Need to relocate family + 2 cats locally for about 2 mos.

A massive plumbing renewal project is going to force us out of our mid-rise coop in late spring/early summer. We have neither local family nor friends with spare wings to their mansions.

I'm sure there must be a whole hospitality industry catering to this need, but don't know how to access it.

Where can a family of 3 with 2 cats stay for 2 months? Where does one begin looking?

My plan right now is to start lurking around university housing bulletin boards for a sublet, but I'd be grateful for any other or better ideas out there.

you could also check out corporate housing options. Presidental Towers has space for that purpose, but i'm not sure about the cats. Many of the apartment finding companies also have sublet options so that might make your search a little easier.

leesh

Extended Stay America properties run about $300 per week and have a kitchenette with a stove and refrigerator. It is one of the cheaper options.

Candlewood Suites is nicer, but more expensive.

Homestead Suites is not as good of an option as the rooms are smaller.

Residence Inns, TownePlace Suites are Marriott extended stay properties that are nicer than the others BUT ... they are a lot more pricy.

Oakwood Corporate Studios has a place in the city that is really nice but ... like most of the options is more expensive.

Hope that helps.

I don't know if they still do it, but The Flamingo in Hyde Park - at the corner of S. Shore Drive and 55th - offered short-term leases in addition to full-term ones. It's a 20-something story building that is very convenient to both the Metra and express buses to downtown.

shyne

You might also try Columbus Plaza.

I know for sure that Residence Inn takes pets since our dog has accompanied us to several of them.

Good luck!

Kim

The U of C has an unofficial bulletin board called Marketplace, which contains an "Apartments" subboard that's usually got at least a few desperate souls looking for subletters. You can find it at http://marketplace.uchicago.edu . I'd also highly recommend Craigslist - when my parents came to visit last year for the birth of my son, I found them a week-long sublet through Craigslist. http://chicago.craigslist.org
Good luck!

There is a group of apartment buildings on Cumberland near the Kennedy that offers month to month rentals and I believe they take pets also.


Catherine Court Apartments
(773) 693-5264

Both my parents and a close friend have stayed there short term and had no complaints.

A stream of great suggestions I would likely not have found on my own.
(I'll only post a single blanket "thanks" to avoid controversy. But all these on-point, info-filled posts are enormously appreciated.)

Mr B,

you have my sympathies. What a nightmare!

I think the demand for rental housing has been down for a while, so it should be possible for you to find something reasonably nice for a short term stay. Certainly in our neighborhood (Tri-Taylor), there are plenty of "For Rent" signs up in windows. In fact, the family of one of our son's classmates from daycare rented an apt on our block for a few months (between selling their old place and being able to move into the new place they had bought). They moved out at the end of October and the For Rent sign is still up in their old apartment.

In Printers Row, too, our old (rental) building has a high vacancy rate, in part due to the opening of the new mega-dorm at State and Congress. They might be willing to offer a short term lease. PM me if you want the details on that building (or on Tri-Taylor, for that matter).

But I assume you don't want to get too far away from your current neighborhood, or at least from your son's school. I suggest just walking around likely neighborhoods looking for For Rent signs. And, does your son's school have a parents' bulletin board? You could also post something there asking for leads.

Or maybe you could use this forced relocation as a chance to try out a new neighborhood -- maybe one that you find yourselves in a lot for chow? Having a favorite restaurant down the block might ease the pain of moving twice!

Good luck! At least you have some lead time before you actually have to move...

Amata

Thanks for all the hints, tips and leads. We're gearing up to pursue them.

We have been given "hard" (we'll see about that) dates, and I just wanted to post them in case anyone has a specific lead we might pursue.

We must be out on Aug. 9, returning on Sept. 28.

Thanks again for all the info to date.

I had to do this once. It's not easy, and the places that cater to the short-termer tend to be tiny and expensive (eg, the extremely well-named The New York).

We had six months and we found an empty apartment and moved in. An empty apartment is a good bet, you'll certainly get more space that way, the problem is you probably can't make that kind of arrangement until close to the time, because they'll be hoping for a year-long tenant. It helped that we moved in in December and thus helped them get back to the more common June to June schedule for rental units.

Also, I'd have in place an option for Month 3, because nothing ever gets done on time and you may well need to stay in the same place longer.

Incidentally, going back from being a homeowner of a detached house to a renter of a unit with other tenants was not an easy adjustment (but I still preferred that to a hotel-like space). The good news is, the six months we spent there seemed long at the time but a flash in retrospect, I barely remember that we were there....

Mr. Barolo, is it just your family that has to move out, or will the whole building have to relocate for that time span? If the latter, maybe the co-op association can make arrangements with a single rental building to accommodate everyone. (I think something like that has been done with the (rental) building at Wabash and Roosevelt, where Room 12 is/was, which also has had plumbing problems serious enough to force everyone out.) The prospect of multiple rent-payers might be attractive enough to some apartment manager to offset the problem of short term leases.

Funny you should ask: The building is 5-tiered (vertically), so we're moving in and out on a tier-by-tier basis, ours being the penultimate.

Upside: most of the learning curve stuff will be discovered and assimilated into operations during work on the first 2 tiers.

Downside: if there's a domino effect from accumulating small delays or mishaps, then our dates will get farther and farther off-schedule as it becomes too late to do anything about it.

In fact, board and bldg. management co. presented 2 possibilities:

1: A "discount" deal at the Belden-Stratford, the announcement of which forced me to stifle a mushroom cloud of hysterical laughter -- equal parts contemptus mundi, classist rage, and detached acceptance of the absurdity of life -- that threatened to spray the assembly with a mouthful of wasabi peas. (I took time out from this spasm of Hamlet-ian self-dramatizing to fantasize about 2 months spent ordering breakast sent up from Ambria, but the soap-bubble pleasure of this thought burst 'ere it blossomed.)

2. A handful of units in bldgs. operated by an unamed management company where a 700 sq/ft. garden apt. would go for $1800/mo. That ain't much room for 2 adults, a 4 year old and 2 cats to stretch their legs in.

Option 2 (if they don't all get snapped up) is the default plan, but I desperately hope to get a bit more space for a bit less money. I should discover soon how delusional a hope that is. But with regular assessments and mortgage payments on top of this rent, I have to try.

Thanks for asking. I had the same thought and was gratified that they had at least tried.