All across the country we are witnessing a shift in the attitude of landlords towards their tenants. Following the most recent wave of tenant organizations, landlords are frightened. We can see it in the press, where they spew their propaganda to erode the few protections tenants still have. They will appeal to you as if you own a home–as if you are not a tenant. Do not listen. The landlords know that they must squash tenant resistance before it has a chance to take root. They have begun fighting tooth and nail against any tenant organizations. To us, this is a sign of their fear. Now more than ever we must remain vigilant. Tenants Talk has its eyes on the landlords. Do you?
Janko “Janky Promoters” Properties
Back in August, Injustice Watch published a series of articles about the power imbalance that exists between landlords and tenants. In it, they highlighted the eviction of the Ware family, tenants who had lived in “one of just eight [buildings] citywide that inspectors cited for serious code violations in almost every year going back to 2007.” The building is owned by Matt Janko, an out of town slumlord gobbling up properties all over the south and west sides.
After reading this article, organizers from the All-Chicago Tenant Alliance visited the building in Austin to investigate the situation for themselves. What they found was beyond anything the article had led them to imagine.
The first thing one notices upon arrival is that the front gate and most of the entrances are broken, as reported. While this is a major security concern for tenants all over Garfield Park and Austin on one hand, on the other it allows organizers to enter with little resistance. Thanks Matt! Once on the inside, ACTA was able to talk to a dozen tenants and learn about life on the Janko Ranch.
Every single unit has a rat, mouse and cockroach problem. The building is completely infested. Tenants talked to ACTA and showed them pictures of mice living in their stoves, in their refrigerators, and eating all of their food in the cupboards. One tenant told us that she once discovered mice in her baby’s crib–with her baby! Two tenants told us that rats had chewed through the electrical system of their cars while they were parked in the attached lot. Every type of material has been used by the maintenance staff to hold the rats off throughout the building: foam, drywall, wood, aluminum, and steel. But rat teeth are able to chew through all of it. Rats and landlords have a lot in common, in this sense: when it comes to terrorizing tenants, nothing deters them.
One tenant showed us her ceilings leaking urine from toilets above them. One tenant told ACTA that she has thrown out two mattresses and two sofas due to bedbugs. She also recalled how a 3’ x 3’ hole was left in the ceiling after a section of it crashed down onto the floor in the middle of the night. The same woman told us how when she was a little girl, this building was known as the Snake Building because legend had it that the rats were so bad, they used to keep snakes in the basement to eat them! That was well before Janko’s time. But based on the number of rats living there now, Janko must have evicted the snakes.
Matt Janko is a damn criminal and he’s getting rich being one. Crime seems to be acceptable in this city when the perpetrator is a property owner and the victims are tenants. Do you live at 5645-5657 W Washington Blvd, or 525-527 N Homan Ave? ACTA is in the early stages of attempting to help the tenants form a union. Join them! Call 773-770-5650
Terror at the Terrace
Tenants at a building complex in Garfield Park called Madison Terrace are in the first stages of a battle against their slumlord David Pezzola. These tenants are facing conditions known to tenants all across the city: cockroaches, mice, broken doors, heat and cooling issues–you name it! The management company contracted out by Pezzola to “manage” the property, WPD Management, does the bare minimum—that is, nothing—to fix the endless problems in the buildings.
ACTA began talking with tenants there in August during one of their weekly mass work sessions. Since then every door in the complex has been knocked on, and the laundry list of issues has become clear. The heart of the issue is absentee management, but this is by no means the biggest problem in the building. Broken locks, trash and waste in the hallways, and people stealing mail have tenants fearing for their safety in their own homes. Disconnected phone numbers and closed offices greet the tenants’ attempts to relay the problems they’re facing.
With this in mind, ACTA researched the property and discovered that the building was sold for $11 million in March 2024 to David Pezzola, the owner of the property firm Icarus Investment Group. Pezzola is a well-known scumbag. The Autonomous Tenants Union identified him as the Covid-19 Eviction King after he filed 26 evictions during the height of the pandemic, despite there being a moratorium on evictions at the time. It is likely that many more tenants were illegally evicted by Pezzola in that period.
But the tenants at Madison Terrace are not afraid of this man. Nearly every tenant ACTA has talked to has said they’ve had enough and are ready to fight the people who keep them in these squalid conditions–the landlord and the management company both!
Tsarakis Attacks First Western Tenants Union!
After a series of decisive victories for the First Western Tenant Union (FWTU), the CEO of First Western Properties, Paul Tsarakis has initiated an attempt to destroy the growing union for standing up for their rights. Tenants wielded their legal right to withhold rent until unacceptable conditions in their apartments were repaired. Through this action, Tsarakis was forced to bring the units up to legal standards. After these encouraging victories, tenants looked outwards, setting their sights on other First Western properties which faced similarly shameful conditions.
The threat of maintaining his own buildings seems to have been too terrifying for Tsarakis, and he has now singled union tenants out for retaliatory rent increases of up to 50%. Fortunately these tenants are protected from retaliatory eviction and rent increases by section 5-12-150 of the Residential Landlord and Tenant Ordinance which states that tenants cannot be retaliated against for organizing or exercising their right to withhold rent. Tsarakis, however, has proven before that the law doesn’t mean much to him. We suspect that this slimy specimen is doing this because he thinks he can get away with it. Like most landlords in Chicago, this man thinks he is above the law.
