Free Chicago apartment background check

2038 W 21St St

Lower West Side, Chicago IL 60608 17193170320000 2 units · 1878

This building has significantly more problems than most nearby buildings. A handful of unresolved issues. Worth a careful walk-through and pointed questions.

Building Violations (7y) vs. neighborhood
Compared to a typical building in Lower West Side
Above average
avg 0.9
1
FewerMore

This building has 1 building violations (7y), above the Lower West Side average of 0.9.

Building characteristics
Units2
Year built1878
Stories
Building area2,080 sq ft
Property class211
PIN (Cook County parcel)17193170320000
Ownership

Registered owner per Cook County Assessor records.

Owner name
Sara Guzman
Mailing address
2038 West 21St St

Landlord portfolio

Other Chicago properties this owner holds, with risk grades for each.

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Augrented Insights
AI summary

The two-unit residential property at 2038 W 21st Street in Chicago's Lower West Side, owned by Sara Guzman, is a historic building dating back to 1878. The building's recent history shows minimal code violations, with the only recorded building violation occurring in September 2023 related to permit inspections, which remains unresolved at the time of this report. The property has generated four 311 service requests over the past seven years, with the most recent being a tree trim request in February 2025, though this type of request is no longer being accepted. Notably, there is a cluster of reported stray animal incidents in May 2024, with four separate complaints filed within an 11-day period, all of which have been closed.

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Risk rating

How 2038 W 21St St's risk score is calculated

We trained a model on 7 years of Chicago code enforcement data — building violations, 311 complaint history, environmental enforcement, and owner track records. It estimates the probability that the City of Chicago will find a code violation at this address in the next 12 months. Lower % = safer.

What the score means for you

Grade A–B — Low risk

City inspectors rarely find violations here. Strong maintenance history and a clean complaint record.

Grade C — Moderate risk

Some past violations or complaints on record. Worth asking the landlord about any open issues before signing.

Grade D–F — High risk

Elevated violation and complaint history. City inspectors have found issues here before and are statistically likely to again.

Neighborhood percentile
13thpercentile

Out of 3674 buildings in this neighborhood, 3196 are predicted to be safer.

RiskiestSafest
Predicted 12-month outcome
46%
No code
violation
54%
Code violation
likely
Model explanation

What's driving this score

The data points that most influenced this building's risk rating — ranked by the weight the model placed on each one.

Location

Precise location is a proxy for area-level risk — some Chicago zip codes have systematically higher code-enforcement activity.

Code violations (past 7 years)

City of Chicago Department of Buildings violations issued at this address over the last 7 years — a direct record of enforcement activity.

311 calls (past 7 years)

311 service requests tied to this address over 7 years.

12-Month severity forecast
No violation 43.2%
Moderate concern 45.4%
Severe concern 11.5%
Estimated probability of a code violation in the next 12 months at each severity level.
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The story over time

2038 W 21St St event timeline

Building violations, environmental complaints and enforcement, permits, scofflaw listings, and 311 calls — most recent records in order.

2025
311 Request Feb 12
Tree Trim Request (NO LONGER BEING ACCEPTED)

See all 5 events

Full history back to 2023 — violations, complaints, permits, and 311 calls.

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Every record we have

Full data for 2038 W 21St St apartments

Chicago public datasets for this parcel — building violations, permits, 311 calls, environmental complaints and enforcement, scofflaw listings, and vacant building registrations.

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Cancel anytime · Data sourced from the City of Chicago Department of Buildings, Chicago 311, Cook County Assessor & the Chicago Data Portal

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