The deck from hell...

[polexican23]

And yet you still chose to live there.

You say "chose" I say "relegated" to. (def: To assign to an obscure place, position, or condition)

With no car, low pay job, new to reality and very little family/friends in the area, you take what you can. I guess you are right I could have "chose" to live on the Southside of Chicago and get shot. :Gunfire:

 

[rlitman]

I'm with you on this one. It'll be interesting to hear how this plays out.

I'm not.

To an extent rockchalk is correct. There is a certain amount of you get what you pay for. If you're in a cheap place you have to expect not everything is 100% to code. Landlords will do things as cheaply as possible to keep rent down, so they can keep the places rented and make money.

So. Rockchalk is implying (and you're agreeing) that any renter needs to have the skills of a building inspector. NO!

The first mistake I see is that whoever put the deck in used nails instead of screws. That's what you should use when you repair it. And I wouldn't be too quick to call inspectors and city officials. You don't want the landlord ticked off at you and evict you.

Actually, in many places, code violations like this are a valid reason for a renter to withhold rent until they are remediated, and while there is nothing to stop the landlord from not extending your lease due to spite, that is not grounds for eviction.

 

[pop pop]

Get er fixed and watch the rent go up. Grounds for a different thread I guess.

 

[Burtonrider10022]

Ok, so this just keeps getting more and more interesting.

Lemme respond to a few points here:
-Yes, I am a "younger" person. I am 24, and my girlfriend is 22. She initially began renting the apartment, and I have subsequently moved in. We are both students, which brings me to my next point.

-I recently (as in Tuesday morning) found out I have been accepted at Milwaukee School of Engineering, possibly for the fall semester which begins Sept. 9th. This would mean I would be moving to Milwaukee, again, bringing me to my next point.

-I need to tread lightly here. I may need to ask to be let out of my lease within the next few months, and would rather not have a pissed off landlord. That being said:

The rent is cheap. Very cheap. We are just west of the west loop in Chicago. 1 bedroom, plenty of living space, deck, yard, and a 2 car garage all to myself, with ALL utilities included (including A/C), and we pay $1025/mo. I have no expectations of new appliances, or granite counter tops for that price. The house is old, the floors are squeeky, but again, it's cheap. I DO have expectations, or rather demands, that the place is SAFE, and as of right now, I do not believe that the work done on the deck did ANYTHING to improve the ability of the stairs to support a load.

 

[IONH]

Good use of scrap wood?

 

[nit2wn]

Waste of scrap wood is more like it. I'm not a carpenter by any means but I am smart enough to know that was a waste of time and effort. I'd just avoid those steps and wait it out until you move. Let the next renter deal with it. I just don't think it's worth the hassle of possibly causing problems if you need out of your lease early, or what's the penalty for you breaking your lease vs dealing with those steps? The landlord made her move and it wasn't even a half assed repair. I guess you could invite the city inspector for dinner and see where that goes, otherwise your going to have to make her pocketbook ring now and she'll ring yours when you break the lease.

 

[Burtonrider10022]

Girlfriend is still going to be attending UIC for the year, so she might need to stay if we can't find her another, cheaper place to stay (with a friend or something). We're also looking for a roommate to move into this apartment with her.

As soon as I have a definite answer of needing to move out or not this will be an easy decision, either demand it be fixed or be a douche (if necessary) and use this as leverage to get out of the lease early. Of course, I'll explain the school situation first and hopefully she understands and we can come to a reasonable agreement.

 

[IONH]

There is no guarantee that they will let you out of the lease for free either way.

My suggestion is to let the deck be for now and when you are ready to go, try to get out for free. If they try to charge you, say you'll have to notify the inspector of the very illegal deck since you'll be staying there longer than you expected after all (because they won't let you break the lease). See if they change their tune.

Once the inspector bell is rung, it can't be un-rung.

 

[HAY YOU]

So the plot thickens. Some folks take my advice the wrong way so let me say this, the advise I give is the same advice I’d give my own three Sons. I’m not trying to be anybodies friend or drinking buddy. You started this thread, took & posted pics, read & replied to this thread. You made a feeble attempt to repair the steps and unfortunately like most people try to blame others for their predicaments. If you want something from somebody (out of your lease) you have to give something. I would spend some time on that same (PC) you’re doing all the above on & research the correct way to fix or make the stairs safe for your GF if she matters that much to you. By helping yourself you might also help yourself out of that lease, if not report your LL & with the money you pay on your broken lease they can get the stairs fixed the right way.

 

[bczygan]

So here is your solution.

Grab a couple of scraps of 2x4. Cut them to the appropriate length and put them under the stair stringers on either side at about midspan of the stringer. Cut them just a hair long so you have to jam them in place. Since the stringer is angled, nail a cleat across the stringers as a stop for the support posts.
You have now cut the span in half and reduced the load on posts and stringers.

