Thought those 'move to Chicago' guides were all hype till I actually did it

I was sure the blogs about renting a place sight unseen were overblown. Moved here from Columbus 6 months ago and did exactly that, picked an apartment in Logan Square off photos. Turned out the 'updated kitchen' was a joke, cabinets falling off the hinges. Landlord tried to blame me for the damage too. Anyone else get burned by trusting those online listings without a walkthrough first?

3 comments

3 Comments

ryan_gibson8415d ago

That whole "trust the photos" thing got me too. I bought a used truck off Craigslist once from pictures, showed up and the driver's seat was held together with duct tape and the check engine light was just taped over. It's the same deal with those rental listings, they stage everything to look way better than it is and you end up stuck with the mess.

the_robin15d ago

Not to play devil's advocate or anything but honestly sometimes I feel like we make these horror stories bigger than they need to be. Yeah @ryan_gibson84 that truck thing sounds rough, but I've had a few rentals where the place looked way worse in person but after a week of living there I just stopped noticing the old scratched floors and the weird smell in the bathroom. Unless there's like mold or something actually dangerous, most of it is just cosmetic stuff you can live with. I mean you wouldn't buy a house from just photos but a rental for a year? You can usually deal with it.

the_joel9d ago

My buddy Aaron rented this place last year where the listing had all these warm lighting shots but every single bulb in the unit flickered nonstop, like a strobe light disco in his kitchen at 2am. He tried to live with it for three weeks thinking he'd just get used to it like you said, but the landlord kept blowing him off and eventually his girlfriend refused to come over because the flickering gave her migraines. Tbh sometimes the small stuff adds up in ways you can't just ignore.