“When it snows [and the furnace dies], she has no fear for her household, for all of them are clothed in scarlet [and sitting around in a properly-heated house].”
Well, our furnace has been down for 5 and a half days, and after this morning’s letter to our landlord, I feel that I am really up on Chicago landlord-tenant law. I even have the ordinances printed out (I wanted to highlight all the ways that our landlord is breaking the law. It was rather exciting.). It’s amazing…we’ve called our landlord daily since our clogged, carbon monoxide-producing furnace was deemed “potentially fatal,” and each day there’s been a new excuse about why they can’t come fix it. But when I took matters into my own hands (as outlined in Chicago ordinance 5-12-110(f)), I found a place willing to fix things for me right away! Because we legally have to give one day’s written notice of our intent to arrange the repairs ourselves and bill the landlord, we had to wait for an appointment tomorrow morning. But you know what? They promise that they’ll come in, inspect and clean, order the parts, and fix the clogged pipe all in 24 hours! We could have had our furnace on basically all of last weekend if we’d just done it ourselves. And you know how much our weasely law-ignoring landlord is fussing about spending? Seventy-nine stinking dollars. Yep, break the law (which says Chicago landlords must provide working heat for their tenants after Nov. 1) and the lease (section 10 requires a working furnace) and let a pregnant woman and toddler sit around waiting for a repairman (not even able to leave to go to the park or grocery store in case he comes) in a cold house for a week to save yourself $79 that you were going to have to spend in the end, anyway. That’s good business sense right there. After this forray into rental law, I’m all geared up to take up our air conditioning with our landlord–it’s been broken since we moved in, despite our demands for immediate repair, and at the rate he moves to fix things, I’d better start working now to get it dealt with before warm weather returns!
To my Mauck girls coming in this weekend….yep, we’ll probably still be sitting around space heaters Friday night, but I’m planning to bake a lot to warm up the kitchen, I’ve pulled out all our blankets for the guest beds, and we’re heading to Hannah’s for a warm lunch on Saturday. By the time we get back, the heat should be on!
I’ll bring an extra sweater!