The Flats

Pros
— free wifi
— furnished room
— pool area
— recreation room
— weightlifting room
— private bathroom
— prompt fulfillment of maintenance requests
— convenient location
— laundry & dryer
Cons
— Dirty grounds in the breezeways
— break-​ins of cars & apts
— fruit flies
— thin walls
— ceiling leaks
— chances of getting slobby roommates are high!
I’m a grad student who rented in a 4-​bedroom apt for 3 yrs. The Flats has gone through 2 management companies and it’s currently owned by JMG Realty. During the first 2 yrs, the wifi was awful, but after JMG Realty took over, it has upgraded to a new provider, National Wifi, and is an improvement. New shower heads and toilets were installed. New flooring was installed with espresso colored plank flooring that looks like wood, but not really wood material.
Every bedroom comes with a full size mattress, desk, drawer, chair, closet, and bathroom. The room also has a ceiling fan, but there’s AC too. The only source of light comes from the ceiling fan. The desk can’t be moved and there’s a shelf above the desk for extra space. There’s no ethernet jack, but there is a phone line jack.
The living room has sofas, coffee table and flat screen tv. The kitchen has a microwave, stove, oven, dishwasher, and refrigerator. The fridge gets easily filled when there are 4 roommates (I had to buy my own mini-​fridge). Same thing can happen for the cupboard space. There’s a pantry with a shelf for each roommate.
The dining room area has a table and 4 chairs.
The utility fee — water, electric, security alarm — are now all set at one price.
Here are my personal gripes that I have noticed over time:
1) No control of the thermostat. The thermostat controls the entire apt, so you may feel colder on more than one occasion because there’s always someone changing the setting. I ended up just closing the vent when the AC was too cold.
2) Fruit flies. I don’t know where they come from but there’s always some buzzing around the kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, and even in the fridge!
3) Roaches. When I first moved in, I saw them already in the kitchen. The kitchen was not kept clean and so that attracted them. I was terrified to leave my food on the counter space for more than a few mins. I always cleaned up afterwards unlike my roommates. But during the Spring semester of last year, all my roommates were clean and only then were there less roaches.
4) Pantry. There have been times when roommates forget that food went bad and would stink up the entire pantry. The shelves are see-​through, so there have also been times when a roommate wasn’t careful with a squeeze bottle and the sweet-​sticky content inside started leaking down and through their shelf and onto my pantry items. I’ve also noticed my pantry items being used so your roommates can take your stuff w/​o notice.
5) Roommates. This doesn’t have anything to do with the Flats but it has affected my overall living experience the most. I didn’t get close to any one of them and they usually move out within a year. I also had the expectation that roommates should try to keep the common areas clean and respected. But that was less than observed b/​c most are college kids and the last thing on their mind is to clean. I lived with 9 different roommates during my 3 yrs there, and 6 of the 9 were more on the slobbier side. I cooked a lot to save money and so I spent some time in the common areas everyday. I have noticed that my food get taken from the fridge and pantry. Dishes left unwashed and hogging up the sink space for DAYS if not the entire week as well as garbage left on the kitchen counter. If they use your cooking utensil or dishware, it won’t get washed for days. The dining room turns into a garbage disposal with them hanging or dropping the garbage bags on the dining table and chairs! GROSS! They also don’t clean up after themselves when making a mess in the microwave. I can count the number of times that the microwave was cleaned and it was only done by me, not even by the cleaning crew that The Flats hired to come in prior to a new roommate moving in. Security is also an issue. I don’t think I’ve ever felt completely safe here after learning a roommate brought over people with criminal records so much that the front door lock had to be changed. It started making me wonder about that particular roommate’s background.
Another side note, when my friends were looking for apts in the Atlantic Station area, they ended up choosing to live at AMLI or the Park District Apartments.
The Flats is located in a great location close to GT & Atlantic Station. The current management has made improvements to the apt’s amenities. But only recommended to ppl who are moving in with ppl they know, otherwise, not recommended b/​c the roommates will most likely be college kids that are «too busy» to respect the common areas. If you could care less about how your living habits will affect other roommates, then this apt is perfect for you.