Wilmot Properties,Inc. — Local services in West Chicago Township

March 1, 2013

The Office of Wilmot Properties 1801 N Humboldt Blvd Chicago, Il 60647

Re: Lease Signing

To Whom It May Concern:

When we moved in, the apartment was not cleaned, the walls were not painted and light bulbs were not replaced. Our sliding door to the balcony took 6 months to get fixed (which caused our energy bills to be more than twice as expected), and even longer to fix a loose shower door/lining, among multiple requests to fix other things that were not taken care of in a timely manner. All of these things were reported to your office at the time we moved in. The lock on the outside door to our balcony remains unfixed to this day, after multiple requests.

In addition, we were without a stove for about 2 weeks because it had broken and your office took that long to replace it. We have also made a recent report saying that our heater was making odd noises and we didn't think that it was working properly. Your office informed us that unless it wasn't working at all, that it wouldn't even be looked at.

Now, you are raising our rent, not only to the Chicago standard yearly amount of 5-6%, but to an unprecedented rate of 16%, an extra $300/month, for an apartment of which the walls have still not been painted and maintenance requests still go unanswered.

According to the Lawyers' Committee for Better Housing, an oral agreement is legally binding, and will hold up in a court of law. We were told when we moved in that our rent would not be raised for as long as we lived in the unit. The former tenants, as well as others in the building, were all told this by your office staff and the agents selling the space for rent. When someone is selling for you, they represent you, and this was our 'oral agreement'. You also show a precedence of you not raising your rent in the last 5 years. After only living here one year, being asked to pay $300 extra a month in order to make up for the 5 years you missed out on raising the rent, we would be taking the burden of those who lived here before us, paying their increases.

The timing of this situation is unfortunate and we know that legally we have to tell you 30 days before our lease expires whether or not we are planning to re-sign. We are planning to re-sign the lease, since it would take longer to take this to court, and moving out is a greater burden on our lives at the moment. However, if we receive more disrespect and more mistreatment as tenants as mentioned in the first two paragraphs, we will not hesitate to take action and bring this to the attention of the court.

Furthermore, we do intend to bring our situation to the attention of online reviews of lessors in the city and express the truth about your company. We will also provide any relevant media sources with the letter, which we have written here, unless you are willing to reconsider the significant rent increase.

As someone who works in business, advertising something and doing the opposite is not the way to run a successful, respected business. If you aren't going to stick to something you say, don't say it. Your actions will lose you a lot of respect in the industry and other...

We moved into the Walmart properties on 2924 W. Medill in November 2024. The apartment was very modern, but it quickly became apparent that everything was done as far as building construction goes on the cheap. We lived on the fifth floor of a five floor building, so didn’t have the issue With upstairs neighbors. We do know because of communication with downstairs neighbors that there is almost no insulation floor to floor. The apartment grew mold like nobody’s business, It was insane. I am an extremely clean person and regularly (weekly or less) used bleach or vinegar In bathrooms and kitchen, and couldn’t keep up with mold. The apartment was also extremely dusty, once again this was not an issue with cleanliness, but an issue with the way that the building was constructed. I suffered multiple asthma attacks, and allergy issues due to the amount of dust. The common spaces, including the hallways, Atrium, and gym were always dirty. By dirty, I mean the floors were disgusting, and any trash cans were never emptied. If I wanted the hallways to be cleaned, I had to reach out the management. In our eight months of living there, the hallways were cleaned, maybe three or four times. I reached out for them to be cleaned three times. The parking is also a huge problem. The garage door is not a building grade garage door, but instead a residential garage door, meaning that it easily opens and doesn’t close. The first week we lived there, my car was broken into. The trash was also an issue. There was a trash room but only after about three or four months of living there. Before that we just threw our trash into a literal construction trash container outside of the building. Once there was a trash room, it was always full and very smelly. For a building that includes 56 apartments, there were two trash and two recycling bins. That’s it. When I had to end our lease early due to health issues for both myself and our animals, I was met with a complete lack of professionalism from the management company. While I know we ended our lease months early, and I knew that there would be a penalty for that, I ended up losing about $9000. I would highly recommend against renting with this company. They truly do not care about their tenants, which I suppose they don’t have to in a city like Chicago. But for rent that cost $3000 a month, I expected a way...

I’ve always had great experiences with my Chicago landlords, but Wilmot was such a disappointment. You can see my review of their building on 2924 W Medill for more detail, but in short, I broke my lease after just 4 weeks leasing with this company—a first for me after 15+ years of renting in Chicago and other major cities. The issues started before move-in when the leasing agent wrote my lease for a different unit than we had agreed upon. After an extremely unprofessional phone call, they “allowed” me to switch units, but repeatedly acted as though this mistake was a favor to me. Once I moved in the problems became overwhelming. The noise from other apartments was so severe it affected my work and sleep. I have NEVER experienced anything close to this level of noise in an apartment. Common areas were dirty and neglected. There was a strong sewage smell throughout the building, so much dust and debris and no help from management or maintenance. With all of this I decided it was best to break my lease. Once I did, I was met with more unprofessionalism. For example, the leasing agent showing my apartment to prospective tenants with just a few hours notice (and no apology) and, after everything, asking me to move out early for the new tenants with no offer of compensation. Avoid Wilmot at all costs—they’re popping up cheap builds throughout the city that look nice but are...