All Forum Posts by: Jerry N.

Completely understand the why.  All it takes though is one disgruntled or over zealous person or a professional scammer to notice that in an ad and you will have to deal with fallout from something you mean to be helpful in your screening.  

If we suspect a problem or have found something on social media we find concerning, when communicating back we say something along the lines of 'you are welcome to set an appointment to see the apartment, however please know ...... insert reasonable reason here. 

For you it could be the apartment may not be suitable in size or hot water capacity for three people,.  It is a legit concern.  Good luck.

Thank you for the information @Roy N., will check them both out.

@Amy Kircher Be careful requiring 'single,' that can be discriminatory.  There are differences in laws about max # of occupants, but stating 'single' is almost asking for trouble.

The service we normally use for tenant screening doesn't offer anything for Canadinans.  Anyone with any insights?  Not too keen on having to pay for a secondary service one off so was trying to find options.  The service that came to mind is Cozy, they are doing a lot of pushing of their services here but their site says all 50 states and Puerto Rico.  

Any of our northern neighbors closer to the border run into this challenge?  Any idea on cost comparison or up charge for the service?

Thanks for reading.

Thank you @Brie Schmidt, and @Chris T.  Cutting Edge is first on the list.  It will be worth it to pay someone as long as it is a good job!

Thank you for all the info @Jairo Ortega, @Patricia Steiner, @Sam Shueh,, @Peter Halliday, and @Jon Mulholland.

We posted in the Illinois forum too and there were other recommendations there for Cutting Edge.  They will be our first call.  The tub is antique and was either painted or a bad finish job.  We do a lot ourselves, this will not be one of those jobs. Hiring someone for sure, fingers crossed it will turn out well.  Cutting Edge's reviews are mostly good but there are some bad ones too.  

Will post a follow up.

Thanks again.

Anyone have a recommendation for a tub glazing in the Chicago area? Any ideas on costs? I've seen signs on the side of the road advertising $250 and I'm guessing that is you get what you pay for but calling a couple places from the internet hasn't been productive either. Anyone to specifically stay away from?

Thanks for reading and any insights.

Anyone have a recommendation for a tub glazing in the Chicago area?  Any ideas on costs?  I've seen signs on the side of the road advertising $250 and I'm guessing that is you get what you pay for but calling a couple places from the internet hasn't been productive either.  Anyone to specifically stay away from?

Thanks for reading and any insights.  

@Ryan Redenius Hope you didn't have too much damage.  As a precaution, we instruct our tenants to keep their faucets dripping.  We've had pipes freeze before, not burst on us but there is evidence that it has happened before in the building in a number of places.  The heavier copper will help a bit according to a plumber, but having numerous days long of freezing temps might still cause problems with no other measures.  

I don't think Chicago allows Pex @Brandon Ellis, not 100% sure but they didn't used to for residential plumbing.

There is an insulation product called InSoFast that an architect recommended.  We haven't used it yet but are planning it for a basement reno in an old brick building. It comes in sheets and it is available in different R value, so it can have a smaller width/depth than some other types of insulation.  With our research, we don't want to use spray on an old building here.  

Another building discovery we had after the time we had freezing pipes was that on one side of the building (130+ yo) there were these 'vents' in the brick between the 1st and 2nd floor so about 20' off the ground.  You wouldn't see them looking up in the gangway, we only saw them from the neighbor's window.  The opening was three courses of brick tall and about two bricks in width. Just two vertical bricks placed and nothing else - no insulation, nothing.  I don't have a picture and didn't find one on line but hopefully that description helps.   Getting a ladder and looking in was challenging but these were just openings into the building we could see about 15' in.  So in the winter, there was (5 openings spaced the length of the building if I recall correctly where) cold outside air was literally coming into the building between the floors.  Not a permanent solution, but we filled the openings with Great stuff and it made a huge difference.  It isn't pretty and isn't planned to permanent but for now it works fine.  At the time, we had asked a different architect what they were for and he had no idea.  Now we look for them on buildings and know that for the time this building was constructed, these were basically the openings in the brick behind very very old kitchen and bathroom 'vents'.  You should see if you can get a good view of the side of your building to see if you have anything like this and try to take care of it too.

Good luck on your fix.

I"m guessing that you didn't get a title search or insurance?  Advice to everyone, even if you buy off market, owner finance or want to try to get something at auction.  Depending on the situation, you may not be able to get title insurance, but paying for the search if you don't know how to do it can save you $ and headache.