Cohen Margie K Assoc

I had an extremely poor experience with Margie K Cohen’s leasing agent.
In this instance i would implore you to spend a little more money and find an apartment elsewhere. The units are extremely dated– i mean like probably haven’t had much work done since the 70s– stucco walls, grimy tile, you get the picture.
The leasing agent Mary was overall useless. She was extremely flakey during the viewing process, and over booked herself. She appears to have no time management skills; she was constantly on her phone, left me waiting for over twenty minutes while she dealt with other things, and didn’t have intelligent answers for any of my questions.
As the old adage goes– if it seems to good to be true, it probably is. If you come across an inexpensive property and see it’s managed by Margie K Cohen– run.

I leased from Margie K Cohen Associates for over a year while living in a one bed/​studio apartment. The experience and quality of the apartment is way above average for the price. All of the other tenants renting here were friendly and respectful. The #1 reason why I am giving this management 5 stars is because I was never disappointed by their service. Mary was helpful and professional throughout my leasing experience, she is a great asset of this association. My apartment also benefited from having great handymen available in Mike and Jerry. I will look back on my experience here as a good one and I recommend the building/​company to anyone who enjoys convenient city living but isn’t overly high maintenance. :)

Total slumlord company. Do not live in any building run by this «company» (it’s just one idiotic unprofessional lady Bobbie and her poor assistant she makes do her dirty work).
I don’t even feel like describing how awful my experience was, it’ll just make me angry. Run for the hills. Bobbie is a stupid, ignorant, soulless individual who has no idea what she is doing and only exists to take your money and laugh about it afterwards.

It’s unbelievable that things could have gotten worse, but they did.
Before I had a chance to let this company know that I was not going to be renewing my lease, they let me know that THEY would not be renewing the lease – after 5 years of me living in the building. I was a bit surprised to receive this notice as I was an ideal tenant and put up with a lot of crap from them (see previous reviews). I inquired as to why they had made the decision (specifically because I had to list them as a previous landlord) and they ignored me for months and then sent me a notice that they would randomly be showing my apartment until I moved out. I was livid and consulted an attorney who let me know about the RLTO and that my landlord was behaving illegally. He advised me to send a strongly worded letter – I did and in response to that Margie K. Cohen agreed to comply with the mandatory 48 hour notice that the city of Chicago requires they give. They also responded to my initial inquiry about why they decided not to renew – saying that I refused to allow service men in my apartment, so it was impossible for them to do a good job as a landlord.
I literally laughed when I saw this. I never refused to let service men in the apartment, I refused to let them in WITHOUT ME BEING PRESENT… AFTER THEY URINATED ON MY TOILET SEAT AND WHEN THROUGH MY CABINETS. It’s funny how things look different when you put them in context.
The unprofessionalism and inappropriate behavior continued as I moved prepared to move out – they REFUSED to give me a general letter stating that I had paid my rent on time for the past five years, Instead, they wanted my prospective landlords to give them a call so they could talk to them – I cannot tell you how uncomfortable this was, especially because my new landlord REQUIRED a notice about my payment habits in writing. I ended up sending 5 years of cancelled checks and rent payments.
They refused to let me throw away any large items (all I had was a small table – so small that I that I could lift it myself and a love seat) – I recently found out that they do not have a right to do this. if you have something large to discard, you simply put it by the dumpster and call the city letting them know they have an oversized pick up. Instead they asked me to pay for a «junk removal company» (the cheapest I found was $ 150…Utterly ridiculous).
Finally, when I did move out. They did not give me a letter stating that I owed anything for damages and yet did not return the security deposit. When I complained and let them know this was illegal, they returned my security deposit in full +$ 5 basically stating that they had done me a favor because they had to refinish the bathtub and bathroom sink which costed them hundreds. I found this to be laughable as well, considering that the sink/​bathtub should have been redone before I moved in and I double they’d been redone since the 1970s. I bleached both incessantly when I moved in to no avail… they should have been redone years ago. As for doing me a favor, if landlords do not return security deposits to the letter of the law they are liable to pay multiple times what the security deposit was – I could has easily taken then to court for not following the law regarding the return, so it was me that did them the favor by accepting only my money back.
My biggest recommendation is to not rent from here, but if you do, make sure you know the law and don’t let them take advantage of you – Double check EVERYTHING they say.

