Podmajersky Inc

This will be our third year living in a Podmajersky’s managed apartment. We are very happy. They are prompt with any concerns, friendly, and respectful.
I appreciate how they preserve the neighborhood, meticulously maintain the gardens, and generally care about the tenants.
It’s a beautiful neighborhood and our place reflects that!

I had a horrible neighbor that lived above me, with horrible domestic fighting, and unusual people having access to the property. The cops were dispatched to our building a few times, and at one point, someone tried to break in to my apartment. I emailed PODMAJERSKI’s property manager for our building via email about the issues and he has been so great! He responded within 24 hours, and decided to not renew the troublesome tenant’s lease in order to keep peace in our building. He is also arranging for the property to have the gates fixed in order to help keep us safe. This has been the best rental experience yet, and while the prices of the unit utilities seem high, its no more than any other apartment in the city without them included. If you are a responsible apartment searcher, you would ask about those things like I did. POD gave me all of the costs of the utilities before hand and were great at prepping the unit for me before i moved in. I would give them more than 5 stars if I could. Im only 4 months into my lease and I couldn’t be happier with them. Beats having a regular landlord.

Found three «pet friendly» apartments, filled out an application online that listed my requests. They were simple, wood floors, in unit washer, and I also listed «dog friendly» for my boston terrier. So we went ahead and set up an appointment, Jennifer emailed me back to let me know the apartment i was interested in, did not have a washer. Never mentioned anything about «no dogs». I went ahead and made the appointment anyways, mind you I work midnights, so I’m using quality sleep time to come view these three places. I show up at the building and you have to use a call button to get in, which was confusing when you don’t know whose extension to ring to get buzzed in. But nevertheless, i met with David, kind of off type of guy, i couldn’t quit figure it out, but I felt an awkward vibe from him. It’s snowing out and he had us walking to see an apartment which was not to too far, but far enough when it’s snowing and cold wind in your face. Place was great, i was ready to say yes, then he drops the bomb on me that no dogs allowed in any of their apartments! Oh really cuz im pretty sure i put that on my application. So, at this point there was no reason to view the rest of the apartments. Then he really became weirder and more awkward. I just walked on back by myself to my car feeling like I wasted my time and wasn’t treated well. When you work in service, you need to be relaxed, outgoing and friendly. When your scared to talk, clammy and awkward, you shouldn’t be trying to show people apartments. Go somewhere else Dog lovers, don’t bother with this agency

I’ve rented from Podmajersky twice. First was about 10 years ago. The apartment was unique and I really loved it. No issues with maintenance and I was so happy, that when I needed another apartment a few years later, I went straight back to them.
I love my apartment. Maintenance issues are taken care of in a timely manner. I was unemployed for a few months and was late on the rent a time or 2, and it was no problem with them.
Definitely recommend them if you are looking for an apartment in a fantastic neighborhood like Pilsen.

I have heard horror stories about Podmajersky from both friends who have previously been tenants and, of course, the internet. Much of the criticism has been about 3 things: 1) The tenant’s personal feelings about the politics behind the Podmajersky family and everything they’ve heard or read about it, 2) The management company’s lack of attentiveness and 3) The units have few amenities.
It is true that how when manages their personal life can have an impact on how they run their business. From what I’ve been told, at one point, this was true.
You may notice that many of the negative reviews below drop off in mid-​2014. It is my understanding that there has been some shifting of the guard. I moved in to a Podmajersky unit in late 2014 and have experienced nothing but the utmost attention. Everything I have asked for I have gotten. There are maintenance staff outside the premises almost daily keeping up the landscape and fixing any requests from tenants. It is been a good relationship and I’m happy to defend them.
As for the point about few amenities I have to wonder if these people even saw the unit before they moved in. Why would you sign a lease for an apartment and not look at it?

It’s now 2015, and we’re still very happy with Podmajersky.

Definitely recommend. My spouse and I have lived in a pod for 2 years and it’s the most unique/​enjoyable space I’ve ever had in Chicago for a reasonable price. The property manager and maintenance staff respond promptly to every matter we have brought to their attention. They negotiate rent increases.
As other reviewers have written, you won’t get a washer/​dryer or dishwasher in unit or modern finishes. You get a raw, beautiful space that’s affordable. Life is what you make of it. So are these pods.

The units might be worth what they’re charging if you actually got anything for your money. There are little amenities in the units (no dishwasher, no washer & dryer) and you’re most definitely not paying for maintenance and upkeep of units and property.

