$531,000/4 br/3400 sq ft

Rolling Meadows, IL

The Becomers Zach Clark. 2023

Motel 1800 Winnetka Cir, Rolling Meadows, IL 60008, USA See in map

Our ceiling has leaked twice. Once over our entertainment center (our TV, my Switch, our PS4). Once, in the kitchen, which is now unusable until it is fixed. The subcontractors they use are clearly unreliable, as these leaks have happened mere months apart.

Our wallpaper (well, our paint, I should say) is peeling in places. It comes up at the corners of counters, bubbles up anywhere there might be steam or moisture of any kind, and peels if we stick anything at all to the walls.

Our stovetop burners are unreliable and using it even for something as simple as boiling water often sets off the smoke alarms.

We’re prone to getting roaches from outside. And we live on the third floor. They’re all over the stairs on summer nights, making my life partner terrified of going outside at night.

We have AC but no climate control whatsoever. The living room is always too cold. The bedroom is always sweltering. The ceiling vents have mold or mildew around the edges.

The outlets in our spare bathroom don’t work. The sink has been clogged since we moved in, and we can’t use it. Drano doesn’t work, because it won’t drain, and so it just sits there. We don’t dare flush it out with hot water.

We have assigned parking, but people park in our spot all the time. Allll the time. The trash service doesn’t come frequently enough. We have one dumpster for the six buildings in our part of the complex, which, at at least 12 families per building, is 72 families. One dumpster. In the summer, you can smell it from your apartment.

Our carpet is peeling back from where the doorframes are set. Our cats try to eat the insulation and padding beneath it.

The walls are so cheap and brittle that the rods which hold our curtains fall constantly. We’ve given up on screws. There are holes all over the place above our windows.

Our fridge sometimes sounds like the animatronics from the opening scene of FNAF 2. The door handle broke off after a year of us living here. It’s held together with duct tape.

Each building doesn’t have its own water main. When one building has a leak or loses water, the entire complex loses water. When it comes back on, it’s as black as the water from Advent Children.