Landlord Dilemma

I like to haggle.

Oh alright then, I'm mean.

Having called around, we think we can push for another month since we weren't given 30 days notice. That should give us a chance to find a new place if it comes to that. Of course we'd like to stay and are hoping that he's willing to negotiate. The plan is to call him later today.

Anyone have any advice (sympathy would be nice too)?

So it looks like we'll be fighting him on the increase next month and looking for a new place to live. What a cock.

From another thread:

Who knows about California landlord law? Am I right in assuming that after a tenant moves out, a landlord is required to apply a fresh coat of paint to the walls?

We painted two of the rooms during our stay. The landlord has left us with a single can of primer and said if we need anymore we should buy it. And now it appears she is out of contact. Does it seem weird for us just to apply primer and then leave? But if there was a certain color (even white) that she wanted, wouldn't she have been more specific?

I HATE THIS STUFF

That kinda wacky vagueness is totally crap, esp. expecting you to shill out for primer & possibly paint. Just burn a copy of the movie Primer & leave it there for her with your extra keys & forwarding address.

How'd the garage saley hawking things go?

It went great! Thanks for asking. Consensus here at the office is that we should just prime it and leave.

You got all your shit packed? Asides from cleaning out oven/fridge & cleaning blinds, packing is my least favorite. I have learned from stressed experience not to procrastinate it, however.

Stuff is about 75% packed. We have 4 days to paint, clean and finish packing.

srsly, landlords are scum (with some exceptions).

Haha at least you are out of that place.

just the fact that they're called lords

it prolly gives them a complex

Scumlords

Haha at least you are out of that place.

Unfortunately leaving appears to be only the begiining

Really? What's the issue? Is he not giving back your deposit?

He is not giving us back our deposit and he may even ask for more despite the fact that we left the place better than we found it. Because he is a crook.

How can he get more? Is he going to try to take you to small claims court?

Not if we do that first

Good luck! Is there a tenants' union in LA that can help you out?

We moved out of state two months ago and haven't seen our security deposit. We're getting everything ready to file in small claims court. We just heard from some current tenants that the bat bugs are back. So glad we're out.

xp

good call, I will take a look

i think you should burn his house down

Will be difficult. He spends a lot of time watering it.

he does!

i dont know anyone but am nosey, can u post pls

dunno if i want to leave my ad open to the castigation of the ilx hordes, having castigated others myself.

'i don't know anyone but i'm nosey' was my application

this nightmare continues. yesterday somebody described themselves as "hardworking" in an email about the room. wtf.

meanwhile as i make clear i want somebody basically invisible the reason my current ultra-reserved flatmate was picked becomes clearer and clearer to her, and more awkward for all!

ha

like being around for yr own underwhelming eulogy

otm. so awkward.

I never tire of looking through flatshare listings where it's evident the lister would like nothing better than to be handed £500 once a month by an invisible person who's never, ever around to quietly enjoy the accommodation they're paying for.

it's such an unnatural world. my ad i think isn't quite so overt that that's what i would want tho, given it's a joint ad with flatmate and she seems to want a NEW FRIEND. which i'm fine with really...

One place I lived was ruthlessly Shallow Grave about new flatmates - theoretically, nobody was considered for the house who didn't have a good, creative job or a place on a postgrad course that would lead to one. In practice, this meant architects and curators but not people in bands or people in advertising. I wasn't the instigator of this policy BTW.

it's evident the lister would like nothing better than to be handed £500 once a month by an invisible person who's never, ever around to quietly enjoy the accommodation they're paying for.

Frankly if anyone can afford that level of rent they can live on their own easily (surely London isnt that far ahead of Melbourne in the Insane Rental Cost stakes), so more power to em. I'd happily have an invisible person living with me - and have, though it was a good friend, so I guess that may not count.

£500 would be a bargain.

I'd live on my own if it wasn't going to cost me 1k a month, barring a move to some faraway hell.

Frankly if anyone can afford that level of rent they can live on their own easily (surely London isnt that far ahead of Melbourne in the Insane Rental Cost stakes)

Hahahahahahahahahaha

i hear leytonstone is lovely this time of life

Seems the right thread – I'm looking to take a lodger, but keep postponing hitting spareroom or whatever - seems a chore & I keep hoping circle of friends throws someone up. I think it might be a decent deal for someone who can tolerate a bookish man's slightly scruffy flat. If you're interested webmail and I'll elaborate.

(camberwell btw fwiw)

does anybody live in stepney green? are rents exorbitant there? for years i've somehow felt that stepney green is calling to me, but i wonder if it's more like a siren that will dash me into the rocks

think stepney is still fairly pricey, tho there are some cheap shitholes there.

have you ever lived in a shithole? they are surprisingly cosy.

