Reviews of Beal Properties

Title says it all. 3 neighbors with ankle bracelets which was not disclosed. Lots of strange behavior. Additionally, I parked in their garage across from the dumpster which was directly under a warm exhaust where 8 or 9 rats would run at me every time I went to my car. One day I started my car and it smelled like fried chicken. Turns out an entire family of rats nested on my engine and were cooked. Also management never fixed anything.

The roaches living in 711 w Belmont have it pretty good. They are numerous and clearly well fed. There are also bed bugs.

One time I saw a LARGE rat on the 5th floor. how do you think he got up there? He probably didn’t take the elevator, because it’s always broken.

Anyways, if you’re not a bug and/or rodent, I would avoid living here.

This company is easily one of the worst in Chicago. They changed the code to my building without any notice. Tenants went over 18 hours without being notified of any change. The reason? People gave the code to delivery drivers. Do they expect us to allow our deliveries to sit on a busy street?

The buildings are disgusting and filled with roaches. There is always a “plumbing emergency” that causes them to shut off the water for hours on end or enter our apartments without warning. They’ve entered my unit before to “check the radiator” because they made a mistake when updating the floors 7 months prior. That’s not an emergency that allows you to enter my apartment without notice, that’s negligence.

The quality of appliances in the apartments leaves lots to be desired. The washing machine flooded twice in one year; it’s impossible to keep food in the fridge as it deep freezes it (the max temperature is 40 degrees). They don’t replace it . My car was vandalized on their parking lot after an argument with building manager. The cleaning crew was blocking my paid parking spot and he refused to assist. I returned to fund my car badly scratched and they refused to pull the video cameras recording without a police order. I decided to move out. It cost me in $3k damages and repairs (car, food I had to throw out, my belongings) – easier to rent a better place

Paying over $4,000 a month to live with rats and constant dust is unacceptable. The elevator has been out of service. The garage is filthy. There’s no maintenance staff available to address these ongoing issues. This is not the level of living condition or service we should expect for the amount we’re paying.

This review consists of ONLY objective facts. I have lived here just over 3 months. date at time of this review 4-10-25

1. There is no parking provided for my entire building.

1a. Even if you pay Metra for the parking lot across the street, there is no guarantee of having a parking space.

1b.I had to be compensated for the misrepresentation of parking, after, I moved in.

2.It cost $250.00(average) a month to heat the apartment (January, February, March).Apartment size Roughly 700Sq ft.

3.From day one, there was a clog affecting my kitchen sink, which affected my dishwasher, clothing washer/dryer, and my sink.

3a.Only after the clog was fixed(total of approx. 3 week ordeal) I discovered I was washing my cloths in dirty water, and my dishes in dirty water).

3c. I was unable to cook or wash cloths (due to being unable to use anything attached to the clogged sink)

3 sidenote: I do not own a car (only a motor scooter, so a laundromat was not an option for me).

3d. I received no compensation for any of category 3 issues.

4. I have giant holes behind both the kitchen and bathroom sinks (see pics).

4a. this allows cold outside air to vent into the apartment, causing more energy expenditure.

4b. I’m told that this is normal, and that those holes “have to be there” for “access to the plumbing”.

5. When I signed my lease, the building had a rooftop deck, which was part of the “pitch” and was something i was looking forward to utilizing.

5a. approx. 1 month after moving in, the rooftop deck was no longer an available amenity.

5b. They have since built a back porch which runs directly next to my bedroom window, rendering privacy( especially at night) impossible. It is also noisy since that is where people now congregate(and smoke).

6.My refrigerator stopped working and I lost conservatively $100 in groceries. Admittedly they replaced it within 3 days.(no other compensation)

7.My dishwasher stopped working(see line 3, that was the cause), that took closer to a week to get replaced.

8. these apartments are equipped with LG washer/dryer combo units.

8a. these units are highly inefficient and take approx.3-4 hours to finish a load consisting of 3 pairs of pants and 3 shirts, and accompanying undergarments.

9. The maintenance engineer is a great guy and the only good thing I have experienced.

I have made such a long review because I would hate for someone who perhaps does not have my resources or physical or mental capabilities to go through what I am going through. Keep in mind, I have been here only 3 months and have only bad experience after bad experience, and BEAL PROPERTIES, will not work with me to let me out of a challenging experience.

Building has roaches, nothing has been updated or modernized, rent hikes with no improvements, Laundry room only has one light that works, roaches on the floor, mold, rats, and the machines are always broken.

