People like the one's i am writing this report about should NEVER be allowed to rent out property. They live in a 3 flat building in which they reside on the first floor. They rent the 2nd floor apartment and the basement out.
We lived in their apartment on the 2nd floor for over 2 years paying $975.00 per month. Never really had a problem with them until my son got sick. He was hospitalized for several days due to Mold exposure from the apartment. Being that we never had a real problem with these people i gave them a letter from my son's doctor asking them to fix the problem and that's what i believe started the whole thing. After i gave them the letter the next day they call me down to their apartment and tell me they will give me back my rent money that i had just paid minus the few day's that we were there plus my security deposit but we would have to move in 4 days, in the dead of winter no less. I knew that would not be possible. The day we brought our son home from the hospital they were waiting, stopped us on the stairs and tried to hand us a letter, We thought it had to of been our deposit plus the remainder of our rent. We knew it would have been impossible to move out within 4 days so we told them we would move out the 1st of the month. They did not want to hear any of that. We tried to tell them that our son just got out of the hospital, he was sick, let us take him upstairs etc. Both of them said they did not care he was sick and for us to get out.
Needless to say that was not going to happen. Within 8 or 9 days we get a knock on the door, Standing there was a cook county sheriff handing us EVICTION papers!!! Instead of these people doing the right thing and fixing the problem they decided to just get rid of us illegally. The eviction papers said we hadn't paid our rent in 2 months and were holding the apartment. Unreal.
I contacted a lawyer who took my case, He told me not to pay anymore rent and to look for a new place to live. I felt SO bad not paying rent, I always pay my rent so by me doing that i felt really torn and confused, My son was SO sick i couldn't even sleep at night i would lay there beside him just listening to him breathe. I had to have an ambulance take him to the hospital because his nose was bleeding so bad, his breathing was so shallow and he was puking up blood.
And these slumlord's response?"WE DON'T CARE"
We went to eviction court and i told the judge i would like to speak with a lawyer first. When the lawyer took over turns out these morons didn't even pay THEIR lawyer, they went as far as using MY rent money to file the papers and that was it. Their lawyer said he had been trying to contact them for some time to see where this was going to go but they did not respond.
Bottom line is they refused to repair their building, Did not care that a child got sick and wanted us out regardless.
The case was dropped because there are no "mold laws on the books"
what a joke! They will wait until someone dies then make some laws, how pathetic. All i wanted was for them to repair that building period.
I did call in the chicago building inspector who came out and sited SEVERAL violations, not just the mold but many other things that needed to be fixed.
I have heard nothing from him, went downtown to pick up the violation report and it claimed "no violations were found" Hmmm... The pictures i have of this apt. Say different. I called to report this inspector and to send more inspectors to that building. Follow up calls to chicago's 311 have failed to produce anything. All i have been told is "the case is still active" no other information. If i have anything to do with it this case will remain "active" until these people take responsibility for maintaining their property.
The best advise i can tell anyone who might be in the same boat as i was is to:
1- MOVE
2 - keep calling those building inspectors
3 - NEVER rent an apartment in a "owner occupied building"
when you rent in an owner occupied building you have NO tenants rights period.
If you feel like you have been violated like we were, stand up and fight!
I will make sure these people NEVER get away with this, I will continue to call the building inspectors and have them go over there until these people fix their building. I was told by a lawyer that they really "don't do anything to make them fix their building"
Well, i'm out to prove them wrong. They are going to fix that death trap regardless if they want to or not and i will see to it even if it takes me to the end of time.
I have finally realized that this is the city that DOES NOT WORK. It's a shame, I have lived here my entire life and they use our children guinea pigs for these broken buildings, They wait until AFTER they get sick then do something but in my case they do nothing at all.
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