Addendum:
Just took a careful look at the photos. The major problem I see is that the top of the right stringer was not supported. You partially solved this problem by placing a post and then attaching a diagonal to the end of the stringer. A better fix would be a post directly under the end of the stringer or at least blocking to extend the deck framing enough so that the end of the stringer could be attached to it.
In addition, the stairs would benefit from an additional stringer in the middle and risers to stiffen the treads.
Plus the railing in no way meets code, nor would it feel secure.

That said, just making the stringer support fix that you have made, probably makes it feel more secure. And it is probably servicable for your immediate needs.

So my advice is to fight the battles that are important to you rather than trying to fix the whole problem here.

Easy peasy.

 

[wssix99]

-I recently (as in Tuesday morning) found out I have been accepted at Milwaukee School of Engineering, possibly for the fall semester which begins Sept. 9th.

Congratulations.

This would mean I would be moving to Milwaukee, again, bringing me to my next point.

Better bratwurst and cheese. These are good things.

-I need to tread lightly here. I may need to ask to be let out of my lease within the next few months, and would rather not have a pissed off landlord.

This is wise.

The rent is cheap. Very cheap. We are just west of the west loop in Chicago. 1 bedroom, plenty of living space, deck, yard, and a 2 car garage all to myself, with ALL utilities included (including A/C), and we pay $1025/mo. I have no expectations of new appliances, or granite counter tops for that price. The house is old, the floors are squeeky, but again, it's cheap.

That sounds like a good deal for the city and location, especially if you are close to the L.

I DO have expectations, or rather demands, that the place is SAFE

You are safe for the time being and are fine as long as:
- The stilts holding up the stringers don't move laterally.
- You don't have a party on the stairs or try to move a refrigerator up them, etc.

I do not believe that the work done on the deck did ANYTHING to improve the ability of the stairs to support a load.

The pictures you recently attached were much better:

- MSOE has a course called "AE-407 Wood and Masonry Design." That course would be very enlightening here. Decks and porches are vastly over designed to account for how the wood and fasteners will age, etc. (New decks in Chicago are vastly AND ghastly over designed.) The bottom line is those braces are fine to support a person going up and down the stairs (as long as there is no movement.) I think you'd be surprised at how much load wood can hold - particularly when you orient it like it was when it was growing inside a tree.

The bottom line is that the weak link in your situation is a 2X4 holding up the stair stringer. You could stand on the end of that thing all day long and not stress it out. 3 or 4 people or a would be a different situation. Even if your girlfriend is large, she'd have to be challenged to fit through the door before she'd stress out that 2X4.


That all being, it should still be fixed - but you can rest comfortably while you work with your landlord to make it happen. (It will take weeks to do the design, get the permits, etc. once your landlord is ready to bring it to code.) Your pictures also show that a repair was made and the stairs were structurally re-arranged, so your landlord should have brought the deck up to code at that point.

 

[Blue]

Girlfriend is still going to be attending UIC for the year, so she might need to stay if we can't find her another, cheaper place to stay (with a friend or something). We're also looking for a roommate to move into this apartment with her.

As soon as I have a definite answer of needing to move out or not this will be an easy decision, either demand it be fixed or be a douche (if necessary) and use this as leverage to get out of the lease early. Of course, I'll explain the school situation first and hopefully she understands and we can come to a reasonable agreement.

My 2 pennies, from another long time Chicago renter:

Congrats on getting accepted into MSOE.

You say that all utilities are included in your rent. That's kinda rare in Chicagoland. Usually they'll at least put you on a separate electric meter. From what I've read, sometimes the reason a landlord won't separate out utilities is because the apartment is illegal. I wonder if the property is even zoned for having a multi-family unit on it? Or if it is zoned for a multi-family, if your particular apartment is legal?

The legality of the apartment might be additional leverage to get out of the lease. That said, I never liked trying to do those sorts of things with landlords. Just creates bad blood in the relationship. Whether you're going to try to get out of the lease early, or try to get your girlfriend to stay there, I'd try and keep on good terms with the landlord. If bad comes to worse on the lease, and the landlord is being a pain, you can try to bring up things like the deck. In the end, if you break your lease, about the worst that can happen is your landlord might try and not return the security deposit.

Regardless, no matter what, once you get the situation squared away (leaving the unit, girlfriend staying, whatever), make a friendly call to the local code enforcement people, and get them to get on the landlord to get that deck fixed. From what you've said, and from the looks of that deck, your landlords are the types that are just gonna keep trying to patch that thing back together. It's going to take getting the city on their a$$ before they fix it properly.

 

[JJThrasher]

So. Rockchalk is implying (and you're agreeing) that any renter needs to have the skills of a building inspector. NO!

No that's not what I said. I said the landlord is responsible for making the property safe. However if you live in a cheap budget rental things are rarely done completely to code.

The OPs situation is clearly an example of the first part. Those stairs aren't safe.

Never have I said a renter needs to be a building inspector. Nor did I completely agree with what Rockchalk said, as I indicated in my first post.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2

 

[e-tek]

As a professional landlord, I say that fix is fine.....

Next issue!!!!!