document updated 14 years ago, on Oct 14, 2010
Code issues I've found with our apartment so far.
- bathroom fan broken
M.C.C. 13-172-060(b) requires every room to have either natural ventilation (ie. a window) or mechanical ventilation (ie. a fan). Since our bathroom doesn't have a window, it's required to have a working fan. It has a fan, but that fan has been broken from the day we moved in.
- landlord's address isn't posted
M.C.C. 13-12-030 says that the address of the owner has to be posted. Currently only the name (well, a d/b/a name, though it seems like a contrived name that may not be registered anywhere) and phone number are posted.
From a practical perspective, this means that we can never mail our rent checks, we always have to call him and have him pick them up.
back porch
The 2001 inspection by the Chicago Department of Buildings found that the porch "is in a bad condition throughout and has an excessive number of violations", and didn't take the time to enumerate them all. That said, individual violations I've found include:
- stud spacing
The studs are generally 24" on-center, but the spacing is haphazard, varying between 23.5" and 27". When 24" OC spacing is used for a load-bearing wall, it requires 2x5 or 3x4 lumber. However, here, 2x4s are used for the studs, even on lower floors.