1128 Maple Ave, Evanston, IL has a HORRIBLE insect infestation that the property manager and building engineer could care less about. I have been bitten in my sleep and had to go to the hospital multiple times due to the excess of centipedes, spiders, beetles, silverfish, etc. in my unit. Their response was to send out an exterminator (Advanced Pest Control) which is also a terrible company to fix the situation. I had to take off work nine times for them to come treat the unit, which never fixed the infestation. I filed a complaint with the City of Evanston Property Standards and the inspector found at least 10 code violations in the unit including a huge hole in the ceiling of my HVAC closet that was directly open to the roof and outside. There were 3-inch gaps open to the unfinished wall behind all of my appliances and drains. They were given three weeks to repair all violations and they were taken to court and fined by the city when they failed to meet this deadline. It has now been five months and the repairs have still not been made yet they have the audacity to send me a lease renewal email and RAISE THE RENT for the third year in a row. DO NOT RENT from Beal Properties unless you get a property inspection beforehand.

Facts about the building:

1. It’s incredibly dirty. Not just in the apartment, but the hallways as well. There are black streaks on the walls, spiders hanging from the ceiling, and huge house centipedes just casually crawling along the walls and the ceilings. During the summer, I saw 3 different house centipedes in my apartment and even saw one in my sink when I looked down while washing my hands. That ALONE is the only reason I will ever need to stay as far away from this apartment as possible. It’s hard to describe how this psychologically takes a toll on you over time, but the fact that I can’t scrub the deep marks off of my walls, the floor, and other things in here makes me feel like I’m in a ratchet apartment (which I am).

2. Humidity. It’s December 19th, 2024 and I have to keep my air conditioner running because of how humid it is in here. I’m on the top floor and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do other than keep it running. It’s insane that I need winter clothes to walk outside, but when I come back it’s an uncomfortable humid heat.

3. Black mold, unfinished plaster, and moisture damage. I never knew what black mold was until I moved in here, and it explains all of the symptoms I’ve been feeling that I thought were allergies. Difficulty breathing, stuffy nose, difficulty sleeping, etc. It’s all over my windowsills in the main room and the bathroom, and it has only gotten worse while I’ve lived here. The plaster was so unfinished that there were gaping holes in my windowsill that I had to fill in with caulk, and the toilet overflowed from beneath every time I flushed when I first moved in. Had to call the building manager in several times to get it fixed, and even that didn’t fix things completely. The showerhead has low pressure and many of the holes spray water out in random directions, and the bathroom itself is a mess of mold and moisture damage that I simply don’t have the energy or ability to clean. It’s demoralizing to know that I can’t clean my own living space to a degree that makes me feel relaxed. Oh yeah, the bathroom door has also never closed properly since I’ve lived here because the plaster for where the door is supposed to close eroded so much. This building is disgusting.

4. Noise. I have had to wear noise-cancelling headphones every day just to get a moment’s peace because of how noisy this apartment is. Ironically (and I think it’s because I’m on the top floor) my neighbors are very quiet and keep to themselves, with the occasional dogs barking. The real noise comes from in my apartment. The fridge, for example, is far louder than normal but the building engineer (Art) claimed that it was “perfectly fine”. It routinely makes a clacking sound and reverberates throughout the apartment. My window A/C only adds to the noise. It’s something I was forced to get used to, but it never felt quite right to me. I’m glad I’m leaving this place ASAP.

5. CARPET BEETLES. I have holes in all of my clothes because of them. I never knew what they were until I moved in here, and it was terrifying to look in my laundry basket and see them crawling around. I threw away all of my rugs which essentially left my room barren except for the wood floors, and I’m terrified to put new furniture in. I just have an air mattress and some functional furniture now. Screw this place.

6. Suspected but never-confirmed bedbugs. Maybe it was the stress of this place overall that pushed me to think this, but I was sure that I had bedbugs here for several years. Luckily I never saw one and pest control didn’t see signs of them, but I threw away my bed and most furniture just in case. I saw blood stains on my sheets and pillowcases which, while possibly a result of popped pimples/stress bumps bleeding, freaked me out and was the last straw in a long, exhaustive list of debilitating problems in this apartment.

Conclusion: To let a building exist in this state should be (and probably is) criminal. I will NEVER rent from Beal again. The only upside was that Ari, the building manager, responded quickly and was very helpful, and Art (the building manager) came in very quickly. However, Art always seemed to act like it was an inconvenience to come in to fix the insane problems with this apartment, and I never felt fully comfortable around him. Either way, a responsive manager and engineer are nice, but can’t fix the absolutely disgusting state of this building. It’s in a great area, but there are a lot of other apartments in this area that are almost certainly better. In the 3 years that I lived here, my mental health deteriorated to the point that it required immense effort to even convince myself to leave because of how helpless I felt. Now that I’m leaving, I feel a new sense of freedom in my life and I hope my new apartment will be better.

