I dislike landlords and unfortunately I am living with mine

[L.A.dweller]

The landlords that I have interacted with are the ones that rent to students. They think that students are young, naive and inexperienced and therefore, can be taken advantage of.
Currently, I am renting a room in a house that the owner lives in. I've been there since Feb 15. Last weekend he tells me that his utilities bill has doubled since I have been there and he wants $50 for it. I asked him if I could see the bill and he responded by saying that it is personal.

There are other little annoyances that he does that I could go on about. Such as him telling me that his father might be able to fix the phone line in my room but his damn father doesn't show up.

Tell of your experience with crappy landlords.

[BR_Parkway]

1. And your lease included utilities? n/t

[L.A.dweller]

3. The only lease I signed

was one that I created stating that I would agree to pay utilities up to $50 after the first month that I am renting.

I have no problem paying for my utilities but he needs to be more mature and present to me the utility bill. For all i know it could be less than 50 or it could be 60 or 70. If that is the case then i would be paying far more than half of the bill.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

6. Of course. No bill, no raise.

I smell BS. That's just me.

[Bertha Venation]

10. I agree with JC.

Don't pay him a penny more until he shows you the bill. He's full of it.

[L.A.dweller]

13. When I discuss it again with the landlord

I will ask for a copy of the bill of course. In addition, I want to ask if i can see his last electricity bill (b4 I moved in) to find out if his claims are legitimate.

I realize that I probably don't need to see the last bill. But damnit if you are going to tell me that your electricity bill has doubled because of me you better have something to back it up. The guy is an idiot.

On edit: Doubled within the last 20 days that is. The bill probab;y doesn't even cover the time that i have been living there.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

26. 20 days? *KAFF* *COUGH* The stench of BS is asphyxiating! (nt)

[afraid_of_the_dark]

2. Don't even get me started...

I'm just going to rant if I don't stop myself here.

But when it takes 2 months to fix something minor and other tenants are permitted (because the landlord never comes in the building) to play loud music at any time of day or night even though you have complained about it (which sucks when it is during finals week and you're trying to study)... my landlord truly, truly sucks.

[L.A.dweller]

4. Loud music is just plain rude.

It's amazing how people have no concern for others who are living around them.

[Marius]

5. I lived with both of mine two summers ago.

Thankfully they were easy to get along with and they were my age. The only thing annoying about them was that they were there.

[Rainbowreflect]

7. When I was much younger I had a real pervert for a landlord.

He would come into my apartment without warning trying to catch me undressed. He would go into my apartment when I was not there and go through my stuff. He was really creepy.

[meegbear]

8. I have one right one ...

Lived in the same building since 1991. My old landlord lived off site and I would help with raking, shoveling, etc. He sold the place to this bonehead and he lives there.

I had to move to a place in the back to save money. He rushes me in so he can rent my old place. The place wasn't done. The walls were painted "shit brown" with a beige sponge. Looked fucking awful and the paper he painted over was falling down. Had to hire a friend to fix the walls - I got to write it off the rent, but I was pissed. The kitchen floor has old paint splatters from when he tried to paint and is coming up. There's a story about the police walking into my apartment because he left the cellar open and my back door wasn't put in properly, but that was another post and has been fixed.

At this point, I should say, yes I am going to be moving, and after being out of work for 14 months, my credit isn't enough to buy a place. I have 4 people looking for me. 2 are house buyers who are planning to buy multifamilies, the guy who painted my walls knows of a unit that may become available and the last is working on the place now and should be available in a couple months.

During this past winter, I lost water 4 times. The landlord shares one pipe with me, his kitchen sink. The last time it happened, mid-January, a water pipe broke. My shower runs at less than half power and if I give the knob a quick turn, it turns to a dribble. I shower at the gym M-F, but that's no excuse. I told him about it at the end of January. He hasn't fixed it.

I decided to withhold rent in March. On March 1, I had to go into the basement and I saw the toilet pipe running from the 2nd floor unit wrapped in duct tape with a large bucket underneath leaking (water only). I thought, "Good, now he'll fix the plumbing", so I left a rent check. The check was cashed and not only has he not fixed them, but the water is starting to leak away from the barrel and making larger and larger puddles - creeping towards my stored stuff.

I have decided to tell him that I want these things addressed within the next 72 hours or I will call the Housing Authority for my shower and the Board of Health for the other leak.

