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Aquatic Giraffe posted:I emailed an apartment complex asking how much rent was and if they were pet-friendly (neither was listed on their website). They respond saying they can only answer my questions via a phone call, which I find very odd especially since these are very simple questions. That makes no sense to me. I would be distrustful of a place that operated like that. I would even worry that they were trying to prescreen applicants based on if they sounded ethnic, etc, on the phone. Try having someone who is a different race than you cal and ask for info and then you call and ask for the same info and see if they give the same answer. If not, report them to HUD for fair housing violations.
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Feb 17, 2012 22:30
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Flash Gordon Ramsay posted:That makes no sense to me. I would be distrustful of a place that operated like that. I would even worry that they were trying to prescreen applicants based on if they sounded ethnic, etc, on the phone. I called them and they didn't answer the phone. They're getting dropped off my list of places to look at faster than the house with the active train tracks in the backyard. We're going to look at a little house tomorrow with a reasonable rent and location, I just hope they're cool with the fact that we're not moving till July 
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Feb 18, 2012 00:54
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If they are advertising it for rent more than 2 weeks earlier than your move in date, they're not going to be cool with it. When I was looking for a place this time around no where would let me move in a day later (well I could, I just had to pay the rent from the start). It might be different if you live in an area with a rental surplus, but I don't know how likely that is.
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Feb 18, 2012 20:17
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It's a college town so rent situation is a little different here. The dude is cool with us delaying our start date because he can't find anyone who can move in immediately since all the people who are looking are stuck in leases that don't end till summer. All I have to do is run some numbers to double check that we can afford it and turn in an application, and we could be on our way to having our first house! It even has a white picket fence.
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Feb 18, 2012 22:56
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I'm looking for advice on whether we should fix up some things in our apartment before we move out, or just let the refundable part ($150) of the $300 pet deposit cover it and chalk it up as a loss. Our credit check was good so we were not required to have a regular non-pet deposit. The reason I ask is because I'm looking at apartmentratings.com and pretty much every review bitches about how they didn't get their deposits back, and that their itemized lists they received about their damages "suspiciously added up" to the amount of the whole deposit. I don't want to fix anything if I'm going to be out the deposit anyway. The obvious things that they will notice are: *3 sets of destroyed miniblinds. I think we could find them at Walmart for $10. Our lease's move-out checklist lists blinds replacement at $15/each (signed in April) but a reminder-note put in each unit's front door last week said they can replace them for $25/each. Since I have it in writing with signatures I'm counting on the $15 quote, but welp leasing offices... *A hole in the wall made by the dog. I don't think it should be too expensive to fix myself. It's about 12"x4". *I am also expecting some sort of damage when we take the wall-mounted TV down. Same price expectations as above. The office is happy to provide paint, so I can fix the smaller wall scuffs without too much trouble. (and cover my drywall fixes if I choose to do that). I asked the office lady about doing a walkthrough when we move out, and she said she'll only do it on the last day of our lease (a Wednesday, and I cannot take any more days off work). She also said that she cannot comment on whether the carpet needs replaced during the walkthrough, and that her "carpet guy" will make that determination. The carpet was brand new when we moved in, and our dog only ever went in one place (rarely) and we used an enzymatic cleaner. I plan to buy a blacklight this weekend to see if anything glows. What do you think the carpet guy looks at? I do not have dated/signed photos of when we moved in. They do (/supposed to) have my move-in damage report on file in the office. Now that I've written out my life story, What would you do in my situation?
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Feb 18, 2012 23:01
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drat Bananas posted:
I'd try to fix the mini blinds yourself, you can get some at Lowe's for like $3 each. As for the wall damage, unless you do a really good job the leasing company is gonna be more upset that they have to undo your repair and re-do it than just fixing it themselves. So the other two are up to your personal handyman abilities.
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Feb 19, 2012 00:34
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Aquatic Giraffe posted:I'd try to fix the mini blinds yourself, you can get some at Lowe's for like $3 each. $3? Is that for replacement slats, or the whole blinds unit? Because the dog destroyed about 4 feet of the 6' length, strings and all. And I highly doubt they will notice what I fix, when they have crappily patched holes from doorknobs everywhere. Both my boyfriend's parents and mine have experience patching sheetrock stuff so I'm not too worried about a bad job.