STAY AWAY.

Just as the title cautions.

My 15 month tenancy at 635 W Barry was extremely challenging and my unit was not worth the price or physical pain I endured while living at that address.

My neighbors were mostly very sweet but our packages were constantly being stolen or left outside our building.

There were huge gaps & holes near my windows allowing hot air to escape and cold air to blow in during the winter months. It’s run by electric heat only and there is no central cooling or heating at this property making the building a breeding ground for mold and mildew. I’m extremely allergic to mold and I would typically wake up with my jaws clenched, my stomach nauseated and I’d often run to my bathroom to vomit. My cat vomited 🤢 at least 3 × a week and sometimes my dog too.

My heating bill was $200/month because Art never repaired & plastered the drywall.

I was so physically ill and fatigued and clinically depressed that I chalked it up to seasonal affect disorder not realizing my pets and I were exposed to #blackwood

635 W Barry also had floods in the laundry room and sewage and waste was backed up on the floor exposing all the tenants to toxic waste and fumes.

In March they tore up the ground level exposing all the tenants even as high as my floor on 4th floor to toxic chemicals and fumes which lead to breathing issues and more headaches.

I’m wondering if there are any lawyers willing to take on a class action suit against ‎@bealproperties because they raise the tenants rents to over $200 or more every year without any reason other than stating it’s because of real estate tax hikes.

They want to collect additional money 💰 from me now because of a mattress and bedframe that was left for me by the previous tenant. However there’s no elevator and the fire escape in back is very dangerous and unsafe to climb up and down on. There are pieces of railing missing and my friend who helped me move out almost fell!

All they care about is the money 💰 how much money 💰 they can pump out of your piggie 🐷 bank yet there are no improvements made to your apartment.

I had a moldy bathroom with moldy tile mold growing in the walls and floorboards of my apartment and a light switch in the next room thar never worked which is another major building code violation.

Also I had to walk up and down six flights of stairs 10× daily because their elevator 🛗 was shut down permanently years ago and they never built a running elevator system which is illegal in the city of Chicago

When a sublet is available it’s the building l’s responsibility to clean out the unit of furniture not the new tenant that takes over the sublet.

Each time I used my kitchen sink or bathroom shower water dribbled and leaked down from my unit 408 to the person directly below me. The maintenance engineer I’m sure realized this was a breeding issue for mold but said and did nothing.

Also when I unpacked my luggage a week ago I noticed $2,000 worth of my jewelry was missing which meant someone was using the key 🔑 to my unit and stealing things from me when I was hiking with my dog.

Spread a word of caution ⚠️ to anyone considering a lease with #Bealproperties

There was even a rat 🐀 infestation issue in our backyard because of overflowing garbage 🗑 and once I found a live rat 🐀 in the garbage can at night 🌙 while I was throwing away my garbage.

Just don’t sign leases here. I guarantee you will have issues with the building and your apartment.

If you love black mold you will love it here!

Also Art kept trying to get access to my unit using his skeleton key. I’m going to assume that the missing pouch 👝 of jewelry from my luggage was because he gained access to my apartment while I was walking my dog. When I didn’t renew my lease they had agents asking to view my apartment. So I stayed in my apartment with my pets and found out they were still attempting to get inside.

Not a good leasing company. Your rents will increase by $200 or more every time to resign.

I live at 4829 N Damen Avenue. I got bed bugs the second day I lived there. They do annual bed bug inspections (which I’ve never seen a building do) and when they tested my mattress, it showed that I had them. Two days after I moved in! I was made aware that other multiple other units were also being treated for bed bugs. Seven months later, I got them again, and worse! I found one crawling across my bed and my arms and legs were all bitten up. Two months later, and my unit is selected to be treated for bugs again. I had to have three separate treatments in nine months! I took every precaution to avoid getting bed bugs again and I’m certain they’re in the walls. I see couches and mattresses with bugs on them out by the dumpsters constantly. The property owner and building manager were swift to address the issue, but the bottom line is that the building is infested with bed bugs that they can’t control.

On top of that, the pipes are abysmal. I think I’ve had my water shut off for maintenance at least seven times in less than a year. My toilet stopped working for a bit and they’ve had to fix leaking pipes in my unit twice now. The cabinets have water damage too.

