Tip for potential tenants: STAY AWAY and get yourself a place with professional management, will save you lots of frustration and $$!
Tip for current tenants: Be careful when you move out and know your rights, or get ready to have all your security deposit unfairly deducted, even when you return the apartment clean in prime condition.
I was originally drawn to this building for its comparatively reasonable price and convenient location in early 2014, but the horribleness I've experienced from the building management is so not worth it.
1) Failed to repair garage door for weeks, letting thefts happen in the building, then too lazy to provide surveillance video as evidence.
In Sep 2016, our garage door was broken, the management didn't get it repaired for almost a month, so the entire building could be accessed with NO SECURITY. Thief(s) used this opportunity to come into the building and stole my fuji road bike from the rack. I informed the management immediately and asked to see surveillance tapes (as my bike was parked right in front of the surveillance camera), the management kept telling me she is busy with parenting and will do it soon, this kept happening for over a month, until I confronted her in person. Then she informed me that video records were only kept for 30 days, and that it is no longer possible to see the footage.
2) Get ready to never receive your package.
The management lady is responsible for receiving packages, she would receive them and store them in her office. The posted building office hours are from 9am-6pm M-F, but you can NEVER find her during her office hour. It's extremely common for a same day delivery to turn into a 3-5 day delivery. Many times I have tried waiting for her for up to an hour, thinking she will return before her office hour end at 6:00, and left with disappointment. There were also several package thefts during my tenancy, which the management, of course, takes no responsibility.
3) Deceptive about security deposits.
Right before we moved out, we cleaned our apartment meticulously for more than 12 hours. We also had the manager walk through the apartment "as a friend", and pointed to us what might not be satisfactory, and we corrected all of them. We asked her about a small nail hole we made on the kitchen wall during the same "as a friend" walk through, she said it will take $10 to repair, so we didn't do anything about it. Later we were billed $100 for drywall damage (the hole), $135.03 replacement fee with no specific item, and on top of that $105 cleaning fee.
4) Never give notice to move out until the VERY LAST MINUTE that you are required to, things get HORRIBLE.
5) Building is dated, walls are extremely thin, 3 am screaming from the street is frequent.
This does not cover even half of the bad things I experienced while living at 1700 Madison. I think of myself as a pretty good tenant and has never had complains against any landlords before, neither have I had complaints on me. This place has truly lowered my expectations of what is possible. read more