ITU
Yesterday I went to the Illinois Tenants Union office. There I talked with Douglas who went over my apartment lease and found that the ordinance summary on the back of my lease was out of date was grounds enough to terminate the lease. This made me very excited, I had this feeling that it would be hard to do than it turned out. Douglas said that there are ten things landlords can possibly do to violate the lease, they might not do all of them, but anyone of them can be grounds for terminating a lease.
So them we went over the condition of the building, he ask me questions about how the building entrances opened and closed, if they were self-closing and self-locking, whether the windows were well insulated, if they had screens and so on. My apartment didn't have screens and in the winter you can easily feel the wind coming in through the windows. From there he helped me write up a letter addressed to the landlords with my intentions to terminate the lease.
I'm supposed to mail out two exact letters, one as certificate of mail, and the other certified mail, They both sounds similar, but are quite different. Certificate of mail basically means that I have a postmark from the Post Office stating that I mailed out the letter and in the eyes of the law that means it got delivered. Certified mail means that the letter gets mail, but the receiver of the letter must sign for it before receiving the letter. That way I have two ways of proving in a court of law that I sent out my letter.
Part of the letter says that they have to fix all the things that are wrong with the apartment if they don't fix them then those issues are also grounds for terminating the lease.
If anyone in Illinois has apartment problems I high recommend the Illinois Tenants Union. They have been very helpful and will continue to help in until the end.
On another not, Hilary had a high fever all day yesterday. I thought it might be the Hard Limeade drinks she had Friday night, but now I don't know what the cause was, she had another fever this morning. I don't want it to get worse. :(
So them we went over the condition of the building, he ask me questions about how the building entrances opened and closed, if they were self-closing and self-locking, whether the windows were well insulated, if they had screens and so on. My apartment didn't have screens and in the winter you can easily feel the wind coming in through the windows. From there he helped me write up a letter addressed to the landlords with my intentions to terminate the lease.
I'm supposed to mail out two exact letters, one as certificate of mail, and the other certified mail, They both sounds similar, but are quite different. Certificate of mail basically means that I have a postmark from the Post Office stating that I mailed out the letter and in the eyes of the law that means it got delivered. Certified mail means that the letter gets mail, but the receiver of the letter must sign for it before receiving the letter. That way I have two ways of proving in a court of law that I sent out my letter.
Part of the letter says that they have to fix all the things that are wrong with the apartment if they don't fix them then those issues are also grounds for terminating the lease.
If anyone in Illinois has apartment problems I high recommend the Illinois Tenants Union. They have been very helpful and will continue to help in until the end.
On another not, Hilary had a high fever all day yesterday. I thought it might be the Hard Limeade drinks she had Friday night, but now I don't know what the cause was, she had another fever this morning. I don't want it to get worse. :(