Optima Old Orchard Woods
Luxury priced rentals with poor management

We have lived in luxury apartments before, and although this is the most expensive luxury apartment we have lived in, it is the one with the poorest management and maintenance.

Before you move into this apartment, you are required to schedule a walk-through that lasts at least an hour. The maintenance man shows you all the circuits and gives you a 5-inch thick binder full of appliance manuals, as if you are expected to fix it yourself. HELLO, the reason why we rent in the first place is so that we don't have to worry about fixing stuff.

When we moved in, we noticed that one of the appliances wasn't working. When we contacted Optima maintenance, they had us call General Electric to schedule a maintenance man come. Of course, GE couldn't come right away, and when they did, they couldn't fix the appliance and had to order parts. We went several weeks at the beginning of our rental period without a working appliance. Optima maintenance refused to switch out this non-working appliance. Now, the same appliance is not working again and the only option given to us by Optima is to schedule GE to come out.

Also, be warned that every time you have a furniture piece delivered, you need to schedule with Optima management a date and a time frame (either morning or afternoon), and then you have to coordinate this date and time with the store. This might not seem at difficult at first, but Optima has few open slots available. What's the big deal with a truck parking for half an hour at most to deliver a sofa? Sometimes stores don't know exactly what time the deliver truck will make its rounds, and thus impossible to know which block of time to schedule with Optima.

Another problem is management. The two people that work in the management office have been so rude and very unprofessional. When I call the office during business hours, 90% of the time they have not picked up the phone, and 100% of the time they have not returned messages I have left on the voicemail. I even waited one morning by the management office at the beginning of the day, and they were late to arrive.

There is also information that forgets to be passed on. For example, I wasn't informed that I had to go to Woods Mart to give them my name, unit number, and phone number in order to receive packages. Because of this lack of information, several important packages I was expecting was returned to the sender.

Recently, the water went out one evening. We later found out (through one of our neighbors) that one side of the building had flooded (fortunately we didn't live on the flooded side). There was no general letter sent out or posted apologizing for the inconvenience or explanation of steps that were made to ensure that it wouldn't happen again. All we saw were fans placed in the hallways that made it hard to maneuver with a stroller... What if someone were in a wheelchair?!

This has been the poorest maintenance and management service we have experienced. Yes, the unit itself is beautiful as well as the location, views, and amenities, but for the price we are paying for rent you would think that there would be better service or even working appliances. Honestly, the people in management should be replaced or at least trained to be courteous, they need to have a better plan in place to resolve non-working appliances, as well as communicate better with residents. No wonder there is no lease-break policy when renting through Optima.

Company: Optima Old Orchard Woods
Country: USA
State: Illinois
City: Skokie
Site: optimaweb.com

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