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I rent a room from "Joe" who has been unemployed for about three years now.
Joe does not own the house, he has a deal with the landlord who is out of state working on a long-term project. Joe rents the house and then rents out rooms and collects enough to cover the rent he pays. (Nice gig if you can get it.)
The house is older (1950s) and fairly small (1200 sf) with one tiny claustrophobic bathroom and a small kitchen.
Joe has the entire upstairs all to himself and there are three small downstairs bedrooms to rent out.
A few weeks after I moved in, a woman moved in with Joe and then several weeks after that they got married (previously both were divorced). When she moved in, the quality of life declined. She was an ex-druggie (who had come out of rehab) and took up alcohol as a new drug. Both drink like a fish and smoke like a chimney. She is shrill and her voice carries loudly.
Both would get up fairly early (6-7 am) and park themselves in the living room all day and watch mindless broadcast network television (she's on SSI and hasn't worked in years). Since he drinks all day he rarely gets out of the house (his idea of getting out of the house is to run to the store for booze and smokes) - bad idea to drive while sloshed - and the living room is his social center where his friends parade in and out all day. (Good luck if anyone else wants to watch Something Else on television.)
EVERY bedroom in the house is either next to, directly above, or directly below the living room, and there is no place in the house the rest of us can go for peace and quiet.
Soon after they got married, they started fighting. It would start by the time each had had a few drinks and would escalate throughout the day. (Then there's also Joe's big dog who barks a lot esp when they're fighting, then that fight is temp interrupted while he yells at the dog to shut up.) At several times it got to the point where regularly either he would kick her out or she would walk out and drive off. Within 24 hours she would be back as if nothing had happened and the cycle would soon repeat. There was one week in which she left and returned four times. Both have been arrested and taken to jail for domestic violence and both spent a holiday weekend cooling off.
Then for awhile they would break up and reconcile intermittently..on and off. Currently they're "off" and she's out of the house. During the period they were regularly fighting, Joe would sleep on the living room couch, thereby making it unavailable to the rest of us. (So we couldn't use the living room day or night.)
What I don't understand is that now that she's gone (at least temporarily), Joe continues to sleep in the living room even though he's got the whole upstairs to himself. What's up with that?
He's gets up, watches TV (he likes shoot-em-up movies and has a DVD collection), refills his glass with ice (the ice dispenser is fairly noisy) and booze at all hours - there's no way to avoid the noise - since he never has to get up in the morning and go anywhere.
When I moved in he was a happy drunk, when they started fighting he turned into and remains a volatile angry drunk. I just get out of the house or hole up in my room while the others yell and scream at each other.
This massively sucks but I live on a poverty-level income and can't come up with the up-front money I would need to move elsewhere.
Everything in this house is All About Joe and it sucks for the rest of us, most of whom are able to move out quickly. (Since he has difficulty keeping all the rooms rented, his screening standards are at best minimal and I've had a bunch of things stolen from my room from lowlifes to whom he has rented.)
Do I have any right to peace and quiet or do I just have to put up with it until I can afford to move?
Location: When you take flak it means you are on target
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Want some hard advice?
Find yourself a second or third job. Sweep up dog poop if you have to. Buy a van and move into it. Find someplace where you can park to sleep. Join a health club like Ballys to take showers (plus you get a pool). Then SAVE your money. The money you were putting into rent put into the bank.
I've done this twice in my life. It gave me the seed money to buy real estate - once you buy a house, YOU rent the rooms out, then you live for free in the house, while saving your money for the next house. Keep doing it and you will be a millionaire.
Get another job or a better job to get the money to move. Borrow the money from someone, anyone. Get an advance from your job. Find another room where the landlord will let you pay the first month and the deposit in divided amounts over three or four months. Golly, put your stuff in storage, and live in your car while you save the money to get a place. In other words, move.
I agree - find a way to move. That may mean finding a way to increase your income too, but ultimately this place is never going to work out for you. Does Joe sound like the kind of landlord who is going to listen to someone telling him his tenants have a right to peace an quiet?
I rent a room from "Joe" who has been unemployed for about three years now.
