Landlord wants to do "routine inspection", how do I say no?

[CaliRestoration]

Originally Posted by Xanathos

First off, being a single parent with kids is a personal decision. It's not the landlord's fault or problem if that's the situation (and I don't recall seeing "single parent"; all I recall seeing is "large family with pets").

Second, most unaffordable market in the country? You need to get out more. New York? More. San Francisco? More. Hell, SEATTLE costs more than LA at this point. LA's not "affordable" by any means, but it's not untenable.

The short and skinny here is everything the OP listed, these are what are known as "you" problems. As in, they're your problems, not the landlords. It's not the landlord's problem that you don't keep the house cleaned unless the landlord is coming over (well, it is, but for different reasons). It's not the landlord's problem that you've got pets and other landlords don't like them. It's not the landlord's problem that the kids are in the middle of a school year. The landlord's problem is the property, and the landlord no longer wants that problem. All that other **** is **** you should have thought about or planned for previously. Who is the OP to demand that the landlord keep shouldering it?

I'm slowly building up a little cadre of rental properties. Last I checked, my investment of hundreds of thousands of dollars each gives me certain rights over someone who just wants to borrow my place. If I ever had a tenant try to tell me I couldn't come into my property every 6 months at lease renewal time to do a quick walkthrough and ensure everything is in order, they'd be elsewhere. It's clearly spelled out in the lease. If they don't like the terms, they're free to go borrow someone else's place. They aren't doing me a favor by borrowing my place, and I'm not doing them a favor by letting them use it in exchange for money. It's a transactional agreement. Now, I'm human and would certainly accommodate things like what day to come check the place out so long as it's reasonable, but telling me to hang on to one of my investments longer if I decide I don't want it anymore because it's inconvenient for you to have me cash out? GTFOH with that.

Facts.

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by CatBass

Took everyone's advice, and allowed the inspection. Scrubbed the place from top to bottom; looked great. Turns out she wanted to make sure everything was OK so she could put the house up for sale. My lease has run out, single family home not under rent control, so it looks like I have no recourse, right? I just wished they would wait until my kids finish up the school year. So hard to move them, and to find another single family home. For the record, I have been a very good polite tenant, and have put up with a lot of problems with electricity sparking and going out, doors that won't lock or stick, plumbing problems, heating problems, leaks, floods, mold, floors buckling, things breaking, etc. And I have been the one calling the repairmen, and waiting at home all day for them to show up. They gave me 60 days, and I've been looking every day since. Also, do I still need to give them 30 days notice? It's hard to get the finances together for a new deposit, and moving expenses, and pay double rent for a month.

They're the ones who gave you notice, didn't th4ey? You have to be out in 60 days? So you don't have to give them notice, but you should let them know, when you do find a place.

I was in a place like you describe, once. Hardly anything worked when I moved in; the sinks didn't drain, the shower heads leaked, the burners on the stove went out, one by one, 'til I only had 1 left, the furnace gave out in the middle of a snowy winter, on a Friday, naturally, a holiday weekend, so they said they couldn't get a repairman until. the next Tuesday, some of the clothes bars in the closets would fall down when I started to hang clothes, etc. Constantly calling repairmen. Then, after I'd been there a year, suddenly, they started sending various inspectors: an ozone check, furnace filter change, small things. There was very little privacy, because of this. After that weird little flurry of invasions, I was told I had 3 months to leave. This had been rented to me as a long-term rental, for years. Just before I left, there was a new staff person at the management agency, so I asked why they were booting me, and found out the owner had had a business downturn, and it was HIS HOUSE I was living in! Hard to believe. I know some LL's use that as an excuse just to get rid of tenants, but I'd always been reliable and orderly. So anyway, stuff happens, OP. Most LL's don't care if they jerk their tenants around; they're only in it for the income. Sorry this has happened to you.

[Mr_Geek]

Sucks that you have to move and all that with kids in school but it's one of the downsides of renting. Anything can happen and you can be forced to move if you aren't on a long lease.

