose their charm. The head-honcho in the office, Margie, comes across as if she's an uptight junior high principal, rather than a professional adult working working with others in their home environment; very condescending and short with responses, very aloof and

acts as if she has much more important things to do than deal with residents on a case-by-case basis. It's no surprise that

the other reviews on this site mention her by name as well.

This is the only apartment I've ever lived in (spanning the midwest and both coasts over the last 5 years) where I was given

a hard time about leaving the apartment the morning after the lease ended. Yes, I understand that technically a lease ends at

midnight on the last day. But who tries to kick a tenant out when there's no one filling the apartment for the next month?

She insisted that it's normal for people to pack up their truck, leave it on the street, and spend one night at someone

else's apartment. Maybe I've just been lucky, but I've never had to do that. I've always just left early in the morning on

the 1st of the month. In my opinion, their policy is extremely rude and inflexible.

They also encourage residents to call the police if they hear too much noise from a neighboring apartment, rather than just

knocking nicely on the door. I had the police called on me on at 11:00pm on a Friday night when a small group of friends were over. I received a short, sort of nasty letter from Kiz (the other manager) that basically said, "we need to talk", and then was accosted in the hallway by Margie. No questions about what had happened or whether or not the call was warranted, just

the assumption that I was partying in my room and causing trouble. So if you ever want to have friends over and not whisper, don't live here. I pay my rent early every month, am extremely friendly to the office staff, and rarely even have my TV on. To assume that because I'm a male in my mid-20s I was causing trouble was very prejudiced. It's a sad situation now where neighbors can't just ask to keep the noise down. I had actually met my neighbor many times prior, so it wasn't like he would have been approaching a stranger.

As for safety, the front door is locked per usual, but the garage door is often open, especially when they're doing any sort

of work in the building. The workers prop open the door into the building, so anyone can come right in. I've also had

homeless people knock on my door pretending to be a resident needing help on THREE separate occasions in one year. In my

mind, that's pretty shoddy security. These were all late at night and really spooked me.

The front entry way also always smells like a combination of wet dog and garbage.

So, overall it's 2 stars. I was hoping when Reside Living took over management from Wexenthaller things would get better, but they only improvement has been that they added some better gym equipment. Besides that, they're really just pretending to be

a classier place than they really are. And they're raising the rent, to boot. Especially once you're this far north, find a better place for a better price.