Stepney Green isn't cheap. One beds in ok condition tend to start at north of £1000 pcm.

it's so annoying, you have to be absolutely mad/loaded simply to live on your own.

Yep - a mortgage on a £160,000 flat might not even cost you that much if you had the money for a reasonable deposit.

Actually, at current interest rates, you could probably borrow £160,000 and still be forking out less than you would to a landlord.

have considered this a bit recently, but not sure i want to be tied into anything.

Pretty sure rents in Hackney and the west side of Tower Hamlets will have gone up faster than most other places in London over the past few years. I remember when people lived in the East End because it was cheap.

anywhere that's close to central london is expensive.

ime, from looking at moveflat etc, recently. east london has just caught up with other places as far as i can tell.

I guess Newham might still be relatively cheap.

In the absence of job security, i can see why people are enormously reluctant to get a mortgage atm.

Not Melbourne cheap, but still...

there must be flukey bargains out there if you look hard enough. my friend who lives next door to me pays about £450 a month, 5 mins from central line in bethnal green. landlord doesn't have a clue. i feel lucky at £567 to be honest, everywhere around me is about £700 generally, for far smaller/uglier flats, judging by the images anyway.

Every time rents shoot up I'm incredibly grateful to be in the centre and out of the private rental market.

Lots of people moving to Leyton and Walthamstow ATM, Tracer. Friends bought just by Walthamstow station in anticipation of KIDS because the schools are great (they also enjoy the market and are happy their MP is Stella Creasy) and it's 20 minutes' journey to their Oxford Circus jobs. If you can get your head around [terror stab music] ZONE 3, definitely consider it.

Walthamstow is great but, depressingly, probably only about two years away from being close to Hackney rents. Everyone being priced out of places like Bromley seems to be heading there.

Every time rents shoot up I'm incredibly grateful to be in the centre and out of the private rental market.

I'd keep quiet if I were you; David Cameron and Ian Duncan Smith will deport you to Scunthorpe for talk like that.

pretty crazy stuff in this court document by the city of westmount suing my ex-landlord

http://jugements.qc.ca/php/decision.php?liste=68811716&doc=C0F572EC5E0A350672108DC3CDBF7AC293A9FDE6E6BE5CF685FD0DCE5483ED28&page=1

[14] On October 23, 1998, Mr. Fattal wrote a letter to Ms. Joanne Poirier, Westmount’s director of urban planning.[1] He called upon Ms. Poirier to “cancel” the September court injunction and accused her of “malicious, painful and abusive activities” that wasted taxpayers’ money. Mr. Fattal stated that it was time for Ms. Poirier to end her “Gestapo style” behaviour.

[15] In the top corner of his letter, Mr. Fattal reproduced a Second World War photo of a Nazi officer, with his boot over the neck of a prostrate concentration camp prisoner. In the background, several other prisoners in striped uniforms hung from posts. Mr. Fattal signed his letter to Ms. Poirier, “Your Hostage”.

[16] Ms. Poirier was upset by the letter. Westmount’s lawyers wrote to Mr. Fattal, asking him not to communicate with Westmount officials and to direct all future correspondence to them.

[17] A further incident in the autumn of 1998 alarmed Westmount’s building inspectors. One day, Westmount’s employee, Mr. Michel Poulin, was performing an electrical inspection at the Saint Antoine building. Mr. Fattal suddenly appeared behind Mr. Poulin wearing a Saddam Hussein mask and brandishing a baseball bat. Mr. Poulin was frightened, but Mr. Fattal later called it a joke.

...

[24] Between 1999 and 2007, he faxed hundreds of pages of correspondence and photos to the City of Westmount and its employees. At times, the fax transmissions were so lengthy they choked the City’s fax machines and disrupted its communications. Often, Mr. Fattal faxed the same pages over and over again.

[25] On a number of occasions, Mr. Fattal faxed gruesome photos of himself, bare-chested and gagging. One photo showed a tortured Mr. Fattal, with bulging eyes, and an iron bar across his mouth.

[26] Mr. Fattal also wrote to Westmount employees at their homes, mailing large envelopes to them stuffed with letters of complaint, photos of a bare-chested Mr. Fattal in chains, and other offensive documents.

...

[48] In 2011, Mr. Fattal got an iPhone and discovered text messaging. Over the next two years, up until the eve of trial in February 2013, Mr. Fattal sent hundreds of text messages to Mtre. Banon, at all times of day and night, on weekends and holidays, including New Year’s Eve in 2012. In his messages Mr. Fattal repeatedly insulted Mtre. Banon, declaring that he should be ashamed to represent “gangsters” and “criminals” who were intent on ruining Mr. Fattal’s health. In one instance, Mr. Fattal attached a photo of himself and photos of several tombstones, clearly implying that Mtre. Banon and his clients wanted him in an early grave.

