Some two dozen tenants who say they were left shivering inside their chilly Logan Square apartments for two weeks in December are withholding half a month’s rent in protest.
The renters say they shouldn’t have to pay rent for the two weeks their apartments weren’t “habitable.”
“It was so cold that we had to run to Target, buy heated blankets in the freezing weather outside, pump up our space heater, which of course is driving up our electricity bills,” said Becca Smith, one of the tenants of the building in the 2300 block of North Spaulding.
About 30 people Thursday morning stood outside the building, holding aloft signs that read “No heat? No rent” and “Rent too high temps too low.”
About half of the renters in the building are withholding half of their rent for January, the group said. The three-story building has 45 units; monthly rents average about $1,400, the renters said.
“All we are to this property management company is a guaranteed check,” said Miles Bennett Hogerty, another tenant in the building. “The goal of this rent strike is to withhold our check ... to get our money back.”
The renters said the problem began Dec. 10, with tenants complaining to management that their radiators were either cold or not warm enough to heat their apartments.
“Our radiators were cold. Our apartments were freezing,” Smith said. Temperatures in some apartments dipped to 56 degrees, she said.
When tenants complained to the building manager and the management company, they were initially told no problem with the heat could be identified, Smith said.
“This is becoming more and more of an emergency as it gets colder and colder outside,” Smith said.
Not until Dec. 24, the renters said, did management acknowledge a problem with the heat, calling Peoples Gas to try to fix it. The heat came back on later that day, the renters said.
Under city ordinance, in buildings like the one on Spaulding — shared heating but no central cooling — indoor temperatures must be no lower than 68 degrees from 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. and no lower than 66 degrees from 10:30 p.m. to 8:30 a.m. during the “entire heating season.”
Building owners can be fined $1,000 to $2,000 for every day they violate that ordinance, said Mike Puccinelli, a spokesman for the city’s Department of Buildings.
Part of the city’s landlord-tenant ordinance would appear to allow tenants to deduct from their rent an amount that “reflects the reduced value” of their apartments due to any failure by the landlord to maintain the property properly.
M. Fishman & Co. is the property management company for the building on Spaulding. A woman inside the office at M. Fishman & Co. said she had no comment when approached by a Chicago Sun-Times reporter Thursday.