The coming months will be a challenge for FWTU, but they have the support of the All-Chicago Tenant Alliance, and hopefully you too. Reach out to the tenants and show your support by emailing them at firstwesterntenantunion@gmail.com
Whispers in Boulevard Manor
People have begun to speak softly in Boulevard Manor, a multifamily building owned by formerly city-designated scofflaw Zachariah George. Tenants facing intimidation and illegal eviction threats started to talk to their neighbors. What they’ve learned is that they are not alone. For many, the building is the only option available to them, a fact that Mr. George uses to his advantage, mistreating tenants and subjecting them to shady and manipulative practices. The informal nature of his operations make the building more accessible to tenants in tight situations, but at the same time conceal any potential abuse and extortion Mr. George might engage in.
The question of whether tenants should stand together and look out for one another is a difficult one from within the building. Tenants know that any activity might draw unwanted attention from their despotic landlord. From the landlord’s perspective, however, the tenants are only cash coming in to be weighted against the expenses of maintaining the building. To Mr. George there are bigger problems troubling his mind, such as when to sell Boulevard Manor to ensure the greatest profit. The building is one of the last holdouts in gentrified Logan Square, and its value and the value of the land it stands on are only increasing. Every year the value grows into a greater and greater sum, which constantly whispers to Slumlord George: “Sell. Sell! Sell!” It is not a question of if he will give in to the pressure to sell the building to some wealthy developer, it is a question of when. When this happens it will no longer matter if the tenants are on George’s good side or his shit list. If they are not already prepared to stand together they will be systematically removed from their oasis on Kedzie. As a matter of fact, standing together now can only help the tenants down the line.
In the meantime, Zachariah George has started doing everything he can to stop tenants from speaking to one another. Illegal eviction notices were placed on the doors of several tenants by Slumlord George’s hired man Adam, an enforcer who George relies on to intimidate tenants. Around the same time a man claiming to be a police officer, carrying a fake badge began knocking on some tenants' doors warning them to pay their rent. One tenant reported being physically assaulted by this imposter sheriff. Some long time tenants have indicated this is nothing new. It’s clear that Zachariah George has neither respect for his tenants nor for the law, but it’s just as clear that the city has no intention of holding him accountable for his neglect or his extralegal intimidation. The only reliable weapon the tenants have against the intimidation and manipulation by the landlord is collective power.
We hope the whispers at Boulevard Manor will only grow louder. With the support of the All-Chicago Tenants Alliance, we believe these tenants can win the battle for security and take control of their own homes. If you would like to help, be ready to stand with the tenants of Boulevard Manor if they call for support. Tell your friends and neighbors to keep their eyes on the landlord. Keep your eyes on Zachariah George.
New Developments at the Edison
Readers may recall the article in the fifth edition of Tenants Talk called, “Horror at the Edison”. In that dispatch we reported that the Edison Tenants had opted not to go on rent strike, a move which devastated their chances of victory. This choice was largely due to the fact that tenants were given hope of a resolution in their favor by the promise of the KCRO. The KCRO, or Keep Chicago Renting Ordinance, is a law which requires property owners who purchase a foreclosed building to negotiate for a new lease with the existing tenants or pay them a $10,600 relocation fee. Landlords and investors who like to scoop up crumbling, foreclosed buildings, evict all the tenants, and then renovate the building for a new wave of higher income tenants absolutely hate this law because it is not blatantly written in their favor. One investment firm described it as “detrimental to lenders' interests and counterproductive to the city's goals of attracting investors,” or in other words, it’s too good at keeping big money from uprooting our neighborhoods. This law applied to Berkshire, the firm which bought the Edison Tenants’ Building.
With a potential $10,600 each, it's understandable why the tenants chose the easy path through the KCRO instead of the hard path of organizing a full strike. There was a hidden tradeoff, however, which the Edison Tenants Association was not aware of. By taking what seemed like the easy path, the Edison Tenants were willingly putting their security in the hands of the city and state governments rather than taking it into their own hands!
Berkshire, predictably, had no interest in respecting the KCRO. But why would they? Tenants were playing by the rules—rules of the game that was designed by corporate investors like Berkshire. This is right where they wanted the tenants. Let's look at how the game is played:
First, Berkshire continues with business as usual, no relocation money is paid to the tenants. It’s the tenants’ move.
The Edison Tenants file a class action lawsuit which should force Berkshire to follow the law.
Berkshire counters by bringing the City of Chicago to court. The class action lawsuit is put on hold while Berkshire challenges the KCRO at the federal level. If Berkshire wins, not only do the Edison tenants lose, all tenants (including you!) are stripped of one of our legal rights. The next round will be stacked even more in their favor, while for these unfortunate tenants, there is no “next round”.
This is the game the landlords play. Tenants aren’t welcome there. We have to fight it out with what we have or trust a group of underpaid pro-bono tenant lawyers to take on the legal behemoth that represents landlords as a class.
While the court games run in circles, real life goes on in the Edison Building. Because the KCRO is “on hold” the tenants are completely defenseless against rising rents and eviction. Nevertheless, it's not too late for tenants to stand together and do what they could have done from the very start. There’s still time for a rent strike.