The Non-Financial Ledger: What $256 Per Family Actually Means

Picture the apartment at 2129 North Dayton Street, unit GDN1. The building went up in 1925, a full half-century before the federal government banned lead paint from homes. The tenant who signed their lease on February 9, 2021, was going to live there for the next seventeen months. Under federal law, TBS Properties was required to hand them a document before they signed, one that disclosed any known lead paint hazards, listed any records the landlord had on the subject, and carried the signatures of both parties confirming the disclosure happened. That document, or the signed acknowledgment of it, was never provided.

Lead paint does not announce itself. It does not smell. It does not discolor the air. It sits in layers beneath years of fresh paint on window sills, door frames, and baseboards, and it waits. When it chips, it falls to the floor. Toddlers put things in their mouths. Dust accumulates on surfaces children touch and then touch their faces. The World Health Organization identifies lead as one of the ten chemicals of major public health concern. There is no safe level of lead exposure in children. None. The damage is to the developing brain, and it does not reverse.

This is the context the EPA settlement document does not discuss. It is a legal agreement, not a health record. It enumerates seven violations and assigns a dollar amount. What it cannot enumerate is whether any child under six years old lived in any of these seven units during the lease terms spanning 2021 into 2022. The disclosure law exists specifically because that question matters enormously, and tenants deserve the right to make an informed decision before they ever sign a lease in a pre-1978 building.

The people who rented apartments 1A, 1B, 1D, 2C, and 2D at the Giddings Street building were never handed a lead hazard information pamphlet. The tenants at Dayton Street unit 202 and unit GDN1 received no signed disclosure certifying what the landlord knew or did not know about lead paint in structures built when Calvin Coolidge was in office. They paid rent. They lived their lives in those apartments. TBS Properties collected that rent and, according to the EPA’s allegations, did not complete the one piece of paperwork designed to give renters the knowledge they need to protect themselves and their families.

The penalty TBS Properties paid, $1,795 across seven violations, amounts to roughly what a Chicago renter might pay in a single month’s rent for a modest apartment. It is a rounding error in a real estate portfolio’s operating budget. For the families who lived in those units, the right to know was worth less than the cost of a landlord’s bookkeeping oversight.

Legal Receipts: What the EPA’s Own Documents Say

These are direct quotes from Docket No. TSCA-05-2025-0024, the Consent Agreement and Final Order filed January 29, 2026.

• This confirms TBS Properties was actively managing both pre-1978 properties across multiple years, meaning the company had ample opportunity to implement compliant disclosure procedures and chose not to do so across at least seven documented transactions.
• The phrase “between 2019 and 2023” means this was not a one-off administrative error on a single lease day. The company’s management span covered the full window in which all seven non-compliant leases were executed.

• This is the core legal finding. The violation is not about whether TBS Properties actually had lead paint in its buildings. The violation is the failure to provide and obtain signed proof of the disclosure, the mechanism that gives tenants documented proof of what they were told and when.
• Seven separate lease agreements, seven separate tenants, seven separate failures. The EPA treats each unsigned lease as a distinct violation, which is why the legal maximum exposure was $22,263 multiplied by seven.

• “Respondent’s cooperation” is the legally stated justification for the steep reduction from the maximum $155,841 down to $1,795. The EPA’s own penalty guidelines allow reductions for cooperation, good faith, and compliance history. TBS Properties cooperated with the process and received a 98.8% reduction from the maximum possible penalty.
• The penalty figure of $1,795 is not a judicial finding of an appropriate punishment for the harm caused. It is a negotiated settlement number, and the document explicitly states TBS Properties neither admitted nor denied the underlying allegations.

• The EPA set its own maximum penalty ceiling at $22,263 per violation. It then collected $256 per violation. The gap between what the law authorizes and what was actually collected illustrates the practical enforcement ceiling that landlords can reasonably expect when they fail to comply with lead disclosure rules.

• This is the EPA preserving its right to act again if conditions at these properties create a public health emergency. It is standard boilerplate, but it confirms that this settlement resolves only the paperwork violations, not any future liability for actual lead contamination or health harm discovered at these addresses.

Societal Impact Mapping: Who Actually Pays

Public Health

The lead disclosure law exists because lead poisoning in children is a preventable, permanent neurological catastrophe. Renters who are not told about lead hazards cannot take protective action.

• Both buildings involved in this case predate the federal lead paint ban by more than four decades: 2131 West Giddings Street was built in 1929, and 2129 North Dayton Street was built in 1925. Pre-1978 construction is classified as “target housing” under federal law precisely because the older the building, the greater the probability of lead paint layers beneath current surfaces.
• Lead exposure causes irreversible damage to developing brains. Impacts include reduced IQ, behavioral disorders, learning disabilities, and impaired hearing. The CDC states there is no blood lead level in children that is considered safe. A tenant who does not know about a lead hazard cannot make an informed decision about whether to bring children into that environment.
• The Lead Hazard Information Pamphlet that lessors are required to provide under 40 C.F.R. § 745.113(b) gives renters actionable guidance: what to look for, how to reduce exposure, and when to seek medical testing for children. Seven households were denied that pamphlet as part of a compliant, signed disclosure process.
• Illinois, and Chicago in particular, has documented elevated childhood blood lead levels in neighborhoods with older housing stock. Disclosures do not remove lead paint; they give families the information to demand remediation, avoid high-risk units, or at minimum monitor their children’s health. Non-disclosure removes that option entirely.

