It's amazing the amount of ground he covers just walking. He can make it impossible for you to find him. He has piercing blue eyes and a stormy face. It just makes me sick."īut it's Swandol who says he can't sleep at night. "We're not a bunch of whining neighbors," he explains citing a letter to Style's editor in response to the article. Edward Peeples, a Fan resident so frustrated he says he's tempted to tell the city he wants his tax money back. It's become a volatile situation in which neither side seems willing to budge. So far, there has been little proof to convince the city that a code or zoning law is being broken. "Yes, I had a bed back there," Swandol says. Residents nearby say the Swandols sleep there. But their biggest concern is what they see as the city's refusal to force Swandol, 49, and his wife, Betty, 61, out of two garages they rent in an alley off Strawberry Street. They say Swandol is a convicted criminal and a clever schemer prepared to do anything to intimidate them. It's not soon enough for some Fan neighbors. In two months, the Swandols and all their belongings could be out on the streets. His current landlords, a North Side couple, say he always pays rent on time, but they likely will refuse to renew Swandol's lease because of endless neighborhood complaints. "I just can't give them out." He shared his whereabouts once with police and, he says, that night he and his wife were kicked out of a friend's house. "I've got them both," says Swandol irritably. But what needles him most is that four leads on available garage space in the Fan have been shot down by landlords who say they've heard about Swandol and won't rent to him without an address and phone number. More people, he says, are poking around his alley to spy on him. If Jack Swandol looks more agitated than usual it's because he is.Īnd the "Renter's Alley" article that appeared in the July 4 issue of Style Weekly, he says, has something to do with it.
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