Music Victims

Apartment Horror Stories Please!?

Most people in Chicago rent and I’d like to get some apartment horror stories. I have many… From the hillbilly family who thought it was okay to hang their kid’s swimming pool on my window air conditioner to a drunk old lady who used to take out her trash in the subzero weather with no clothes on. My worst is: My wife & I have a newborn baby and we move into a nice quiet four unit building. Nobody is lives below us for a few months until some single guy moves in. At first he’s pretty quiet sans normal noise, but all of the sudden every day at 11am his radio is on unbelievably loud and it would wake our newborn up from his nap which really sucked. I talked to the landlord about it & he comes back to talk to me and actually says that the guy is getting ready for work & blasting his stereo from his bedroom so that he can hear it while he’s in the shower completely across the apartment! The landlord said the guy agreed to not do it again, but the next day it happens again so I go talk to him and he says he didn’t get a chance to go buy a radio for his bathroom yet. Inevitably the landlord has to kick the guy out of his building (the noise was also bothering the lady across the hall from him) and warns us that the guys is probably going to make lots of noise but he can’t throw him out & if it is too disruptive to call the cops. The last night the guy is allowed in the building is a Friday and my wife & I happen to have a wedding to go to. When we get home after picking up the baby around 2am it’s clear the guy has decided to make our life hell the last night he’s there… We can hear the music outside & when we get upstairs our floor is literally shaking so we just called the cops and explained the situation (and that we have our baby) & they show up a few minutes later. When they knock on our door the guy thinks it’s me and yells “NOBODYS HOME” and the cops knock again and announce “Chicago police department” and the music goes down & he opens the door. I hear the cops yell at him & leave then I hear the guy scream “FFFFFUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCKKKK” and that was the last I heard of him. Prologue: We moved into a house in the city & I have never been so happy to not have to share a wall with anybody or a yard with somebody’s dog. These stories are always good, the worst of course gets best answer.

Public Comments

1. My first apartment in Chicago was in a courtyard building that allowed dogs. My adjoining neighbor had a Great Dane that was incredibly quiet and fun to be around. However, there were about five or six other dogs that REALLY liked to bark. As soon as one started, the others would follow. Since it was a courtyard building the sound would echo off the building and the noise was deafening. I lasted less than a year there and moved around the corner. Same owner but no dogs allowed. The neighbors from across the hall were a group of college girls. One day I hear a knock on the door and one of the girls said she was making popcorn and could she borrow a pot to pop it in. I gave her one and about five minutes later she knocked on the door again and asked for some oil. Again I gave her some. Five minutes later she knocked on the door again and asked if I could get her stove to light. Apparently she wanted to make popcorn and had only the seeds. But NO she didn't even have that. Two weeks later a stray bullet found it's way through their front window (third floor). One week later the apartment was empty. Even though we were a little concerned about the gun fire we stayed there for another seven years without incident
2. I have 2 bad apartment stories. My 1st apartment, in West Rogers Park, I rented a bedroom in the 3rd floor of a 3-flat. The door to my bedroom has its own key to it. Later, an Indian woman moved in, and then a Black girl moved in to a room in the back porch, and then a Vietnamese 50s couple moved into the living room, where an additional door was installed. The Vietnamese man smoked. Of course, my rent was only $350 a month. My 2nd apartment, in Albany Park, has a huge cochroach apartment. It is a studio and $475 a month. The shower doesn't work. Homeless people comes in, and have often taken a dump on the stairways or in the garbage can by the laundry in the basement hallway. A homeless person has also thrown a rock and shattered a hallway window. The locks of the doors are usually broken. The landlord, whom is an attorney, refuses to get the homeless prosecuted, even after 1 of them stole my bike. We often have homeless people sleeping in our apartments. We have crooks letting them in. The 1st apartment is 6443 N. Seeley (~2050 West), and the 2nd apartment, where I reside now, is 3112 or 3114 W. Montrose. Neither of the apartments I lived in, had the landlords given me the key to the mailbox, and I use my Dad's address as my mailing address. We also have problems of the same bad neighbors that steal our mail and our clothes while others do laundry. The landlord lawyer refuses to do anything about it. The Chicago Police Department knows a lot about our homeless problems, and often refuse to arrest them.
3. I grew up in Chicago, I now live in South Bend. The house I grew up in was great, but when I got married we rented an apartment. I didn't know what roaches were till the first day we moved in. I saw a bug in the kitchen drawer. Then of course it just got worse. The landlord was to cheap to get a pro, so he handed out store brand bug spray...yep to cheap for raid! LOL Then the people upstairs were loud drunks. Crazy! Everynight lous drunkin parties. Then our landlord was nosiy as hell, he would vacum the halls everyday, trying to listen in the apartments, so annoying. I hated it!
4. Oh boy...every tenant in my old building could give you horror stories. If you ever try to rent from a guy named Ed Lowry, do yourself a favor and DON'T. He owns several properties in the west burbs, all of them dumps. Light bulbs in the halls and outside doors out, never replaces them. Garbage bill doesnt get paid so the dumpster overflows into the parking lot for weeks at a time. Dishwashers and air conditioners broken in almost every apartment. Communal washer and dryer that didn't work half the time, or you had to run the dryer through 3 cycles to get things dry. Parking lots and sidewalks that never got shoveled after a snowstorm, grass that didnt get mowed in the summer till the village ticketed him. Bugs (though not roaches thank God) and mice. Window screens falling off or torn in every apartment. Hot water never got hot. Broken or damaged appliances and plumbing issues in several apartments. Doorbells that only worked sporadically, and were unmarked with even an apartment number. Filthy hallways that were never cleaned/vaccumed. I work with a lawyer, who did me a favor and acted as my "legal counsel" writing official sounding letters that helped get the landlord to accomplish SOME of the repairs and such, but still he never did all of them. Eventually I moved out, thankfully, to a place with 24-hour maintenance where they actually respond to complaints promptly and keep a well-maintained property. Good riddance.