The last time I was in the laundry room in the basement, I saw a rat in a glue trap. Outside, a rat died right in front of the parking area and was left to decompose completely over the course of months. No one from the property even tried to throw it out.

I genuinely think this place needs to be torn down. I saw reviews dating back to 2010 talking about their bedbug issue. The only way to solve this would be fumigation and the building is too large. If I could leave zero stars, I would. I would rather live outside than live here ever again.

I’ve lived in one of Beal properties building in ravenswood Chicago and filed a lawsuit against them after living there almost 2 years. My building engineers kept going into my apartment without reasonable cause or notice knowing I had ptsd. I reported it and it never stopped. They also refused to take care of necessary repairs and I caught asthma because of mold that grew. When I finally tried to asset my right more aggressively by telling them i would sue them if they didn’t take measures, they started intimidating me. My mail was being tempered with, they refused to help me with camera footage to file police reports, I was terrified of even being home. My car was being messed with too and eventually I got death threats. Being I had PTSD I couldn’t take the mental abuse anymore, I ended up abandoning my unit with all of my belongings inside. It was the most traumatic thing I’ve ever dealt with. When I filed a lawsuit at the northern district of Illinois court they refused to take any evidence for discovery and send my documents to a fake email. I would start getting emails by some creep with an almost identical email using my last name (a not so common last name) with a typo in my first name. I even tried to convince myself maybe that person existed but when I look it up there was nobody living on this planet under that name. This makes me think whoever owns this BS company has affiliations with corrupted people in high places in the city of Chicago. It was a battle to even get IDHR to take my complaint and eventually I had to drop my complaint because I lost my rights to be in the US after living in America 7 years and I realised IDHR also was just keeping this file hanging and not actually doing anything about it. So yeah please don’t deal with this fucked up company, they’re creepy, you’ll have a hard time asserting your rights and might try to kill you if you don’t bend over backwards to let them bamboozle you.

Desperately hoping rent doesn’t increase a ridiculous amount when my lease is up, because I love my apartment at 816 W Waveland. When touring, the agent claimed increases were between 3-5% yearly, but according to my neighbors, it’s always higher. Only wish I’d gotten it in writing, but at least I still have the agent’s contact info. (I doubt it’ll help, but here’s hoping.)

The tenants have a WhatsApp chat where we share issues and ask folks to grab any super important packages that arrive while we’re out (packages regularly get stolen here). I get everything delivered to either the Whole Foods next door or the UPS a block away. The walls are thin and part of the semi-basement floods with heavy rain. My plumbing connects the bathroom and kitchen sinks, which the handymen always comment was a bizarre choice (it has caused several plumbing issues). They also don’t recycle, which is probably my biggest personal complaint. Same as my last building: they have recycling bins, but everything goes into them. I guess they just pay whatever fines must apply?

I love the size of my unit for the (current) rent and the location is unbeatable. I came here from a tiny, “landlord’s special” studio, so by comparison, this is nice. The building manager responds to issues within 1-2 days in my experience, but she doesn’t respond to texts; a handyman will just stop by at some point unannounced. Fingers crossed there are no nasty surprises come summer, because fall, winter, and spring have so far been good in terms of bugs, unit temp, etc.

I live at 4829 N Damen Avenue. I got bed bugs the second day I lived there. They do annual bed bug inspections (which I’ve never seen a building do) and when they tested my mattress, it showed that I had them. Two days after I moved in! I was made aware that other multiple other units were also being treated for bed bugs. Seven months later, I have them again, and worse! I found one crawling across my bed and my arms and legs are all bitten up. I took every precaution to avoid getting bed bugs again and I’m certain they’re in the walls. The property owner and building manager were swift to address the issue, but the bottom line is that the building is infested with bed bugs that they can’t control.

I’ve lived in the 4034-4040 N Ashland apartments for a little over a year and a half. The apartment itself is honestly a very decent apartment! Granite counters, wood floors, big living room, etc. Is it worth the over $1700 I pay in rent? Absolutely not. There have been no internal improvements or renovations of my living space. The laundry room costs an otherworldly $2.99 per cycle which I think is a complete scam. They advertised to us that they were improving the laundry room machines and all they did was keep the same machines and add a more expensive credit card machine that you have to use an app to use. They also told us NOTHING about the app other than a piece of paper taped to the table in the laundry room. There also always seems to be a problem in the laundry room that causes it to be shut down for a couple days to a week at a time. One time, we had no laundry room access for over a week due to an issue with the laundry app not activating the machines. They told us nothing about when it would be fixed and I honestly do not know how other people made it because we were washing clothes out of our sink. Even today, 2/28/24 we had some sort of plumbing issue and the laundry room floor was covered in fecal matter and we are going to be without water for 1-2 days(they told us one day but knowing them this will probably take a while).