[Beaker]

9. HEY! I'm a landlord...but a damn good one.

we have a two-flat in chicago.
we rent to a student who goes to the college half a block away.
she's the 2nd tenant we've had- the first one stayed over 3 years, even after she got married, but they moved after sh got preggers(fine by me, i didn't really want an infant in the apartment, since i live downstairs).
our current tenant just re-upped on her lease, too.

in the lease, we allow her to have a dog- the othe tenants haqd a dog too, and i'd even watch it & walk it for them when they were out of town.
rent includes-
heat & cooking gas,
satellite TV(FULL package, including all premium channels- hbo,cinemax, starz, showtime, etc...)
free use of our washer/dryer in the basement(i even fold her clothes if they're in the dryer when i go to use it).
two decks- private one in front, and shared one in back.
when we bought the place, and i remodeled the kitchen and bathroom, I installed a dishwasher in the rental unit as well.

our tenants LOVE us.

[L.A.dweller]

11. Ah, this is Illinois though

The rental situation in Los Angeles is crazay.

[Beaker]

12. it can be just as crazay here.

just ask people.

[L.A.dweller]

14. Craz-ay

I'm sure that it is.

[FireHeart]

15. We have a great landlord.

She's marvelous. When we report a repair problem or emergency, she responds almost immediately. A few years ago, when our A/C went out (during summer and we live in Florida) she had the unit replaced within 24 hours. When our fridge went down during the Xmas holiday, she had it replaced on Xmas eve. There were some problems involved, because the contractors failed to measure the area properly, but it was still quite usable and we didn't need to eat at a restaurant.

Not all landlords suck. Some are highly honorable and will run their rental units with integrity and common sense. Ours will NOT send anyone to our home without at least a weeks notice unless it's a bona fide emergency. Like a water leak in the next unit, etc.

Many landlords won't give you even 24 hour notice for even trivial things.

[Beaker]

16. our tenant came downstairs crying about mice in her apartment...

at 1 AM...I got up and went to the 24-hour home depot and bought d-con and some of those electronic pest repellers for her- dropped over 50 bucks, came back and installed them for her.

no more mice.

[L.A.dweller]

18. I can't blame you from trying to dispel the myth

about landlords. But your making me jealous of your dedication to your tenants.

[Beaker]

20. actually, you're right...

it's not a myth...and after all the horible landlords(one was nice) I had, I was determined to be different.

[FireHeart]

22. Outstanding

Bolsters my faith in humanity--which is quite low at this time. :)

[Wcross]

17. I rented from a couple from hell back in school

She rented to me, knowing I was a student. I also held a job from 5-10pm so I wasn't going to be home too much. Well, she wanted the rent money but didn't really want me living in the apartment(upstairs from her). She actually had the nerve to say I "should live in the dorms" because I needed to experience living with other people. Of course I went to school after I was in the Marine corps so I had experienced life in cramped quarters. I didn't own a stereo back then and didn't make too much noise except maybe when my girlfriend came over.

Landlords suck!

[L.A.dweller]

19. I replied to this add once

for a room rent. The lady explained that she uses half of her home as a place of business (like an office space) and didn't want the renter there from 8-5pm. I was like why are you charging so much in rent if the person can't even be there?

[radwriter0555]

21. I have a friend in LA who has a guest house for rent, if you're interested

it's not really cheap, but DU mail me if you're interested, and she's a nice lady and won't cheat you.

[Xithras]

23. My wife was repeatedly propositioned by a (former) landlord.

At the time we were paying $875 a month in rent and he'd discovered that we were having financial problems. He propositioned her and offered to cut the rent to $400 a month if she would sleep with him a few times a month. The creep didn't care that she was married with a young baby or that HE was married with kids. He also wouldn't take no for an answer, and kept cornering my wife in the laundry room to hit her up again. My wife, being a wonderfully intelligent woman, dropped my mini-recorder into a pillowcase one day and made her way to the laundry to wash some blankets. Predictably, he showed up and started hitting on her big time, saying point blank at one spot "Come on, it's just a f***." When my wife responded that he should go f*** himself, or at least his wife, the guy let loose a tirade about his "ugly" wife and how he got tired of "f******" her years before. He said that he liked variety, and that my wife (attractive, openly bisexual, half Native American) was "exotic enough for him".

That tape mysteriously made it into the hands of the landlords wife. After their fight ended a few hours later, she came up to our apartment, thanked my wife for showing her just how bad her husband had gotten, and cut our rent to $400 anyway. She won the complex in the divorce, and was a great landlord for the next year and a half that we lived there :)

[L.A.dweller]

24. Ah, man. That must have been an awful

thing to go through.