I have to add to a lot of what these other reviews say. The buildings are maintained like SHIT and Podmajersky is an asshole.
Building issues:
— Serious electrical/​water/​heat malfunctions are gotten to over a series of multiple days.
— Serious electrical/​water/​heat malfunctions happen a lot
Podmajersky is an asshole
— Management is not friendly when you talk to them about building issues and often resort to some police-​interrogation-​like attitudes when you report it focused on blaming YOU for it. So on top of a multiple-​day maintenance cycle, you have to deal with being verbally accosted. Lovely.
— They’ll often raise your rent with little notice
— Any attempt to report code violations to the city (via 311) result in Podmajersky resorting to intimidation tactics like threatening to not renew your lease, to not give you your security deposit back, raising rent, etc. It’s subtle, yet very malicious. Read reviews below which speak about this intimidation, a lot of it borders on illegal.
— They have been a huge force in displacing the working-​class Latino population in Pilsen and they are on the offensive still on this.
Podmajersky is not a good person, and his company’s culture reflects the toxic way in which Pod seems to view other human beings. Do not rent from them.

I don’t understand all the hate comments.
I have had my art studio here since last October and have had only a great experience.
The building is cleaned every weekday and always smells fresh and nice.
The building is also very secure, the neighbors are professional and friendly, and the artwalk, even with all of these negative reviews, has had some pretty decent turnout.
I’ve lived in a lot of art building and spaces on artwalks over the past ten years both here and in Portland, OR.
This space is great.
It’s unfortunate there are so many bad reviews.

«To live in a „Pod“ is to live in a college dormitory; except instead of having a resident advisor (who cares about you and enforces the rules) you have a negligent property manager, D. Enders, (who does not care about your rights as a tenant to live in a peaceful manner). And instead of paying a fee that said dorms college has priced fairly you have a unit that you have moved into already overpriced and the slumlord nature of Podmajersky/​Soda Pop Lofts L.P. will every year raise the rent without having a reason to raise such as updating appliances or the structural nature of your unit.» –Me.
That is right, I have been living in a unit at 1718 S. Jefferson St. for 2 years now and I am thankfully able to move out at the end of May. Included with my complaints of the services that Pod provides (or lack thereof, rather) are that I unknowingly paid for my upstairs neighbors ELECTRICITY for a total of 19 months. This has turned my living situation for the last 5 months of my lease into a feud between the paper thin floors of the building of my neighbors and myself with Pod never stepping in and mediating the situation. It would be nice to have an untroubled living situation but apparently that is just not possible. I have spoke with Podmajersky about the situation above and they have refused to step in and be of assistance, even though many rules in the lease have been broken and reported.
Outside of that, the windows of the unit are about as leaky as a garden hose made of mesh in the winter and it took all of 1.5 years to fix a lock on our back door. This two problems drove my heating bill 20% higher than it needed to be. I have a broken window on our front porch that still has yet to be repaired. The window was broken before moving in. The window and door have been reported to Podmajersky, but only the door lock was fixed (after possible embarrassment during tours for possible future tenants).
From what I have seen in pictures and tours, the achilles heel of Pod, inc. is the complete and utter lack of storage in the units. In our nice and spacious apartment we have a single closet for storage that is 2.5′ wide x 3′ deep x 6′ tall, making our «office» a storage unit of unsightly boxes, instruments, and other miscellaneous gear. This is not a complaint, merely the truth.
If looking at living in a Pod, be aware of the heavy amount of pictures taken using a wide angle lens to open up the space that isn’t actually there when seen with the human eye. Please be aware that your rent (which said earlier is already steep) will be either raised or you will be told to move out. Lastly, be aware that you will be putting your money into a system that is single handedly putting a chokehold on an otherwise beautiful neighborhood in South Chicago and does not care what happens to the non-​Pod-​owned-​property or historical population. For that matter, they own so many open plots of unbuilt land that this area will over time be a complete monopoly by every stretch of the word.
It is sad that after living in one of their units for 2 years as a faithful tenant who does nothing but good and is responsible with bills and rent is being treated like a person who moved in and lived here for one month then told «sorry, this just isn’t working out».
Podmajersky, of all the relationships I have had in my life you are the worst girlfriend I have ever had and if any of my friends try to get your number I will go out of breath by telling them that you are a bad person to «get into bed with» and you are just looking to take his/​her money. Everything said within this review is 100% truth and trust that I am merely looking out for the well being of future renters, for people to have an honest viewpoint of what you are signing onto.
If you need to read any other reviews, please see the men’s bathroom walls at The Skylark (incredible bar) which have more than plenty of renters writing their distrust/​disgust with the company or other Unilocal reviews that average out to this company having a 1.5 star rating overall on 18+ reviews. Would you eat at a restaurant with that rating? If no, then why in the world would you put money every month into anything that poorly reviewed?
(This review is protected by The City of Chicago’s Standard Lease NO. L-​19, paragraph 31, A.)