I have also had consistent issues with the building manager, Julia. I will say, the one safety issue I did have with another tenants dog attacking my dog and I, she and Beal were extremely quick on getting me their information so I could go to law enforcement about the situation. Other than that however, Julia is pretty much unreachable unless the issue is A: severe enough in her eyes or B: you bombard her with text messages. When I was touring apartments, my agent told me that we “would kind of have to be a karen” if we wanted to get an issue done quickly and she could have NOT understated that more. For example, my dishwasher had a part that broke right after Thanksgiving, it is maybe a $20 part at lowes or home depot but I told my boyfriend that I wanted to see how quickly they would take care of this issue. Over the course of about a month, I sent Julia multiple texts with no response, INCLUDING one time of getting ghosted by her because our schedules within the next 48 hours didn’t line up for them to come into the apartment. Two days later, my dishwasher was not draining and flooding my apartment. It took Julia ONE WEEK to get someone out just to look at it. The guy was literally in my apartment for two minutes and looked at it, told me ” you know you could’ve just turned the dishwasher on and off again and it would’ve drained?” It then took them another four days to come back with the part and get it fully fixed. So, for a $20 part that was needing to be replaced in late November, we got the dishwasher fully fixed the first week of February. That entire time we had to wash our dishes by hand. When the dishwasher started flooding, we couldn’t use our kitchen sink at all because it was draining into the dishwasher. We were given no apology or rental discount since an entire amenity of our apartment wasn’t working for 2 1/2 months. Overall, maybe I lucked out on an apartment but lord I feel that if Julia was not there, I would’ve had a much more pleasant experience. She seems inexperienced and if she is, I don’t know how she’s been employed this long.

I’ve rented a 1b/1ba at 947-57 W Cornelia for 1.5 years now, and it’s been mostly fine. Overpriced? Yes, but it’s a nice little space.

The unit was super clean at move-in. Kemal, the building “engineer” is alright, he can be annoying but just be assertive with him and you’ll get what you need.

No issues with bugs/roaches or rodents.

The toilet is sooo slow and quick to back up, but water pressure in the shower is great for an older building.

Baseboard heaters are a huge PITA. For such a small space, it’s impossible to keep the place adequately warm during the deep freezes, and my ComEd bill was ridiculous. Give me radiators any day.

I’ve never had an issue with neighbors, everyone is polite and respectful with noise, guests, etc.

Laundry an ungodly $2.99 per load, and there’s always at least one or two machines broken or don’t work well. The laundry room is in the basement and gnarly as hell

Bottom line, I’ve had a fine experience. I promise I’m not a Beal shill, I totally believe the complaints and negligence reported by other tenants, past and present, around the city. I think I just got really lucky. My last rental from Bil-Mar was literally full of felons, animal abusers, drug users/dealers, and cockroaches, so take that context for what you will.

For anyone like me that found this website before move-in but AFTER signing your lease, I would say don’t panic, can be fine and normal. If not, God bless ya.

I chose this place on a pinch when I had to move to Chicago. The studio is the size of a room, fine. But the studio had cockroaches, I found cockroach poops in the cupboards. They did come to spray and after that I still saw a few, they seem to be gone now. Another thing is the theft of mail. I get like 1 package a week stolen. I saw rats in the basement laundry room, though that also seems to have been addressed after I made a call to the city. The building has constant smell of poop or sewer, not exaggerating, in our lobby it smells almost as if a dog has pooped nearby. These are probably the most egregious things. I am happy to say that I will be moving out of here soon.

3829 N Fremont- We had a water leak from one of the apartments above us. They gave us a dehumidifier and said good luck. weeks later, a mushroom sprouted from our ceiling and they removed it and patched the hole with no further inspection. They are unconcerned with potential mold growth in our ceilings, which is a health issue.

My apartment has been infested with rats and mosquitos and the building manager and management company refuse to call an exterminator. It’s insane to me the way they’ve dragged their feet on this issue. The building manager prefers to argue with the tenants over actually following state law.

I am moving in August (finally) after a slew of unresponsive requests, stolen packages, tenant neighbors with criminal activity, dirty laundry, and a a haphazard maintenance structure that means things are “fixed” but really just a temporarily. The offices don’t connect you through to talk to anyone, I feel like I’m always leaving messages, and my emails are often ignored, especially when dealing with repeated criminal activity in my building. I would avoid Beal Properties at all cost. Save yourself the stress and lack of security.