[seain dublin]

Originally Posted by CatBass

Renters have rights too, you know. If this was San Francisco, they wouldn't be allowed to force us out until school lets out. I didn't let my lease lapse, they chose not to renew it. All I am saying is that I have put up with a lot, bent over backwards to accommodate them, and paid them a fortune for that pleasure. It is very difficult to find a home within the school district to accomodate a large family with pets on short notice. But my kid's anxiety over being homeless means nothing to them. They have decided the peak of the market is now, and they want to sell at top dollar. I mean, would it really kill them to wait two more months?

I feel for your situation, but didn't you question it when they decided to go month to month instead of a lease that something was up? I would have asked outright "why no yearly lease like before?"/

The fact that they wouldn't wait when you mentioned the flu was another big red flag. Most would say "OK, we will do it another time". People are avoiding this flu like the plague if they can.

And why on earth are your kids worried about being homeless? What are you saying to them? As a parent even if you are worried, you don't tell your kids this. Children shouldn't be burdened with that weight.

[CatBass]

Oh no, I tell them all the time that things are going to be fine; and not to worry. They are just fully aware of how tight the market is here. I have noticed that there is a very high level of anxiety in general among my kids and their friends; much more so than when we were kids. And yes, I did find a place I liked better right around the corner, but it rented two days before the owners here told me they were selling. As for bending over backwards, it has nothing to do with cleaning the house. It has to do with, as I already posted, renting a place that was uninhabitable under CA law, and then having me call the repairmen and wait at home for them. So essentially I was their unpaid property manager. The house had been so poorly maintained that I have now calculated more than 60 days of my time spent calling and waiting, over the course of the past 2.5 years. I'm not trying to force them to do anything. I am just saying that I have been very considerate to them, and I wish they would be the same of me. Finally, being a single parent was not my "personal decision." How odd that you would say that. It was that of my husband's, who had a mid-life meltdown and ran off with a Russian prostitute con artist.

[Peasy973]

First, I feel for your situation regarding you and your children. Not all women are single mothers on purpose as you have stated. If the property was so bad why move in there in the first place? Based on you been writing, it was bad from the get-go.

[CatBass]

Good question. On the surface, you wouldn't know that the electricity and plumbing was shot, that illegal vents were letting carbon monoxide into the house from the garage, that doors would swell and then not open and close properly, that locks and drawers and fixtures would break, that faulty wiring would arc and spark, that pipes would burst both inside and out. etc. I had been a homeowner for the past 20 years, so have not rented in a long time. I naively thought that if you rented a house in CA, it would be up to code, and that things would work as per the law. So I didn't think, for example, to turn on all the faucets to see if actual water came out of them. Which it didn't, in the bathroom anyway. What I have learned is that in a tight housing market, landlords can and will try to get away with anything illegal that they can, charge as much as they can, and even attempt to exhort illegal fees. Not pointing the finger at the current landlords, they may not have known the extent of disrepair the house was in (although they should have.) But the things I have seen in the last several days looking at rentals, oy vey. Old toilets and sinks and building supplies and bricks strewn about the yard. Windows so dirty you couldn't see out, floors so dirty you would never take off your shoes. Illegal garage conversions used as AirBnB's in the backyard where my kids would play; with strangers constantly coming in and out. One landlady asked me how much I would "tip" her, if she selected me. In other words, how much cash under the table would I pay her. Another said I would have to pay a pet deposit of $2,000, yes, two thousand dollars! On top of the last month's rent and security deposit. And pet deposits are illegal in CA. It's rough out there.

[aslowdodge]

Wow, I've never heard of the tip thing from a landlord.
I feel you,but the landlord did everything right.
I own a lot of rentals. My primary residence is a rental though. 5 months before my lease ended and reverted to month to month, I contacted my landlord to extend the lease. They would only do it for 4 months as they had planned to sell. Put me in a bit of a quandary,but I managed to buy a house.

They neighbors said I was the best renter in that house for 7 years and couldn't understand why the owners wanted to sell now that they had me paying top dollar for rent. But the owner had every right as it was his house. I would have stayed for a long time otherwise.

[Natural510]

It sounds like a crappy situation, and exactly why I chose to move from the Bay Area to podunksville before starting a family. Living in a major city with kids and not owning or being in the top 1% is a struggle with the ridiculousness of rents these days, and not really worth it TBH.