Unimpressed. While the loft spaces look gorgeous in photos, in person they’re another matter entirely, as is usually the case. Karen, the leasing agent, was friendly and pleasant, and took me on a mini-​tour of the Pod neighborhood, showing me four or so different units. While I loved some aspects of the unique, unusual architecture of each space, there were common problems in each of them: uneven floors, cracks and gaps in baseboards, narrow/​unsturdy stairs in units and buildings, poorly organized and dirty kitchens with old appliances, etc. One unit had a tiny metal spiral staircase up to a loft platform, but I could barely fit in the staircase – and I’m a petite woman. The platform itself felt thin and dangerous. I asked Karen what furniture would be safe to place up there, and she suggested a bed and dresser. Really? Just standing up there on my own two feet, I felt like I might punch holes through the floor.
On top of that, the asking price for these units is completely out of line with their condition and the neighborhood. There are far cheaper apartments and lofts to be had slightly farther west in Pilsen. If these were, say, $ 600−700-ish for a 1BR, they’d be a good option for artists who don’t mind rougher living spaces in exchange for lots of light and quirky architecture. But at the asking price of $ 900 and up for a shabby 1BR in a working class neighborhood… it just boggles the mind. It’s no wonder so many of these are vacant.
The icing on the cake was that Karen, while helpful enough in person, promised to contact me to see another unit after she gave the tenant 24 hours’ notice to show it. I was never contacted, which honestly was a relief. Podmajersky doesn’t seem to be in any rush to rent these units, and they clearly don’t want or need my business. Fine with me.

I recently took up residence in a «Pod» after looking at 8 available units. My leasing agent Karen was accommodating, flexible, honest and friendly. She was also extremely patient and met with me on three separate occasions to look at different apartments. Most agents in the city give you a quick 30 minute tour of 3 unremarkable spaces and then disappear if you aren’t ready to sign a contract at the end of the hour. So I really appreciated the time she took with me. I never got the feeling that she was trying to rush me into a space just to collect more rent.
When I did find the right place, the management bent over backwards to accommodate both my credit history and my mid-​month move-​in date, which was just 10 days after signing the lease.
Since I have been in the apartment I have been delighted by the open space, the amazing light and all the unique touches that previous tenants have contributed like the built in suspension bookcase. There are also the amazing gardens to look forward to once spring/​summer are here. Not to mention the ample street parking for my guests, the garage unit I rent for $ 110 a month (that’s right people… a private 2 unit garage for $ 110!) the easy access to I90 just 5 blocks away and the amazing shopping available just 2 miles away on Canal.
While I have only been here a week, I have to say that it would take a major catastrophe or blatant neglect on the part of the management to make me change my opinion about Podmajersky, Inc. I think these guys are terrific and a benefit to the neighborhood and I hope to be here for many years to come.

I began looking at their loft spaces online. Their website promoted them as active concerned leaders in Pilen. This is complete bull. They are more like slumlords.
I called to ask about a few specific units and where they were in relationship to the Fisk and Crowford power plants. They had no idea what I was talking about. I gave them the addresses of the plants and they still had no idea what I was talking about. These plants have been operating without pollution controls since the 1950s and are responsible for why Chicago, and Pilsen in particular, has the highest asthma and asthma related death rates in the entire United States. I’d rather not live next door and would rather not waste my time and theirs looking at those units.
How can they sell their image as community leaders if you don’t know anything about the area and obviously don’t care about it? The clean up of these plants are the singular largest political issue facing Pilsen in city hall. It would be nice if the Podmajersky, who is profiting hugely from gentrifying this neighborhood, would also take an active roll in helping to make it a more breathable place for their renters.

Personally I’ve found dealing with podmajersky to be regrettable. And I didn’t even live in one of their units.
I found their agents to be misleading, deceiving, and unprepared. They will pretend to be your best friend, to try and get the 25 $ application fee. Telling you that «even if your credit isn’t great, we’re all artists so we’ll help you out». It’s a straight lie.
Then they want to charge a 650 $ «move-​in» fee, instead of a security deposit, only difference, you don’t get it back. What a rip off.
Besides that their spaces are overpriced, and while most have unique features, overall there are better, fairly priced places in Pilsen, without the hassle of dealing with a corporation that obviously prides itself purely on profit.
tl;dr
Rent from the nice hispanic down the street and not some bloated corp that owns half the buildings in the area.

