Reviews of Beal Properties

I lived at 612 W Patterson for a little over 2 years and had a great experience. I lived in one of the studio units on the first floor, facing west, which looked out into the next door courtyard. Overall I really liked the building and felt like it was a great price for the area and for a renovated unit. The downsides are that the elevator was constantly broken (wasn’t an issue for me on the first floor), and the building to the west can be loud sometimes. But overall I had a great experience and any maintenance issues were taken care of fast.

This place is horrible at repairs. My bathroom has sprung a third leak within a year. The leaks all originate from plumbing in my bathroom walls and they’ve had to tear down the walls every time. Absolutely horrible place.

I lived in a Beal building (957 W Cornelia) for 2 years and could not wait for my lease to terminate so I could get out. My apartment only had electric floorboard heating, which is designed for supplemental heating, though Beal passed that off as acceptable. It cost a fortune to pay the electric bill over the winter, with the heaters turned up to the maximum level and my apartment would remain under 60 degrees (F) despite Beal emailing residents reminding us to keep our apartments heated. I had several maintenance requests submitted that took weeks and several repeated phonecalls to have anyone come look, often even when they’d come they would “fix” it and then it would return to it’s previous state but it wasn’t even worth the energy to try to get maintenance back again. Any time I hear of someone looking to rent from Beal I discourage it, you could not pay me to live with Beal.

This apartment doesn’t have working plumbing and the walls are hot glued to the floor they forced us into a month to month lease because they are doing construction, we’re moving out.

If Beal is saying their standards are higher, then I have a bridge to sell them in the middle of nowhere. Our lease process was a nightmare. Constant ignored communications with us and our real estate agent, along with not receiving our lease until 4 pm of the day we were supposed to be moving in!

When we first moved in, we were greeted to an apartment with broken windows, it was unclean, and multiple broken appliances. This “never happened before” they would say. “This is unusual” they said. This should have been our warning. Two months into our lease, Beal decided they no longer wanted to maintain the rooftop deck that was part of the building and silently closed it. No remuneration. Multiple requests to adjust rent for it were ignored.

Email after email we received no response. Soon after, a former tenant known to Beal regularly entered the building, accessing our mailbox. Had keys to our unit. Great! It took months to address this problem former tenant, who apparently moved out 3 years prior to us. We then get the cops out when she came in one time, for Beal to then release them “feeling bad for them” after we were being harassed via text message, phone, and in-person. Throughout our lease they have come in to replace windows and appliances. Meanwhile our walls continue to grow cracks, bubbles, tears. Ceiling as well. Doors are coming off hinges inside and outside the unit.

The bottom floor of the building gets extremely cold because they aren’t maintaining the exterior doors. Our building was cited for 16 violations by the City 3 years prior to us moving in. They were inspected this year. So that’s 5 years later, and guess what? Same 16 violations at minimum. The city wants to inspect the units but surprise, Beal makes no effort to tell its tenants. Our carbon monoxide detector was burned out. Literally burned. I don’t trust them on life safety anymore. Could you blame me? With outstanding violations about fire resistant doors, stair configuration, emergency exit sign issues, and more, this building is a disaster waiting to happen. There are plenty of other issues in my unit but I’m so tired of trying with them.

So let’s talk about the common area’s… Our elevator is operating without a certificate of inspection. In fact, it failed inspection when the city came to check it after someone filed complaints. The emergency phone doesn’t work so if you get stuck, good luck.

The laundry room is trash. It has exposed telephone wiring in it, the water heater is openly exposed, and the machines fail so often that it’s a miracle if you can go a week without losing $2 (Yes, $2 per machine for use), or more, or have to spend 5+ hours on a single load of laundry because apparently replacing worn machines is too difficult for them to task. Another (I assume) former tenant was so ticked off at them for this, they cut the power cable to one of the machine, for it to take beal no less than 3 months to replace said machine.

Beal’s response now that the machines are failing more? “We offer laundry as a convenience, we make no guarantee”. Really? Because Chicago law says landlord provided equipment must be maintained in sound order and that such waiver is not legal. Plus, you advertise that we have a laundry room. So it’s either false advertising or a breach of the municipal code. What do you want?

