Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
On the other hand, you can have landlords who refuse to put even the tiniest amount of work into their own properties, landlords who engage in illegal practices, landlords who walk about as if they are doing you a favor in renting to you as oppose to it being mutually beneficial, and basically landlords who don't conduct themselves in a professional manner. In a landlord-tenant situation, the landlord is the professional in this partnership, and I expect one who plays that part: communicates effectively, follows the rules and laws, and treats their tenants properly. Not looking for a buddy or someone only in it for the extra money and doesn't really want to do this otherwise.
There are crappy people on both sides and both sides are now notorious for burning the other. You have slumlords and deadbeat tenants that give their respective groups a bad name.
This is so true. My parents once had tenants that destroyed the home. They had dogs that they let pee on the carpets and the place was infested with cockroaches when they finally got them out of there. It was a woman with three teenage sons, and they just trashed the house.
As a past renter, I've had mostly fair landlords and one really good one, but I also had one who just perplexed me. He was wealthy, owned a lot of properties in town, was involved in the community...but stingy as all get-out to the point of avoiding my phone calls for three weeks when the upstairs heat stopped working in the winter, causing me to have to buy space heaters--for what? A few bucks he saved by delaying the repair of a furnace???? And you are SUCH a jerk that it really doesn't bother you that a woman and her child are living without heat in their bedrooms in 20 degree weather?
And then when I moved from that house, he tried to get me to pay for things that were wrong/broken before I moved in. Fortunately, I'd sent him a list of those items when I first moved in and sent him a copy. I guess he thought I wouldn't keep it and tried to nickel and dime me.
I just don't get the cheapness. Have a little honor.
I've eliminated this problem by no longer furnishing any free standing appliances... more than 50% of my service calls and almost all of my emergency service calls eliminated by a simple change in policy... not to mention never having to clean a dirty stove or refrigerator again.
This is definitely a regional thing. I think you would have zero luck doing that in NJ.
This is definitely a regional thing. I think you would have zero luck doing that in NJ.
Quite possibly...
The majority of my residential rentals are in the SF Bay Area.
When I managed a fair amount of Section 8 rentals the landlord was allowed a $1 rent bump for a stove and $2 for refrigerator.
Don't know any business that wouldn't jump at the chance to eliminate more than half their service calls in exchange for $36 a year... not to mention the associated liability.
It would never fail that somewhere a refrigerator with $800 worth of food would go out on a 4th of July weekend or the oven wouldn't work Thanksgiving morning.
I can't tell you how glad I am to be about of the appliance repair business!
The majority of my residential rentals are in the SF Bay Area.
When I managed a fair amount of Section 8 rentals the landlord was allowed a $1 rent bump for a stove and $2 for refrigerator.
Don't know any business that wouldn't jump at the chance to eliminate more than half their service calls in exchange for $36 a year... not to mention the associated liability.
It would never fail that somewhere a refrigerator with $800 worth of food would go out on a 4th of July weekend or the oven wouldn't work Thanksgiving morning.
I can't tell you how glad I am to be about of the appliance repair business!
I can understand that. I think the problem is you can't just "flip a switch" and start doing that in a location that isn't used to it. I'm sure 99% of the people here who rent just don't own appliances. I've never even seen a place that didn't include them.
This is so true. My parents once had tenants that destroyed the home. They had dogs that they let pee on the carpets and the place was infested with cockroaches when they finally got them out of there. It was a woman with three teenage sons, and they just trashed the house.
As a past renter, I've had mostly fair landlords and one really good one, but I also had one who just perplexed me. He was wealthy, owned a lot of properties in town, was involved in the community...but stingy as all get-out to the point of avoiding my phone calls for three weeks when the upstairs heat stopped working in the winter, causing me to have to buy space heaters--for what? A few bucks he saved by delaying the repair of a furnace???? And you are SUCH a jerk that it really doesn't bother you that a woman and her child are living without heat in their bedrooms in 20 degree weather?
And then when I moved from that house, he tried to get me to pay for things that were wrong/broken before I moved in. Fortunately, I'd sent him a list of those items when I first moved in and sent him a copy. I guess he thought I wouldn't keep it and tried to nickel and dime me.
I just don't get the cheapness. Have a little honor.
they have none--i know cause i rent from his twin sister(in her approach as a ll)
they have none--i know cause i rent from his twin sister(in her approach as a ll)
My sister moved out of a long-time rental recently, and we had this conversation yesterday. The oven in the stove in her apartment (in a two-family house) didn't work for more than a year. The landlady had a nephew who lived in the basement who was supposed to be the maintenance guy for the house, but he mostly just hung out down there smoking weed and having friends over to watch TV or play in their "band". He'd found another stove somewhere with an oven that worked that he stashed in the garage for when he was going to get around to installing it in their apartment, but he never quite got around to that. My sister and her fiance just cooked everything on top of the stove they had. For other reasons, mainly all-night noise from the LL upstairs and the jerk in the basement, they were looking for a new place to live, so they weren't worried about the oven.
They move out, and the LL tries to knock money off the security deposit for--get this--the oven that didn't work was dirty. Of course it had a self-cleaning feature, but since the oven didn't work, the self-cleaning feature didn't work. BUT NONE OF THIS MATTERED, because they were going to throw the stove away and put in the other stove anyway. She also sent photographs of "pet stains from a cat" on the carpet that she wanted my sister to pay for cleaning. My sister never had a cat. The stains were left there from the landlord's mother's cat who had lived there before my sister.