Joe does not own the house, he has a deal with the landlord who is out of state working on a long-term project. Joe rents the house and then rents out rooms and collects enough to cover the rent he pays. (Nice gig if you can get it.)
The house is older (1950s) and fairly small (1200 sf) with one tiny claustrophobic bathroom and a small kitchen.
Joe has the entire upstairs all to himself and there are three small downstairs bedrooms to rent out.
A few weeks after I moved in, a woman moved in with Joe and then several weeks after that they got married (previously both were divorced). When she moved in, the quality of life declined. She was an ex-druggie (who had come out of rehab) and took up alcohol as a new drug. Both drink like a fish and smoke like a chimney. She is shrill and her voice carries loudly.
Both would get up fairly early (6-7 am) and park themselves in the living room all day and watch mindless broadcast network television (she's on SSI and hasn't worked in years). Since he drinks all day he rarely gets out of the house (his idea of getting out of the house is to run to the store for booze and smokes) - bad idea to drive while sloshed - and the living room is his social center where his friends parade in and out all day. (Good luck if anyone else wants to watch Something Else on television.)
EVERY bedroom in the house is either next to, directly above, or directly below the living room, and there is no place in the house the rest of us can go for peace and quiet.
Soon after they got married, they started fighting. It would start by the time each had had a few drinks and would escalate throughout the day. (Then there's also Joe's big dog who barks a lot esp when they're fighting, then that fight is temp interrupted while he yells at the dog to shut up.) At several times it got to the point where regularly either he would kick her out or she would walk out and drive off. Within 24 hours she would be back as if nothing had happened and the cycle would soon repeat. There was one week in which she left and returned four times. Both have been arrested and taken to jail for domestic violence and both spent a holiday weekend cooling off.
Then for awhile they would break up and reconcile intermittently..on and off. Currently they're "off" and she's out of the house. During the period they were regularly fighting, Joe would sleep on the living room couch, thereby making it unavailable to the rest of us. (So we couldn't use the living room day or night.)
What I don't understand is that now that she's gone (at least temporarily), Joe continues to sleep in the living room even though he's got the whole upstairs to himself. What's up with that?
He's gets up, watches TV (he likes shoot-em-up movies and has a DVD collection), refills his glass with ice (the ice dispenser is fairly noisy) and booze at all hours - there's no way to avoid the noise - since he never has to get up in the morning and go anywhere.
When I moved in he was a happy drunk, when they started fighting he turned into and remains a volatile angry drunk. I just get out of the house or hole up in my room while the others yell and scream at each other.
This massively sucks but I live on a poverty-level income and can't come up with the up-front money I would need to move elsewhere.
Everything in this house is All About Joe and it sucks for the rest of us, most of whom are able to move out quickly. (Since he has difficulty keeping all the rooms rented, his screening standards are at best minimal and I've had a bunch of things stolen from my room from lowlifes to whom he has rented.)
Do I have any right to peace and quiet or do I just have to put up with it until I can afford to move?
sounds like the last room I rented. Couple in last stage of crumbling marriage with three kids under five. She met him at the door ready to start the fight. They'd be screaming at each other, all the kids screaming and crying until they got mad and went to respective parents homes. The people renting the rooms came out of hiding then.
My advise... look for another room if thats all you can do. I don't think Joe is going to change. BF and and I once rented from a 'Joe" who counted out the rent money to be sure you gave him the right amount, would only take it in cash, and didn't do receipts. Since you have no use basically of more than your room, then you'd be better off in a cheap motel.
The short answer is that the PA Landlord-Tenant Act does not provide for having a quiet apartment / room. You are basically in the same boat as anyone who has ever rented an apartment next to an airport / loud bar / bus depot / factory / etc. You really don't have any recourse on the matter other than talking to Joe or moving out.
EDIT: Whoops, sorry. I misread this thread as being in the Pennsylvania forum. Advice still stands, though -- consult your local landlord/tenant laws.
Last edited by DowntownHarrisburg; 07-05-2011 at 09:54 PM..
