Be careful what you tweet when it comes to mold

Saturday, August 01, 2009 by Michael-Bains

A woman in Chicago is being sued for libel for a tweet she made about the management company of the apartment she recently vacated.  The article below is by Lisa Donovan, staff reporter at the Chicago Sun-Times:

It was a not-so-sweet Tweet about a Chicago apartment.

So Horizon Group Management LLC filed a libel lawsuit Monday against former tenant Amanda Bonnen, claiming one of her alleged Twitter posts "maliciously and wrongfully" slammed her apartment at 4242 N. Sheridan and the company managing it.

The May 12 Tweet under the handle "abonnen" reads in part: "Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon realty thinks it's okay."

The suit and Twitter account identifies "abonnen" as Amanda Bonnen.

Jeffrey Michael, whose family has run Horizon for more than 25 years, said: "The statements are obviously false, and it's our intention to prove that."

He said that while she moved out recently, the company never had a conversation about the post and never asked her to take it down.

"We're a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization," he said, noting that the company manages 1,500 apartments in Chicago and has a good reputation it wants to preserve.

Horizon, which filed the suit in Cook County Circuit Court, is seeking $50,000 in damages.

Bonnen couldn't be reached for comment.