I will try to keep this as succinct as possible. GF and I are tenants of a unit in a building that was water damaged in January. Four unit building (3, 2, 1, G) in Chicago, IL. We are tenants of apt 2 and everyone else owns their unit. Apt 3 had a pipe freeze and burst in the beginning of January flooding the entire building (no damage to our property but ceiling walls and floors destroyed). Turns out he had left the country for a few months and turned his heat off. For reasons I can't fathom it was determined he was not in any way at fault or responsible.
ServiceMaster was contacted by someone to oversee the repair and cleanup of the building. We had to make a claim on our renters insurance to cover the cost of our property move-out, storage and move back in (with promise of cleaning everything). I found a nearby furnished apartment that offered short-term leases that costs about $900 more than our current rent and we were told that repairs would take until the end of March and let the landlord of there know the end of March was our intended move out. Our insurance covered the difference between actual rent and temporary place rent and other costs incurred. We reached the end of March and both the building and our unit were not complete. We were repeatedly told "tomorrow" or "day after next" as the move back in date. The landlord of the temporary unit was kind enough to let us extend one week, and then another week when that proved to not be enough however now they have another tenant lined up who wants to move in ASAP and since we're leaving "any day now" they politely intimated it was time to leave.
As of writing this now our apartment is still missing kitchen countertops, a sink and a refrigerator, and blinds on about half the windows. They have moved our stuff back in but none of our property was cleaned and we're having to move back in with no ETA on completion. From stopping by frequently it appears nothing has changed for a week. I call and speak to our actual landlords frequently and they express the same frustration with the changing/no information from ServiceMaster as we've receive but at the same time don't put any effort into getting that info or staying on top of the repair people. When I brought up leaning on the insurance to threaten non-payment to them for the repairs they acted like that was too harsh or wouldn't result in anything. We've been packed up and trying to live as minimally as possible for two weeks now since we're supposed to move back "any day now." We haven't purchased any groceries and have only been eating out. Do we have any legal recourse here? I don't know who we'd hold liable for any of this at this point. ServiceMaster? Our landlords? The owner of unit 3? All of the above? I could go into more detail but this is getting longer than I expected but this whole thing has been exhausting.
Some extra fun points:
We have already found a few items broken from the move-out and move-in.
There was a laundry closet they did not pack up that contained washer/dryer and my tools. It appears someone helped themselves to my tools as many are missing. Pliers, needle nose, various screwdrivers, measuring tape etc. I have been unable to locate these.
When we first left ServiceMaster told us to place any items or boxes we did NOT want to be touched in our master bathroom and they would be left alone. I put most of my electronics in there (computer, tv, etc) as well as a few boxes of "personal stuff" which included sex stuff and small pocketable valuables like jewelry. This was disregarded for the move-in and this stuff was clearly moved around and opened.
Submitted April 14, 2015 at 09:15PM by CaptDanger http://ift.tt/1csHYkp legaladvice
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