917 W Eastwood Rentals

The good:
1. Cheap and spacious. I paid slightly over $ 600 /​months. All utilities included. No move-​in fee. Despite having a kitchen in the closet my studio was large with hardwood floors and large bright windows. This is a plus since I like and need daylight.
2. Close to a large set of bus routes and to a Red-​line stop.
3. The building manager — Niko, is nice, responsive to your needs, fixes stuff quickly and very helpful.
The bad:
1. Location — 917 Eastwood apartments are located close to the epicenter of the Uptown war zone — next to Sheridan and Wilson. Good people of Chicago know this area as «by the Truman College». As soon as I bring up where I live, people go quiet and refer to the area as «sketchy». I would not use any diplomacy and I would call things as they are. Chicago Uptown is an unfortunate island of poverty, and crime. Thinking of moving to Uptown? — get a bulletproof vest. When I first moved to Chicago, I did not know what those blue blinking lights high on the poles above the streets are… Whenever you see those, it should serve as a good indicator on whether the area is safe. The Uptown area is full of shelters of all kinds: governments subsidized living and mental institutions. The residents of mental institutions are free to roam in the neighborhood without any supervision. Once caught a guy urinating at my car and I was a lucky one that night — I was able to find a parking spot. Speaking of urine … If you lived and left uptown, you will always miss perpetually urine soaked stairs of Wilson red-​line station,
2. Hallways smells — oh boy. Whenever tenants cook something, the building is filled with unforgettable miasma. What on earth can one cook that it smells so bad that you have to hold your breath while running from the elevator to your apartment.
3. Roaches — the building is infested with roaches. Roaches are everywhere: on walls, in the elevator, laundry room, in your kitchen — if you can call a former closet a kitchen. Multiple complaining to the managements yielded no results. Don’t get me wrong, the managements is trying to eradicate the the problem by spraying two floors at a time but while say 7^th and 6^th floor being sprayed, the roach population migrates to another floor and awaits there. I had to take this problem into my own hands: got some poison in home depot and treated all corners in my unit and a few feet around my apartment. It seems to be helping if I leave no food out and repeat the treatments every 2 – 4 weeks.
3. Mice — when it gets cold, mice gets inside the building even to the upper floors. I was able to trap one mouse. The second one got away but I found a hole in the wall and stuffed it with a piece of cloth. I think that was a possible access point for the beast. I have not seen any creatures since then.
4. Neighbors — apartment across my studio on my floor quite often turns into a typical public celebration that one might see during a festive ethnic holiday. A constant flow of human traffic, laughter, screams, mixed sounds of smoke alarm and sizzling food on the stove are something that I hoped to get used to but have never been able to. Forget about taking a nap during day, The party never stops! The notion of public space is alien to my neighbors. Their door is never shut. When they swipe floors all trash and dust end up in the hallway. A box with trash can be next to their doors for days. I have encountered scenes like cutting hair in the hallways, packing huge boxes of humanitarian aid intended for a distant oversea country in need. Another neighbor established a some sort of voodoo temple in his studio. Despite of being on another floor, I was constantly woken up by unearthly chanting, singing, and drumming at 3−5am every other day. Multiple complains to the management did not yield any results. Direct confrontation was not fruitful either. The response consisted of two two points: (1) this is a free country and the right to exercise any religion is protected and (2) if I ever bother the chanter again — I will burn in some form of hell. The police could not provide a resolution.
The bottom line. This place is minimally maintained. The price is low. You get what you pay for.
As soon as my lease expired I swiftly moved out to Lincoln Park: rent went up by $ 150 and I paid a move in fee but in my opinion, it’s worth nights free of voodoo chanting and vomit inducing smells.
PS Please don’t blame the manager. Niko is friendly and responds well to all complains but he can do only this much to alleviate the discomfort. The management company is responsible for not exercising proper pest control technique. The company needs to change something in the way they run this property and looks like they do not want to invest anything since they won’t be able to charge higher rent because of the area the property is located at.