Category: Renting Safely

Many renters panic when they find out their building is for sale. Even worse, many others only learn about the sale after it's already done! Now that the housing market is starting to recover from the crash of 2008, there will be a lot more apartment buildings up for sale. It's important for Chicago renters to know what to expect.

Note: today I'll be talking only about when one private landlord sells the building to another private landlord. I won't be dealing with what happens when a bank takes over a foreclosed building just yet, that's a very different matter in Chicago and will take a separate article of its own. I also won't be dealing with what happens when your landlord passes away, but I have addressed this matter in the past.

Your lease is not over.

Your lease is for a unit in the building regardless of who owns it. Continue to pay rent to the old owner as you've always done until you are notified in writing of the new owner's address. Then pay to the new address. Continue reading So Your Building Was Sold to a New Owner! Now What?!

A sunny summer evening in Chicago is usually full of the smoke from barbecue grills. There is no end to the city's love of open-air cooking. When it comes to grilling in apartment buildings though, you might have to make your burger with a side of yellow mustard... and red tape. Continue reading Is Your Grill Legal?

Renters in bad apartments – or any rented housing for that matter – always have the option to break their lease and move out. However, if you have a fixed term lease (e.g., not month-to-month) you're usually required to either find a subletter or pay a reletting fee to your landlord. If you just up and leave in the middle of the night without notice or finding a replacement, your landlord can come after you for unpaid rent and lease break fees.

However, in Chicago there are six situations where you can actually break a lease without worrying about being penalized or fined by your landlord. They are very specific and require you to follow precise methods in order to legally take advantage of them. In this article we will cover each situation.

Note that this article deals only with Chicago, and should not be interpreted as legal advice in Chicago or anywhere else.

1. You've got proof that you have been assaulted, stalked or threatened in your apartment.

If you live in private rental housing or have a Section 8 voucher, you are covered by the Illinois Safe Homes Act. Residents in public housing projects are not covered.

Victims of domestic violence including dating violence, child abuse, elder abuse, and stalking are allowed to break their lease with 3 days notice before or after they move out. Some restrictions apply...

The other day I got an email from a concerned renter. "A shooting occurred in my building last week. My landlord didn't say anything about it. If I hadn't been home at the time I wouldn't have known about it. Doesn't my landlord have to tell me if something like that happens?"

The answer is no. Landlords are under no obligation to disclose crimes that occur in their buildings to the rest of the residents. They only have to disclose events that cause problems with the actual structure of the building. Due to the varying levels of criminal reporting by different police departments across the country, a tenant might not even be able to find out about a shooting at their building via the news or public records. But if the event had been a sexual assault instead of a shooting, everyone would know about it thanks to the sex offense registry.

Sex offender registries have been part of the American judicial system since 1947. These databases of the names, addresses and photos of people who have previously been convicted of sex crimes have been publicly accessible in some states since 1990, and are now available in every state as well as DC. They are probably the most common resource used by renters who are researching their new apartments on their own, and we include them in the sources we consult for every RentConfident report.

However, these lists have been criticized for promoting homelessness and for continuing to penalize former offenders long after their prison sentences have been completed. Research has found that they do not prevent additional sexual offenses in a statistically significant way. Additional research has shown that the rate of repeat offenses (14%) is much lower than what the general population thinks it to be (75%).

Personally, I think that if sex offenders are to be publicly targeted for shaming on government sponsored websites, perpetrators of other major crimes should have comparable lists. Chicago has a list of bad landlords that they're supposed to be updating twice a year, so the idea isn't all that farfetched. Here are some types of crime that would also do well to have registries:

1. Arson.

According to the US Bureau of Justice Statistics (PDF), property offenders have the highest rate of recidivism, or committing the same crime again. Arsonists, however, are inconsistent in how often they reoffend. A single offense from an arsonist has the potential to affect many more people than a single offense from a sex offender. If people are concerned to know that a convicted sex offender is living nearby, they should be equally if not more concerned to know about their friendly neighborhood firebugs. Louisiana and Ohio currently have arson registries, but their use is restricted to law enforcement only.
Can you guess the other 5 on the list?

Apartments are notorious for their scant closet space. Chicago's vintage apartments in particular were designed for an era when freestanding wardrobes were common and clothes hangers hadn't yet been invented. Some apartment buildings offer storage rooms to hold renters' less important belongings. These rooms can take several forms, three of which are the most common.

Vintage walk up buildings will usually have floor-to-ceiling compartments sectioned off with wooden slats. Larger buildings usually provide less storage, often in the form of wire mesh cages. Lockers in these first two styles of storage room are usually secured with padlocks provided by the tenant. The third type of storage room is only found in some extremely modern upscale buildings. These offer actual small rooms with real doors and deadbolts. They are generally the most secure option when it comes to apartment storage, but hard to find and still not entirely safe.

Apartment storage rooms are usually situated in basements or remote areas of the building. They're out of sight, out of mind, and therefore easy pickings for thieves. Many a tenant has gone down to their locker only to discover that their belongings have vanished at some unspecified time in the previous few months - DNA Info covered one such situation at a Lakeview apartment building last month.

This is the city. Theft is pretty much unavoidable. The best you can do is make your locker less attractive to a would-be thief than the ones around it. Here are some pointers as to how you can make your locker as secure as possible. Instructions after the jump!