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FAQ
This FAQ is only meant as a guide to help answer frequently asked questions and does not represent an addition or modification to any legal contract you may already have in place with us. As well this FAQ may not contain the most up to date information. Always refer to your lease.

contact
Email is preferred for non-emergencies: casamartirano AT gmail.com
Phone: 312.834.3605

When is rent due?
Rent is payable in advance, 5 days before the start of the month for which rent is due. Note there is always a 5 day grace period before any late fees acrue or before any other action such as an eviction notice. As a result including the 5 day grace period we will not charge fees nor consider any default of rent until the 1st of the month. If rent is paid on the 2nd, then it is effectively 6 days late. If you need to pay rent late then please contact us in advance and make the request along with an estimate of when it can be paid. When we are notified in advance, we are a lot more sympathetic to waive the late fee (as long as the estimated rent payment date is fulfilled).

Can I use my damage deposit as last months rent?
Of course not - then we would call it 'last months rent' instead of calling it a damage or security deposit. I don't know of any landlords who allow this, so its disingenuous to ask this question in my opinion.

Ok then when and how will I get my damage deposit back?
Within 30 days of the end of your lease according to state law. However we usually attempt to send deposits out much faster. We will never pay the deposit on the last day of the lease or as you are leaving the apartment, its always at least a few days later as we are usually very busy during tenant changeovers. We have pretty awesome tenants in general (mature, independent, reliable, level-headed, etc) and as a result we rarely have to charge anyones deposit. I'd say 90% of the time our tenants get 100% of their deposit and of the other 10% they mostly only pay a small amount because they were to busy to clean thoroughly. Our business model does not in any way rely on keeping deposits.

The lease says NO SMOKING but can I smoke if I open a window?
Definitely not. Smoking has a lot of negative consequences on rental property including: 1) potential renters smell it during showings and often don't want to rent, 2) it discolors paint jobs and necesitates painting more frequently, 3) it actually decreases the lifespan of mechanicals such as ceiling fans, 4) we avoid carpets and curtains but where absorbant materials are present the effects of smoking are much worse. I will go so far as to say that we reserve the right to keep your damage deposit if you regularly smoke indoors however in practice this has only happened once in twenty years. Our renters tend to be responsible, mature and considerate folk who recognize all this and if they smoke would step outside to do so.

What is your policy around bugs, pests and rodents?
We do not assume liability for bugs or pests under our lease, we view our responsibility to primarily involve the maintenance of the house itself and that can involve support around pests. A couple examples:

• Bugs: As a general rule, we prefer not to spray every property regularly because we find that pest problems are intermittent and many apartments never experience an issue (so it amounts to unnecessary environmental pollution). However, upon request *and as a courtesy* we can add a tenants apt to our maintenance list for pesticide spraying either as a 1-time thing or as an annual or bi-annual event for persistent cases. If the problem is noted *on move-in day* then we often have a maintenance person on-call to handle emerging issues, otherwise it will be put on a non-emergency list and may take up to a couple weeks to happen. We also like to identify entry points and seal those up in the interest of long-term maintenance, rather than simply spray the symptom.
• Ants: We can put out ant-killer in the basement or common spaces, I can recommend Terro Ant Killer for inside your home, as well as maintaining an immaculately clean space. We will not generally place not check bait inside tenants homes.
• Bed bugs: I have only seen 1 case of bedbugs in 22 years, so the horror stories are a bit overstated. That said, it is expensive to do professional bed bug remediation and the cost of such remediation will likely be left to tenants AND THE LONGER ONE WAITS THE WORSE MORE EXPENSIVE THE PROBLEM WILL GET SO DO NOT PUT OFF REPORTING THE ISSUE OR TAKING ACTION. However, if one were to identify bed bugs immediately upon move-in, then we would want to get an expert in to determine if these were pre-existing or brought in by the tenant. In the event they are pre-existing, then the previous tenant’s damage deposit would likely go toward remediation.
• Mice: In CU, we find that mice are most likely to enter (if at all) during the onset of winter when they are searching for somewhere warm. Our primary priority is to find and seal up any entry points so that we can minimize pest entry (and we have successfully minimized this issue where it has cropped up - that is not to say it never happens!). For houses with common spaces we will also place traps in the basement and check back when doing maintenance. However, we avoid directly dealing with mice in an individuals apartment because the nature of this involves setting and then checking the trap (even daily) and replacing the trap when any mouse is caught. It is not efficient for us, nor comfortable for tenants, for us to be entering your space daily to check a trap. In these situations we are willing *as a courtesy* to drop off traps for tenants. Also if a tenant has a persistent issue, we can inquire with the rest of the tenants in the house to see if others are having an issue, in the event of an ‘infestation’, we would want a coordinated effort, although in practice, I have never seen a mice or pest infested house.
• Squirrels: Hearing squirrels in your roof or walls? CU has a lot of them, and they can be hard to get rid of. What we have done where this has been a problem in the past, is to install metal soffit and fascia to the overhang area of the roof, that in every case has removed their entry point and solved the issue. This however is neither a small nor a cheap job so it may take weeks to months to schedule in and we will prioritize it as well based on the severity or recurrence of the problem. Ultimately it is in our interest to protect the integrity of our roof and electrical in the ceilings and walls, so I am generally just as concerned as you are about the issue.

I need to end my lease early, is there a sublet or lease termination option?
Yes and no. Please read the sublease clause in your lease - the clause is written rather conservatively for worst case scenario as a sublease however we often offer to assign the lease (ie releasing the tenant from responsibility) but only if we find a suitable tenant which is 75% of the time and really moreso depends on time of year. The option to either sublease or assign the lease to another party is offered at our discretion and with our approval and with the payment of a fee detailed in your lease. In this event we will advertise the place, we will schedule showings and ONLY if we are successful will we charge the fee and release the current tenant from rental obligations. As a result we strongly advise tenants NOT to sign a new lease unless we have found a renter for their apartment. Please realize that we show, find and sign all our August renters for all our units during the same period every year (Feb/Mar/Apr) and the rest of the year is a non-peak renting period. The quantity and quality of renters is often less and there are periods when it is so challenging to find a sublessee that an apartment can go unrented for months. When someone signs a lease during our optimal renting period and then later decides they want to move - the risks and liabilities of re-renting the place then fall on the tenant - we merely do our best to find a new renter so the current renter can avoid unnecesary costs.

If I help find a Sublessee then can we waive the fee?
In short, no. You are welcome to help us find someone and it is in your interest to do so but it is not necessary. However our time and energy is still necessary and there is no guarantee we will accept any given potential renter, we have our own process to follow. There are cases when we find a great renter quickly and the sublease fee is sufficient from our perspective, there are other cases where finding the new renter is difficult or we end up with a lemon renter and the fee was totally insufficient but we don't raise or lower the fee based on these factors. However, in all cases - we prefer to sign our tenants just once and during our peak renting period when we have our choice among several applicants rather than be in the position of finding a new renter during our off-peak period. If you expect to sublease then please reconsider signing a lease for one of our places.