Good for the wife.

[Piltdown13]

25. "Corporate" landlords have been the worst for me

By "corporate" I mean those rental management companies that own several complexes in a given city. Granted, my town has more than its share of individual slumlord-type landlords, if the horror stories are to be believed, but the only difficulties I've had have been with the big apartment complexes.

The first apartment I lived in, I stayed for three years. It was a tiny little place, way overpriced because it was near the stadium, but I stayed because it would be such a hassle to move, and the rent wasn't too bad in absolute terms (just a relatively poor value). Finally, I outgrew the apartment (one does tend to accumulate a lot of books and reprints in grad school) and chose a new place. I wanted to go ahead and move in May, although my lease ran out in August, because I was going to Africa that summer and didn't yet know exactly what the dates would be. I arranged it with the folks at my new place -- it was great for them, because the girl renting the unit I was moving into (who worked in the leasing office, BTW) wanted out of her lease early. Now, BOTH complexes were owned by the SAME management company, so you would think there would be no problem letting me out of my lease early where I was at, right? Wrong -- they dug in their heels, even when I pointed out that the company would be making more money from me (the new place cost substantially more per month) AND from whomever rented my old place -- the renewal rate on it was something like $40 per month less than the rate they were then quoting to new tenants. What finally got me out was the fact that I had documented all the occasions they had entered my apartment without permission and without notice (I'd come home and be able to tell - lights on, items moved around - that someone had been in my place, but there was never a note), as well as the fact that they had taken five days to fix my shower that winter (refusing to put me up in a hotel) AND had left the heat turned up to 70 degrees plus after changing my furnace filter over Christmas, causing a giant electric bill. Hinting at a lawsuit worked wonders!

That management company paid me back for it, though. I stayed at the "new" place for a year. They waived the deposit for grad students, but I had a $400 pet deposit for my cat. Unfortunately, I didn't notice that the so-called pet deposit had no restrictions placed on it (IOW, I assumed it could only be withheld due to pet damage). This incident was also how I found out that apartment walk-throughs are not legally binding around here -- I was checked out with no damage by the leasing agent, and got a copy of the signed walk-through report. Several weeks later I get a partial refund of my "pet" deposit, with deductions listed for a bleach stain on the carpet and for replacement of mini-blinds! Now, obviously my cat didn't spill bleach on the carpet, and he had nothing to do with the sad state of the mini-blinds, which were on their last legs when I moved in (and, I might add, which was noted on my move-in walk through). I didn't press them on the bleach stain, because that one was my fault, but I called and complained about the mini-blinds. I was basically told I was out of luck -- "you can't prove it wasn't your fault, we'd like to see you try." Financially it didn't make sense to fight it, and I was exhausted and broke from the move anyway (caused by the fact that they reneged on a promise that I'd be able to extend my lease a few weeks if I couldn't get a July 15 move-in date on my next place -- had to move first to my boyfriend's old place, then to the new place, costing me several hundred dollars in moving and storage costs).

Seems to be pretty common around here, actually -- landlords withhold from your security deposit for highly questionable items, but keep the amount low enough that it would cost more than what they took from you to fight it. The greed amazes me, especially considering that rents around here are outrageous for the size of the town as it is.

[L.A.dweller]

27. Yes, they always try to cheat you out of your deposit.

My dad owns an apartment complex and he let me in on how to do the dirty deed.

My last landlord attempted to withold all of my rent because I moved out a week early before our month to month VERBAL lease agreement expired. He was completely unprofessional and did not write up a new lease when my previous 6 month lease expired. Instead, what I did was just ask him if I could stay on a month to month basis.
Yet, once I wanted to move out he still held me to the previous agreement. I got my mom's lawyer friend on his ass which scared the owner in to giving me 1/2 of my deposit back.

[kevinam]

28. not all of them suck...

I am one, and frankly, I do a pretty decent job. Actually, I got to spend part of saturday doing some stuff for my tenents to take care of the house. I don't mind. They are good people and it is stuff that needed to be done. Sure, most people here have had bad land-lords (myself included), but really, be around some land-lords for a while, and hear some of their horror stories. People who trash houses. People that don't pay their rent. People that get utilities in their young children's names, because their credit is awful. It takes alot of hard work, money, and energy to have a house looking good to rent it. Most land-lords aren't super rich republicans, they are common folks trying to have a more secure tomorrow. I only have one rental property, and it isn't all that easy. Just like everything. You have good land-lords, and bad ones. You have good tenents (mine right now) and you have bad ones...Kevin.