I will echo what others have said about this company. Do not rent from them.
I lived in one of their apartments for two and a half years. During that time, I had several issues occur with my apartment including:
— Water coming into my apartment from the bathroom above multiple times, once resulting in terrible mold in my unit
— The basement flooding and ruining items in my storage unit multiple times
— A broken sink (I dropped a bottle on it and cracked it) that sat unfixed for an entire month after it was reported
Despite the issues, I would have still given 4 stars several months ago because the rent was so cheap. I can deal with these types of issues and never complained but what I can’t deal with is unprofessional management. Dealing with this company when I moved out was a nightmare.
I bought a condo and therefore was moving out. I was told I had two options, to sublet or relet, the difference being that in a relet a new contract is drawn up between the landlord and the new tenant. I chose the relet option so I wouldn’t have to worry about the new renter paying/​damage/​etc and found a renter on craigslist. Before renting, I asked the landlord if I needed to repaint and was told that I did not as long as the renter taking over the unit didn’t care and understood that they were responsible for painting the unit white before they moved out. I found a renter that agreed that the unit did not need to be painted. I thought I was good at that point…
This is where it all fell apart. I had the new renter fill out the application and I took it to the landlord’s office. I never received any contact on the status of the application from the landlord other than hearing it from the new tenant. Then two days before I moved out, I received a call from the landlord (Bobbi) saying that the unit had to be painted before i moved out or I would be charged $ 250. I reminded her of the conversation we had before I listed the apartment and was rudely told that she never said that…
So then the night before I moved out, I repainted the apartment white and my girlfriend cleaned the apartment top to bottom for 4 hours including scrubbing all of the floors, bathroom, kitchen, appliances etc. The place was spotless.
Three weeks after I move out, I received a letter stating that the sink repair was going to come out of my last month’s rent because I was being charged $ 125 dollars for the apartment to be professionally cleaned. $ 125! For an already clean, empty junior 1 bedroom! I never received any calls from the landlord explaining when they inspected the unit or why the cleaning was necessary. I had to send multiple emails even to get a copy of the bill which says nothing other than $ 125 for cleaning the unit and a letter stating that the new tenant requested it be cleaned. Of course they did! Who wouldn’t want it professionally cleaned?! It is the landlord’s responsibility to inspect the unit and review the condition that it was left in. They are then required by law to provide justification to the former tenant on why a security deposit is being returned.
The landlord is rude and unprofessional and I would highly advise against dealing with this company despite what the rent is.

Do not rent from these people! Bobby is extremely rude and unprofessional and seems to know nothing about being a proper landlord. She will blame everything on you even if it is obviously her mistake. I will certainly be calling the city on her…

Do not rent from Margie K. Cohen and Associates! I’ve lived in my apartment for almost 9 months and I’ve had nothing but problems with them. First, when I viewed the apartment before moving in, the landlord pointed out problems that would be fixed before I moved in, mostly problems with the windows. The glass in one window was broken and they were missing screens. When I moved in, these things were not fixed. When I asked her about them, she yelled at me calling me a liar about the broken glass and said that Chicago doesn’t have bugs so I didn’t need screens. She claimed she went into my apartment earlier in the day and didn’t see any broken windows. I had to cover the window in red post it notes for her to admit the window was broken. Other repairs, like my bathroom door that wouldn’t close and kitchen counters that were not attached took months to get taken care of.
Shortly after I moved in, I also found roaches in my apartment. Every time I called to try and get an exterminator the landlord gave me a different excuse. I was told things like «You’re lying, this building doesn’t have bugs,» «The previous tenant was probably just dirty,» and «You stirred them up by moving in.» After 5 months of calling, they finally brought out an exterminator but only had him spray my unit. That meant the bugs disappeared for about a month and came back. They brought him out a second time and when I called the landlord to ask her a question about the traps/​poison they laid, she yelled at me telling me «I guess you’ll find out when you get home.»
These were just the major problems I’ve had with them. I’ve stopped calling them for repairs because they don’t respond and if they do, they refuse to fix them. I’m lucky I have family close enough to come up and help me fix things.
Most recently, They closed their office for the New Year (the week following) but didn’t notify tenants or even change the message on their voicemail. I only found out because I was trying to contact them to put in my notice that I would be moving out. When they returned to the office I asked them about this and what I should’ve done if there was an emergency in my apartment and they 1) admitted they don’t check the answering machine regularly and 2) told me if there had been an emergency I should call 911. I pointed out I would not call the landlord for 911 emergencies, but things like flooding and they said they wouldn’t do anything even if they were in the office because it was the holidays.
Like I said, these are only the biggest problems I’ve had with them. They are rude and unprofessional. The only reason they get 1 star is because if you can get past the roaches the apartment itself isn’t terrible.
I had to come back and update this post just in case someone was still thinking about renting from this awful landlord. Since I’ve moved in May (it’s now March), there are have been more code violations than I can count. I have not reported them to the city because I don’t want to cause problems, however she has began showing my apartment to potential tenants and does not provide me with ANY notice she will be bringing people into my apartment. The city of Chicago requires landlords give 24 hour notice. I came home today to find out she had shown my apartment and some of my things had been stolen! DO NOT RENT FROM HER!

Filled out an application on an apt, gave the 125.00, less than a week later didn’t end up signing the lease. I let them know 5 weeks before the place was vacant. Never returned my money. They never gave me proof of someone I guess I signed, hmm why is that? Because I never signed anything. I hate dirty, shady business people… Marlene is nice, can’t say to much about Bobby. she basically was like, «oh well read the paperwork» but could not provide proof. Go elsewhere to look for an apt is what I suggest… I told her I would put a review on here, she told me to go ahead. So that’s exactly what I’m doing. hope it’s worth the 125.00…Cheers!!!

This certainly wasn’t the nicest place I’ve ever lived, but hey it was really reasonable considering its location. That is if you’re into that location, it’s right above a 5am bar… in Lincoln Park… so take that for what it is. Anyway at the time it was $ 950 for a sizable second story one bedroom.