This was my first apartment, and it was a nightmare from the beginning. I was drawn towards B&A Properties because of their low rent prices (for Evanston) and lack of security deposit. I moved into 1000 Main St. APT 3H, an acceptable sized studio apartment for one person on a budget. The first problem was getting my name programmed into the electronic buzzer system. After multiple calls to management they finally added my name to the system after having lived there for several months. That was all good, except the buzzer system ceased operation constantly, causing many unnecessary trips up and down three flights of stairs and through a courtyard to the front entrance. Next was the shower/bathtub. Water was up to my ankles every time I took a shower. When I called maintenance about this issue I returned from work one day to find they had replaced my shower-head with the weakest low pressure shower head ever made rather than fixing the blockage in the drain. The thing had like two streams of water. Shortly after I bought some drano and a new shower-head, as their fix was totally unacceptable. Then came the mice. I am not a dirty person. Some may say I have a slight obsession with being clean and tidy in my apartment. I mopped the floors almost every day, dust, vacuum, etc. All this cleaning is important because I have a small bird, and well birds can be messy unless you clean regularly. The mice would come though the huge holes in my walls, through the loose radiator cap, basically from everywhere into my apartment. I called them about this and they placed some glue traps and left it alone. Let me tell you from experience, you can never just have one mouse. If you see one, you're in trouble because they come in packs. I must have killed about a hundred mice before I threatened to sue them if they didn't let me move into another apartment. They never fixed any of the holes from where the mice were entering either. Aerex, a local pest control came to my apartment several times. I did everything they told me to do, I even stopped feeding my bird anything with seeds because they said mice love seeds. I would hear noises in the night and turn on the lights to find mice in my birds cage, and then they would scurry towards the wall. When I finally left the unit there were mouse droppings behind every piece of furniture, my bed, basically everywhere I couldn't reach to clean on a regular basis. I called the city health inspector on them and he told me the building was infested if they were coming all the way up to the third floor. To conclude, I would avoid this company at all costs. There are plenty of apartments in the Chicago-land area that are much more well managed than anything you will find from Barry & Associates. Currently I live in one of their more expensive buildings in a one bedroom because I had to get out of 1000 Main St. They wouldn't let me out of my lease, but told me I could move to another building to get away from the mice. I suppose if I had the money I could have sued them for health reasons and neglect and gotten some rent $$$ back, but lawyers are expensive. When June 1st comes I'm outta here and never looking back.

User Responses
From: tmo9d	Date: 02/06/2006
Get a cat. The health inspector is going to take one look at your rich behind and start tell you about the real health inspections by landlords who are really taking advantage of tenants down near Howard and Dodge.

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