Economic Inequality

Lead disclosure failures fall disproportionately on renters with fewer resources to investigate a building’s history or relocate when they discover a problem after the fact.

• Renters, unlike buyers, rarely commission their own independent lead inspections. The disclosure law fills that gap by requiring landlords to share whatever they already know. Landlords who skip the signed disclosure deprive tenants of the only lead-related information they are likely to receive before moving in.
• TBS Properties collected rent from seven households across leases running up to seventeen months. The company’s financial obligation for failing to complete the disclosure paperwork came to $1,795 total. A single month’s rent in a Chicago apartment almost certainly exceeded that figure, meaning the company’s cost of non-compliance was less than one month of income from any one of these units.
• Renters who later discover lead hazards and seek remediation or relocation face the costs themselves: time off work for medical testing, medical bills for children found to have elevated blood lead levels, moving costs, and the difficulty of breaking a lease in a tight housing market. None of those costs appear anywhere in the EPA’s $1,795 settlement figure.
• The maximum penalty the EPA was authorized to levy under the statute was $22,263 per violation, totaling $155,841 for the seven violations. The agency settled for 1.15% of that ceiling. For a property management company, a $1,795 fine for failing to disclose lead paint hazards to seven households functions as a cost of doing business rather than a deterrent.

The “Cost of a Life” Metric: What $256 Per Family Compares To

A single pediatric blood lead level test in Illinois costs between $25 and $75 out of pocket depending on insurance coverage. Follow-up testing, specialist visits, and cognitive assessments for a child found to have elevated blood lead levels can run into the thousands. The EPA’s total penalty for seven non-disclosed leases does not cover the cost of testing two families’ children for lead exposure. The $1,795 figure is what regulators determined was fair after factoring in TBS Properties’ cooperation with the investigation.

What Now? Who to Pressure and How to Protect Yourself

TBS Properties is still an operating landlord in Chicago. This settlement resolves only the seven lease violations named in the CAFO. It does not require TBS Properties to remediate lead paint, test units, or compensate former tenants.

The People Who Signed This Deal

• Carolyn Persoon, Division Director, Enforcement and Compliance Assurance Division, EPA Region 5, signed the settlement on behalf of the EPA on January 29, 2026.
• Ann L. Coyle, Regional Judicial Officer, EPA Region 5, issued the Final Order on January 29, 2026.
• TBS Properties, L.L.C. is represented by counsel at the email address rmw@wigodalaw.com, as listed in the CAFO. The company’s registered place of business is 3754 North Southport Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60613.

Watchlist: Regulatory Bodies With Ongoing Jurisdiction

• EPA Region 5: Has jurisdiction over TSCA lead paint disclosure violations in Illinois. This settlement explicitly preserves EPA’s authority to act again if conditions present an imminent public health endangerment. Contact: (312) 353-2000.
• Illinois Department of Public Health: Enforces the Illinois Lead Poisoning Prevention Act and administers the childhood blood lead surveillance program. Landlords with pre-1978 housing may be subject to state-level inspection requirements independent of federal TSCA proceedings.
• City of Chicago Department of Public Health: Operates the Chicago Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program. Residents in pre-1978 housing with children under six can request lead inspections and blood lead testing referrals.
• HUD Office of Lead Hazard Control and Healthy Homes: Oversees lead hazard reduction in federally assisted housing and maintains the national lead disclosure enforcement partnership with EPA. HUD’s parallel regulations apply to federally subsidized units.
• DOJ Civil Division: The EPA’s CAFO explicitly authorizes the Attorney General to bring a civil action to compel compliance if TBS Properties violates the terms of the order. Any future non-payment or non-compliance can be referred here.

What Renters in Pre-1978 Chicago Buildings Can Do Right Now

• Check your lease today. Federal law requires your landlord to have given you a lead warning statement, a disclosure of any known lead paint, a list of any available lead records, the EPA’s Lead Hazard Information Pamphlet, and a signed, dated acknowledgment from both you and the landlord. If any of those elements are missing from your signed lease documents, you have documented grounds for a complaint.
• File a complaint with EPA Region 5. Violations of the lead disclosure rule can be reported online through EPA’s enforcement tip system or by contacting the Region 5 office directly. Every complaint creates a paper trail that affects a landlord’s compliance history in future enforcement actions.
• Get your children tested. The Chicago Department of Public Health provides free or low-cost blood lead testing for children under six. If you live or have lived in pre-1978 housing, ask your pediatrician or contact the Chicago CDPH Lead Program at (312) 747-5104.
• Connect with local tenant organizing groups. Organizations like the Autonomous Tenants Union Chicago, Lawyers’ Committee for Better Housing, and the Metropolitan Tenants Organization provide free legal advice, know-your-rights training, and collective organizing support for renters facing landlord negligence in Chicago’s older housing stock.
• Document everything in writing. If you request lead paint records from your landlord, do it in writing and keep a copy. If your landlord refuses, that refusal is itself a violation of federal disclosure law, and your written request is evidence.
• Share the source document. The EPA’s Consent Agreement and Final Order is a public record. If you live in TBS Properties buildings, share this document with your neighbors. Their leases from the same period may have the same missing disclosures.