In all honesty, I’d rather move back in with my parents than do business with these people again. This is a shame because the area could have been nice had the properties not been neglected and profoundly overpriced.
I stuck around for a few years because I was close with my neighbors, … and a white sox fan… but I couldn’t stand the building neglect so I eventually moved out. I even tried to see what else they had to offer; perhaps mine was just a bad unit. I was shown a spacious unit with a crappy kitchen and awful windows that rented for the same price that I now pay to rent a gut rehab condo in the village.
It doesn’t suprise me that units sat vacant for years on end.
The worst experience was an incident on the fall of 2009. City building inspectors came and put a large orange sign on the back fence of my building clearly stating that our back stairs were in disrepair and were not safe to use. As of May 2010, they had not been repaired.
Upon moving out, I have reason to believe that they kited mailing my security deposit to me. I received it two weeks late. If tenants ever turned in rent two weeks late, they are issued a late fee. Such business ethics disgust me.
Don’t ever give a dime of your money to these people you will regret it. You can easily find a much cheaper and nicer unit in Pilsen where you can still hear everyone’s band practice and still be able to walk home from the Skylark.

Unfortunately for my myself and my other 3 roommates, we had the unfortunate displeasure of living in the 1700 block apartments where Nathan lived. Everything that he said was entirely accurate, except for us it was carpenter ants and mice that entered our pantry– the squirrel problem, apparently had been fixed.
I would like to further propagate that negative aspect of the interactions I had with the Podmajersky’s after move out. Whereby upon the cleaning and painting of our unit in excess of personal costs of $ 400, we were only given $ 131 of the $ 1400 security deposit for damages to the unit, things like dirt on the outside of 2^nd floor windows.
Having conversations with people like Danielle Enders might have been more prolific if I were, say, not talking to a degenerate human being as such.
Living as a tenant under Podmajersky, whether it was supposed to or not was very similar to living in Lodz, Poland whether it was supposed to or not.
The only positive thing I can say is that after about a week of calling the maintenance coming to remove the carpenter ant infestation in our unit, every other maintenance issue was handled RIGHT AWAY. I am personally willing to address anyone who would consider renting from them.

I feel sorry for whomever rented my apartment after I moved out after only a year. 1 Year is all it took for me to see what this rental company was all about. Granted, when we were looking for an apartment, it was a bit frantic and our choices were limited. But I thought I had struck gold when we found this one.
I’ve seen quite a few of their properties and all of them are wonderfully quirky and creative. From my back patio here I had a nearly unobstructed view of the entire Chicago skyline. What happened was I got so enamored with this place and it looked good on paper. I was on a budget, so having a new renovation was not a big priority. I wish it would have been.
Our unit was 2 floors, the second was an attic/​loft with an open staircase. The wood used on it was so low quality every time we used it, there would be a thin layer of shavings on our couch underneath it. On the second floor, the hardwood was very spotty and it was obvious that many types of scrap wood were used to replace broken planks. We broke at LEAST 10 planks in the time we were there just from walking on them. The gutters were so clogged up that squirrels or mice had nested in them, which later lead to them burrowing through the walls all the way to our pantry and causing half of our food to go to waste. And the worst of all problems with this property: THE most drafty, poorly sealed window and door frames I have EVER seen. At the coldest month of winter our gas bill was $ 300 and we were still freezing! Summer was no better as the whole place turned into an oven.
Now all that being said, If this company invested into their properties and restored them to a liveable condition. I would have no problem giving them a second chance. I got so many compliments from friends liking everything everything about it, and of course, just as I didn’t know — they had no clue about the problems within. It amazes me really that the condition our building was in was not condemned by the inspectors. Worries me just a little about how worse it could have gotten.

when i thought about writing this review, i was going to unleash the inner bitch-beast…but i realized i could say very little and still convey my absolute hatred for podmajersky and the pod apartment i «currently» reside in.
what do they say!?! a picture is worth a 1,000 words! (please see flooding pod pic.)

I currently live in the PodMajersky apartments. They are poorly insulated and the kitchen has never been updated. For what I am paying, I would have a kick-​ass one-​bedroom in other neighborhoods. I enjoy the courtyard, but only a few months out of the year.
If they charged a few hundred less per apartment, I think it wold be more reasonable for artists and galleries. Even some of the storefronts on the other side of my courtyard have been empty for as long as I can remember.