MONEY ORDERS TOTALING $1,575 for rent are shown by tenant Angela. But she’s not paying her landlord, Halsted Taylor Realty until a heating problem that cost her thousands of dollars is corrected.
The year 2023 was a difficult year for Angela and her husband. The couple was still recovering from Angela’s father’s death in 2021 and was planning to move back to Louisiana.
Then, the couple received more devastating news: Angela was diagnosed with Stage 2 triple-negative breast cancer.
The couple decided to stay in Chicago and moved into a spacious, two-bedroom apartment in the 6000 block of Michigan Avenue in Washington Park.
As Angela and her husband settled into their new apartment, they noticed a foul odor in their unit. The stench of raw sewage in the basement entered the unit through heat vents throughout the apartment. Angela said other tenants in the building also complained about the odor, but the stench was strongest in her apartment.
That wasn’t Angela and her husband’s only problem. During their entire time living in the apartment, they had huge heating bills every month, bills so high that Angela was forced to come out of retirement and return to teaching in Chicago Public Schools.
When they hired a heating expert, the couple discovered they had a furnace configuration that left them paying a heating bill for all six tenants in their three-story building every month.
Since November 2023, Angela and her husband have paid thousands of dollars in gas bills, including those for their neighbors’ apartments. The couple is now stuck with a $2,400 gas bill for March, and things may get worse.
Today, despite repeated requests and complaints, the couple’s costly problem with the furnace and gas meter remains unresolved with their landlord.
Angela and her husband say their problem began with CKO Real Estate, the slumlord that managed their building along with 33 additional properties in Chicago.
The Chicago Crusader has written many stories about CKO Real Estate in the past year because of complaints it drew from numerous tenants who lived in South Shore, where it manages 27 of its 34 buildings.
CKO Real Estate, which managed two apartment buildings in Washington Park, permanently closed last month due to financial problems.
Today, Halsted Taylor Realty manages the building where Angela and her husband live. Under the new management, the couple’s costly gas meter problem continues as they scramble to pay the high gas bills and $1,575 a month in rent. After fighting breast cancer and the sewage problem, the couple’s future looks uncertain with the expense of an unresolved gas bill.
“On top of what I went through, this whole experience has been stressful,” Angela told the Crusader.
When the married couple moved into their apartment in November 2023, they looked forward to a peaceful environment while Angela battled Stage 2 triple-negative breast cancer.
As Angela took trips to the hospital for chemotherapy treatments, she and her husband were hit with a gas bill of about $400.
“The first month we were here, we noticed something was wrong,” Angela said. “We paid the $400 the first month and called Peoples Gas Company, but they never came out to see what was wrong. They said our gas meter was running fine.”
Angela said when she called Peoples Gas Company about her gas bill a second time, she was told that her meter registered very high usage compared to other tenants in the building, whose meters indicated much lower usage.
Fast-forward to January 2024. Another problem emerged. The couple began to smell a foul odor in their apartment. They learned the odor came from raw sewage floating in water in the basement below their unit. The stench of rotting waste entered the couple’s first-floor apartment through seven heating vents located throughout their unit.
“It was so bad I had to air out my clothes outside before I put them on to go to work and other places,” Angela said. “The smell was so bad; we stopped having people over because it was too unbearable.”
Angela said she and her husband used special air fresheners to reduce the odor in their apartment.
Angela told the Crusader that she texted, emailed, and filed work orders on CKO Real Estate’s online portal for the next 11 months. She said CKO Real Estate never sent anyone to correct the problem. But in February, workers with her new property management firm, Halsted Taylor Realty, cleaned up the raw sewage, and the odor in her apartment finally disappeared.
But the couple’s huge monthly gas bills kept coming.
“One month, the bill is $300. Another month, it’s $525. We couldn’t figure out where these high bills were coming from.”
Angela said she asked CKO Real Estate to investigate the problem with no success. She said her property manager from CKO Real Estate, LayCey Shackelford, told her she was leaving the firm because she “couldn’t work with these people.”
With few options to address the high heating bills, the couple paid $190 on January 29 for a technician from eXpediency Heating and Cooling to investigate the problem.
The technician told the couple their furnace, which was connected to a boiler, had a pipe supplying heat to all six units in the building. As a result, all tenants in the building essentially received free hot water, and their usage went to the couple’s gas meter.
Angela told the Crusader the furnace configuration existed before they moved in in November 2023. She said CKO Real Estate did not inform her of the problem when she viewed the apartment.
For the next several weeks following the technician’s report, Angela said she tried through phone calls, text messages, and CKO Real Estate’s online portal to get the firm to correct the problem as the high gas bills piled up.
When Halsted Taylor Realty took over after investors closed CKO Real Estate, Angela texted Denny Wills, her property manager, about the problem. She then texted Wills another text message containing a screenshot of the invoice and an explanation from the technician at eXpediency Heating & Cooling. Still, nothing was done.
With past due charges, the balance on her Peoples Gas bill for March was $2,396.
On March 1, the couple decided to withhold their monthly rent of $1,575. Angela showed the Crusader four money orders totaling $1,575 that she purchased from Western Union. She keeps them in a safe place. Angela told the Crusader she will also withhold rent for April and future months until the gas meter problem is corrected.
“I wanted to pay the rent,” she said, and in her heart of hearts, delayed withholding rent because “I didn’t want to do it.” But, she said, “I’m tired of these high gas bills, and I just can’t do it. I just can’t.”
To pay the high gas bills, Angela recently came out of retirement and began working as a substitute teacher in Chicago Public Schools, where she taught for 35 years.
Angela showed the Crusader more text messages that show her repeatedly asking property manager Wills when the heating problem would be corrected. Wills replies he will get to it, but he doesn’t say when.
In other text messages, Wills repeatedly asks Angela about the past due rent for March. Angela tells Wills she has money orders for the rent. In text messages, Angela expresses her concern about not paying rent until the heating problem is corrected. However, Will’s repeated assurances that the problem will be corrected are enough to gain Angela’s trust.
In a text message, Angela tells Wills, “As I stated before, I cannot afford to pay the [gas] bill and rent. I’ve been promised that this would be addressed in the past, and nothing has happened.”
Later, Wills sends a text message saying, “I see that you’re refusing to pay rent, and I’ll proceed as such. Have a nice night.”
On Tuesday morning, the Crusader emailed Wills for an interview for this story. He did not respond, but that evening, Wills texted Angela this message: “The gas bill has been paid. I have requested Peoples Gas install a common area meter as it’s clear the bill is much larger when your unit’s (sic) furnace is in use than the summer months of only hot water.
Angela said she checked her Peoples Gas account after she received Wills’ text, but a balance was still there. She said she would pay March and April’s rent once the balance was zero.
On Wednesday, April 2, 2025, the balance was two cents.
But Angela has another concern. Wills’ response only addresses her March Peoples Gas bill, not the thousands of dollars the couple paid for gas usage in previous months. In response, Will in a text message to Angela said, “I have in response told Angela this “I have nothing to do with the previous 15 months, we began on March 1. I have told you several times I will look into the gas situation, and if your meter is…”
“This has been very frustrating,” Angela told the Crusader.
Last June, Angela learned from doctors that her cancer is in remission after completing her chemotherapy treatments. Angela’s husband has supported her throughout the ordeal.
“Going through this, and chemotherapy, was so stressful. There were days when I just couldn’t take it. I have the money for rent, but I just want the heat problem to be fixed before I give them any more money. I’ve always paid my rent on time, but they never deliver.”