My sister gave her a "you've got to be kidding me" phone call and ended up getting every dime of her security back.
It's just mind-boggling what some of them will try to suck money out of a tenant, though.
In my experience it is unusual for people with good credit to no longer care.
My husband and I did do a credit report and everything was OK or we would have not rented to them. They are still in the house and accumulating rent and late charges and we have a February date in court. Our attorney tells us it should be just days after court to have them out of the house after going in front of the judge. Here is information that my husband came across on New Years Day for the State of Illinois. The new law states that if the tenent while in court asks to have the case continued then rent and late fees will continue to accumulate on top of what the Tenent all ready owes.
I've been on both sides of the fence...at the same time. I've worked in property management for 6 years, and just bought my house 2 years ago, so I spent 4 years as a renter while being in PM.
Let me just tell you, if you're a SMART renter and know how to take care of your apartment, and know what the LL is responsible for and what you're responsible for, and make sure that you have proper documentation of EVERYTHING, being a tenant is a BREEZE compared to being a LL. If you're a tenant and you do all of the above, and you have a shady LL or even just a scatterbrained or unaware LL, you absolutely have the upper hand.
However, as was mentioned above, even the most seemingly "good" tenants can completely ruin a rental and cause the LL major financial strain (especially in cases where the LL is someone who has been forced to rent out their home and are not making any profit due to a job transfer, etc.)
Following, you'll see pics I took of an apartment that had two very attractive and nice mid-twenties, WASP-y residents. We have very high standards regarding credit and rental/employment history, and very high rents in one of the nicest parts of town, and this is what we were left with when they moved out:
Stained kitchen counters. Not just dirty.
Burned stovetop.
Yes, that's dog urine and feces on the living room carpet. Bedroom carpet looked the same.
The bedroom. Fast food bags and beer cans galore.
Over $6k was placed in collections on this resident's credit report.
And the kicker? They both worked at a bank, one of them in the collections department
I could tell you so many horror stories from seemingly "good" tenants, and I could also tell you stories about how residents are so unbelievably unreasonable in their expectations of a landlord (you want us to come clean your bathtub while you're still living there? Whut??? You called the corporate office because there was mud tracked on the sidewalk after a heavy rain? Are you effing kidding me?? You think you should get a month of rent free because you had a leak in your apartment ceiling that was fixed the same day you reported it?? Delusional!)
I've been in PM for 6 years, and I'm burned out. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to rent out my own house when I move next year, because I'm extremely underwater on it and can't sell. Yes, I'll be renting for a loss, and am a single woman making less than $35k a year. I'm going to get completely screwed by this, and I know it. But I have no choice.
I've been on both sides of the fence...at the same time. I've worked in property management for 6 years, and just bought my house 2 years ago, so I spent 4 years as a renter while being in PM.
Let me just tell you, if you're a SMART renter and know how to take care of your apartment, and know what the LL is responsible for and what you're responsible for, and make sure that you have proper documentation of EVERYTHING, being a tenant is a BREEZE compared to being a LL. If you're a tenant and you do all of the above, and you have a shady LL or even just a scatterbrained or unaware LL, you absolutely have the upper hand.
However, as was mentioned above, even the most seemingly "good" tenants can completely ruin a rental and cause the LL major financial strain (especially in cases where the LL is someone who has been forced to rent out their home and are not making any profit due to a job transfer, etc.)
Following, you'll see pics I took of an apartment that had two very attractive and nice mid-twenties, WASP-y residents. We have very high standards regarding credit and rental/employment history, and very high rents in one of the nicest parts of town, and this is what we were left with when they moved out:
Stained kitchen counters. Not just dirty.
Burned stovetop.
Yes, that's dog urine and feces on the living room carpet. Bedroom carpet looked the same.
The bedroom. Fast food bags and beer cans galore.
Over $6k was placed in collections on this resident's credit report.
And the kicker? They both worked at a bank, one of them in the collections department
I could tell you so many horror stories from seemingly "good" tenants, and I could also tell you stories about how residents are so unbelievably unreasonable in their expectations of a landlord (you want us to come clean your bathtub while you're still living there? Whut??? You called the corporate office because there was mud tracked on the sidewalk after a heavy rain? Are you effing kidding me?? You think you should get a month of rent free because you had a leak in your apartment ceiling that was fixed the same day you reported it?? Delusional!)
I've been in PM for 6 years, and I'm burned out. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to rent out my own house when I move next year, because I'm extremely underwater on it and can't sell. Yes, I'll be renting for a loss, and am a single woman making less than $35k a year. I'm going to get completely screwed by this, and I know it. But I have no choice.
I think a burned stovetop could be an accident. Dog feces/urine on a rug--yeah, that could be an accident...due to carelessness on the part of the owner. The bedroom? That's somebody who drinks or is on drugs.
I have been renting in different places for the last 8 years (Denver, Puerto Rico) and I'm glad I have found fair landlords. I have come to believe that the LL big two worries are (in no particular order):
1. Pay me on time
2. Take care of the property
Once he/she can see that you as a tenant can do both of those things the relationship will be courteous and respectful. I cant recall leaving one of the places that I rent with either LL or PM thanking me and my wife for the business and how sad they where to see us leave.
I haven't have a bad experience yet, hopefully my next move to Chicago next month will keep it that way... I have read some horror stories about Chicago.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