I haven't had a roommate situation quite as disastrous as yours, however, I can empathize. The solution: GET THE BLEEP OUT as quickly as you can.
Joe is an alcoholic. Do you really want to stick around and see if things get better? Disfunction is disfunction .... and you are not in a position for this guy to get his life together and act like a respectful person.
Now I would:
1. Call the cops, give them his name and license plate number, and let them know that he routinely drinks and drives. Why do people on the road have to suffer the consequences of this nimrod?
2. Drop a dime to SSI, and let them know that a certain someone has a drinking problem. Hard to work but not too hard to lift the bottle?
3. Contact the landlord. If this guy is truly this much of a loser, he is a risk to the property and to the tenants to pay to live there. Really, the landlord has to be made of aware of this liability. If I were you, I would send a certified letter so you can show you made the efford and the LL received the notice.
4. Contact human services .. try to get hardship money. Documenting the hell hole with the police and LL need to be done first, but also contact a human services agency. Are you able to work as a nanny (live in) somewhere? Some families look for only part time help (so you can keep your other job, if it is only part time). I am tossing things out there but you HAVE to take the necessary steps to protect yourself, the other, and move.
Another "move out" to add to what the others have said. I'm assuming that you don't have a commitment such as a lease and that you are operating month to month, so get out as soon as you can line something else up.
A PO box as an address, a tent/van/camper/RV and showers at the YMCA are a better and probably safer arrangement than you've got going now. There is no way to make this situation fair or equitable or to make Joe see reason. Joe is a user in every sense of the word. You said it best, "It's all about Joe." and that leaves no room for anyone else.
So what to do?
Firstly, I wouldn't make any more drama than already exists in this residence. The above suggestions while probably well meant, will likely stir up a hornet's nest of revenge, with all the attending sound and fury, and will likely produce nothing but more ill will. Since it sounds like law enforcement has been there for the domestic disturbances, they know the score as it pertains to Joe and the spouse.
I don't know if you are male or female but to actually try to help someone I usually spend a few moments looking at their profile to get a sense of who they are, such as age group, sex, marital status and location. Since your profile was nonexistent I looked at a few of the threads and posts that you've recently engaged in and it seems that you are intelligent and articulate but you spend a lot of energy around probing and debating fairness issues in particular regarding low income and housing. I totally understand that this is a sore point right now but....of course you know that life, the system, isn't fair, so spare yourself the aggravation of hashing it out over and again.
Your energy spent articulating and debating your positions could be better spent in immediate actions to improve your situation. I'm not talking out of my hat. I've been where you are in the past. Though I didn't rent a room from an abusive alcoholic, I spent half a year living in an old step van camper in Alaska getting on my feet with not much more than my wits and youth to help me, so I get how hard things can be with a minimum wage job in a high cost area. It took five years of blood, sweat and occasionally tears to ratchet from the camper to sharing an older trailer, to a tiny apartment and so on, to the point that there was no worries about falling backward.
If you can't figure out what to do to help yourself out of this situation, make an appointment with social services/housing in your city or county. They may have or know of resources to help you get the leg up that you need.
In Colorado Springs a fairly major homeless problem existed in 2009 with folks (including families with children) camped out all along Fountain Creek between Manitou and downtown. In 2010 when we returned, the situation had improved substantially. As it turns out, a local businessman had taken the initiative to get these people's story and matched them up with the proper private or governmental social service that helped them find at least some housing that didn't have tarp walls.
My point: Help is available. Someone needs to take the initiative to find it. In this case, barring angelic intervention, that someone is you.
The landlord came into town on one of his work breaks (he's working on an oil rig several states away) and kicked Joe out of the house. (Joe had rented the house for over ten years and I expected he would never get booted.)
All is peaceful and quiet and there is much rejoicing. The rest of us got to keep the same total rent Joe was paying, which works out to $100+ less per month from each of us. (Joe had a great scam going and totally blew it. Seems he was also blowing the rent money through gambling, which led him to default on rent, hence the resulting downfall.) And the landlord is going to give us some upgrades (which I did not ask for or expect).
Epic WIN!
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