TLDR; DO NOT rent from Chicago Apartment Place. Look at every recent review, the consensus on this company, their employees, and their practices is overwhelmingly negative. And for good reason.
My wife and I were tenants of CAP for 3 years. And if you had asked me what I thought about them a year ago, my opinion would have been very different. However, after the way Johanna, Ellen, and the majority of the staff at CAP conducted themselves over the past 12 months or so - I can unequivocally say that, in my opinion, most of the employees at CAP are incompetent at best and unethical and uncaring at worst.
There were minor issues that we had to deal with, most of which are echoed by almost every other review of CAP. Individually, these wouldn't be huge deals. But when you add these things up, you can really start to see why their reputation is what it is:
1. The laundry situation is absolutely ridiculous. Seriously the card thing is stupid. $4.00 + a load is a rip-off, and there's no way it costs CAP anywhere close to that per load. Just do everybody a favor and make laundry free. Situation solved.
2. Put drop boxes in your buildings for rent checks. Asking people to drive up to your office or relying on the USPS to send the check are archaic practices. Also, your pay online option is a joke.
3. The rat problem is real. There is a HUGE nest underneath the building at 1758 N Clybourn.
4. Their buildings are older and the "updates" are built with shoddy materials. We've had to call CAP for everything from "grey water" seeping through the wall to the siding coming off our building SEVERAL times.
5. The walls / floors are so thin you could hear your neighbor's conversations. So imagine when people have parties.
6. CAP's office hours are terrible. If you have a 9-5 job, good luck getting a hold of these guys. This includes Cory in Maintenance, which is VERY inconvenient.
7. The move-in / move-out process is unnecessarily convoluted and border-line asinine. Next to ZERO flexibility from these guys. And if you have a positive balance on the aforementioned laundry card; good luck getting that back within a reasonable amount of time. (11 days just to put it in the mail).
8. The people that they generally rent to seem to be inconsiderate (barely) adults. Which makes me question how much they really screen people when they apply.
9. The construction in our building and the building next door was almost non-stop for the past 6 months. Trucks unloading first thing in the morning, porta-loos in the ally, not my favorite.
10. I came home one morning to see that the construction crew who were working on the unit above ours had decided to cut wood without laying a tarp down. Which meant our deck and all of our belongings on said deck were COVERED in saw dust.
11. Snow removal was SLOW. Like 3 days after it snowed slow.
12. Rented parking spaces are WAY too small. Nobody wants to play Tetris when they're trying to get in or out of their parking spots. Especially when they pay extra for it.
13. CAP has been tagging negative reviews for removal as of late. Keep track if you don't believe me.
If those were the only problems that we had with CAP, we probably would have continued on as tenants of theirs. (In fact, we asked about renewing our lease because the stress of moving was so awful). Who REALLY wants move?
At the very least, I would have considered NOT taking the time to write a review. But, what I had to deal with over the past year could only be described, in my opinion, as gross incompetency at best, and flagrantly immoral at worst.
It took a year, innumerable phone calls, ~100 emails, 3 separate "attempts" at serving 10 day evictions notices over 12 months, and the threat of a lawsuit for Johanna and CAP to not evict, but nicely ask our AWFUL neighbors to move out.
We are also all-but-certain that employees of CAP were in our apartment without our permission on multiple occasions. We can't prove it; but given the evidence, we're fairly certain.
PM me if you want more details or copies of emails.
In my opinion, these people are incompetent, rude, inept, and all-around dishonest. Need more opinions on the matter? Google "Chicago Apartment People". Over 90% of their reviews are EXTREMELY negative.
While they won't actually apologize for their actions, I suspect this will elicit a response from Tiago (somebody I've never heard of). And it will probably be along the lines of "We tried our best, and did everything that we could, we regret that your opinion on us is so negative, etc."
I call BS: because if you REALLY did care, your reviews wouldn't be so overwhelming consistent in their content and tone.
Yes, I now have a deep-seated sense of anger and disappointment toward Chicago Apartment Place. So I guess one could make the argument that my review should be taken with a grain of salt. But to directly quote Johanna, "Whether you can trust that or not is up to you and I understand completely either way". read more