Regardless… I’ve lost my patience with this company, and the four now property managers since our almost 2 year tenure. The failing machines, the steady code violations, and the seeming lack to care about improving their buildings suggests they don’t belong in the business. All they will do is lie to you about their efforts until a check has to be written, then they try to walk around it.

So is this an isolated issue? My neighbors say no. They’ve also experienced dirty apartments on move-in, retaliation for reporting issues, failure for them to take menial steps to properly repair and failing to pull permits for work that requires it.

Everything I said can be further confirmed by other complaints all over the internet, and in City of Chicago Department of Buildings records that are accessible online.

Since my original review on Yelp and my initial threat to leverage the RLTO on Beal, they proceeded to “put lipstick on a pig” by finally starting to bring the building partially into code, while cutting as many corners as they can, and last I checked, they didn’t pull permits for a single thing. So was it even done by appropriate contractors? The paint is already chipping and ripping off the doors and walls. Not even 3 months after their work. Oh, and did I mention they STILL haven’t resolved all the laundry issues. They finally replaced 1 more machine. Woo. Such effort. Now if only they handled the remaining 6. The structure in our apartment continues to degrade, we began getting water leaks, and the extent of their work was to patch the roof. Internal in the apartment, they don’t care.

Honestly, just avoid Beal Properties if you can. There are better landlords in Chicago that actually care about their buildings and put their money where their mouth is. These people don’t. If you have a current lease with them and are having problems, get in touch with the MTO or someone who can help you understand the RLTO and get out of here. They don’t deserve tenants until they cleanup their act. After having read everything on this website, I’m disgusted. I wish I knew this stuff prior to moving in, I would have never chose them.

For an entire week, we were all forced to utilize the rear entrance into the back alley while construction crews tore up and rebuilt the front lobby FLOORING because rather than remove the tree root from growing up through the concrete, they chose to chip away at cement flooring, replace with new cement and varnish even though the “bubble” or groove created a 6 inch elevation in the floor would cause you to trip when using the front door. It was frightening using the dark alley at night because the alley light was burnt out. The smell of the varnish coming from the flooring job required towels under doors to keep smell out.

Also, black mold was painted over.

The stairs in my building were NOT building-code approved an when I required an ambulance they couldn’t fit a bed up or down the stairs to remove me.

I am not someone who ever writes reviews but if I could give negative stars I would. Beal Properties allowed myself and other tenants to move into the property on 705 W Brompton which is infested with bedbugs. I slept there one night and woke up with bites all over my back. I immediately notified them and they took 3 days to even call an exterminator. It took me making several calls to the exterminator to get them to even push it up a day. When the exterminator came all they did was spray when extensive research shows that the most effective treatment is heat treatment. During this time I had to buy contractor bags and large bins to store all my belongings in and put everything in the middle of the room. It’s a pandemic so I could not go stay with family and yet they made no offer to house me or my dog elsewhere during this time, expecting me to stay there and be eaten alive night after night. WORSE, even after I notified them they continued to allow other new tenants to move in and did not notify these new tenants of the ongoing issue, confirming my theory that they were aware of the issue prior to my move in as well. All the new tenants who moved in within a day of me ended up having bedbugs in their units. Prior to this, none of us had bedbugs. There is no way any of us brought them with us. I ended up having to spend thousands of dollars to pay for a hotel, dog boarding, replacing expensive furniture I had to throw out, and buying new clothes while all other clothes were bagged up. The “dryers” in the units are not connected to a vent so they use steam heat to dry your clothes which proves ineffective when trying to get rid of bed bugs which require a high heat dry (120 degrees) for about an hour. I asked Beal Properties to terminate my lease, return my security deposit and fees and to compensate me for all the expenses I incurred as a result of their negligence. They delayed me at every turn chalking up bedbugs to an “inconvenience”. They refused to compensate me for my expenses which were around $7500, even though I only asked for $5000. I consulted with an attorney with past experience with this property group about what my options were as a tenant…Right now because the courts are closed there is little you can do. Even if the courts weren’t closed, I was informed by my lawyer that companies like this one almost always delay with motion after motion until the plaintiff racks up lawyer fees to the point where suing for damages would be pointless. They are a predatory leasing company. DO NOT LEASE with them. I have read other reviews online about vermin issues in their buildings. Save yourself the financial, physical and emotional pain and suffering. I am in a new apartment now and have disinfected all my stuff and thrown away so many belongings and still can’t sleep at night.