[49] Mtre. Banon repeatedly asked Mr. Fattal to stop communicating with him, but the messages continued unabated, sometimes at the rate of several a day.

[50] Mr. Fattal found other outlets for his anger. He created a website on which he posted derogatory remarks and photos of Mayors Marks and Trent, Mr. St. Louis and Ms. Poirier. He attached large posters to the front of his Saint Antoine building that bore similar statements and photos, as well as his website address. These posters are still on the building today. One of them identifies the building as the “Musée d’histoire d’harcèlement par Westmount”. Mr. Fattal’s building is festooned with City of Montreal flags, indicating his displeasure at being located in the municipality of Westmount.

lol at the saddam hussein story.

ok so our doorbell has been broken for several weeks. i emailed my landlady last night to note that it still hadn't been fixed (after having emailed her about it, to no reply, several days ago) and asking when they might be able to come into the apartment. apparently she emails me back this morning around 11 AM, but I'm off doing other things and don't get the email. less than 90 minutes later she and her husband barge in and say "hello." I'm startled and in my underwear. I tell them, "you need to let us know in advance when you're coming in" (which is true, under our lease terms--they're required to give 24 hours notice unless explicitly invited in my the tenant).

they then commence a tirade of cuss words and expressions of obscene indignance. "fuck it! fuck it!" "this is bullshit." "fuck you." "you always do this" (I don't). "you make it impossible for us!" "you're being difficult." "fuck it!"

I ask them not to cuss at me in my own living space. her reply, "we can cuss at you. it's our building."

WTF. what do i do now?

(my partner was also home and was shocked.)

pretty sure what she did was totally illegal. like, isn't it a basic law that a landlord has to give 24hrs notice unless there's an emergency? and when you say she barged in, do you mean literally, as in, she didn't knock and just let herself in?

yes, it's in the lease.

she didn't "barge" in, but they just opened the front door, walked upstairs, then opened the apartment door, walked into the living room, and said "hello." i was startled.

it's not the first time they've done this. once they left a voice mail (I was cleaning and didn't get to the phone in time) and then showed up 15 minutes later, as though they had given me "notice."

(in other words, they didn't knock before they let themselves in. no chance to pull on some pants or anything.)

!!!!!!!!!!!!!! that is crazy! i don't think it even matters if the 24hr thing is even in your lease or not - that's a basic right as a tenant. i would try to find a local tenancy advocate group and see what recourse you have.

that's really awful. my landlord has been v sketchy on 24 hrs notice & similar things - tho much less outrageously - & idk what you can really do; it's all such minor stuff, i'm not sure how it cld be policed or how anything cld be made any better, the power imbalance is too great.

i'm mostly just wondering if they'll ever fix the doorbell.

also i kind of wish they wouldn't curse at me in my apartment again, that would be nice.

We've been at our current place for over 3 years

We're moving right now and the landlord is telling us we have to pay to fix a bunch of shit that I believe should be covered under wear and tear:

The top hinge of a high up cupboard broke, splintering the wood
The caulking around the tub is peeling
A poorly anchored towel rail came off the wall

Do we have to pay for this stuff??

What are the tenancy laws where you live

No idea, I'm trying to find them but I suck at Google. el cerrito doesn't even have a rent board.

So, California? That all sounds like normal wear and tear to me. You shouldn't have to pay for it.

http://www.dca.ca.gov/publications/landlordbook/

Thanks!

Yeah, I mean its not like we punched a hole in the wall or broke some windows

ugh, my landlord is such a nasty woman.

even in the most routine correspondence or phone call she _has_ to contest something i said. and she is always wrong. this time i emailed her because a problem i had reported a month ago didn't appear to be fixed. in her email she insisted that i hadn't actually reported the problem a month ago but rather "just" two weeks ago... even though the email in which i reported the problem, dated mid-june, is right there in our email correspondence... if she would just scroll down. (and what does it matter anyway? just fix the fucking problem.)

she seems to perceive any question or concern as a kind of challenge, a kind of invasion of her private time. hence she _always_ tries to turn the tables and imply or insist that i've done something wrong—she'll even invent problems out of thin air to do this. even the most routine things--like asking them to fix a broken light fixture--are greeted with undue suspicion, as if she can't believe i have the temerity to bother her.

i am really glad i am not related to her. i get the feeling she would be completely insufferable. ugh.