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Feb 19, 2012 01:18
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drat Bananas posted:$3? Is that for replacement slats, or the whole blinds unit? Because the dog destroyed about 4 feet of the 6' length, strings and all. That's for the whole unit. The blinds in my place were really shittily installed so I had to replace them and was astounded at the cheapness.
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Feb 19, 2012 18:12
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Aquatic Giraffe posted:As for the wall damage, unless you do a really good job the leasing company is gonna be more upset that they have to undo your repair and re-do it than just fixing it themselves. So the other two are up to your personal handyman abilities. I'm curious about this. I have a bunch of little nail holes, and a dent in one wall that's about 2" x 2", I was planning to Spackle them and call it good. There's also some scratched on a door frame from when my cat was still a kitten, I was planning to get one of those sets of grease pens for touching up wood scratches. I'm not in dire need of doing either at the moment as I've signed my lease until the end of July. Also, at the end of my lease, I'll have been here for 6 1/2 years, if that makes any kind of difference.
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Feb 19, 2012 21:06
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I wouldn't worry about anything that's not like... a structurally compromising dent in the wall. If the hole is small enough to spackle, you can spackle and call it good. If you cut a credit card sized chunk of your drywall out to run cable through or something then you might be up a creek. Otherwise the apartment company will just repaint your entire place and call it good to be shown/re-let. edit: I pulled some 3/4" drywall anchors out of my walls and spackled the holes in, no problem.
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Feb 19, 2012 22:32
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I am moving in with a friend of mine. Neither of us have (or ever have had) a credit card. We are 23 / 24 and have never needed one. I have a decent sum in my bank account, have never been in my overdraft and the only debt I have is my student loan (UK, so it will come out of my salary, eventually). She has less in the bank, but still some, has also never been into her overdraft and is in the same debt situation as I am. We both work full time and are paid monthly. Is there likely to be a problem with our credit check? I have no idea how that works, I've never needed one to rent before. We are both willing to have our parents as guarantors, if needed. We've already been turned down for two flats. One for not earning enough (though we earn enough to cover rent and (we considered) feed / clothes / etc ourselves) and another for not being a couple (??). I'm paranoid this one is going to fall through too. We already asked if they have a minimum salary requirement / if our being sharers is a problem and they said no.
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Feb 20, 2012 23:54
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Mortalworld posted:We've already been turned down for two flats. One for not earning enough (though we earn enough to cover rent and (we considered) feed / clothes / etc ourselves) and another for not being a couple (??). I'm paranoid this one is going to fall through too. We already asked if they have a minimum salary requirement / if our being sharers is a problem and they said no. Is it legal to be turned down for housing for 'not being a couple'? Even in the US where we are totally backwards with many housing laws I don't think that would fly. I mean, the landlord wouldn't tell you that's the reason anyway.
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Feb 21, 2012 04:04
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AbsoluteLlama posted:Is it legal to be turned down for housing for 'not being a couple'? Even in the US where we are totally backwards with many housing laws I don't think that would fly. I mean, the landlord wouldn't tell you that's the reason anyway. This is actually quite common in the US, at least in the Orlando area. It's not at all uncommon for it to be a HOA rule that any house in a subdivision cannot be rented to adults who are not either 1) related or 2) married. At least in the area I was in it seemed to be primarily a way to avoid people renting their houses out to college students. One tip for any grad students in the thread who may not already know this: it can help tremendously to either be very clear with any potential landlords that you are a grad student (if they know what that is) or just stick to saying that you work for the school (as a research assistant/teaching assistant/whatever your stipend is coming from).
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Feb 21, 2012 05:46
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I'm trying to rent a room/ find roommates via Craigslist/Kijiji/whatever. Is there anything I need to watch out for/remember that I wouldn't think of? Or just the usual get a rent receipt/make sure the agreement is on paper sort of thing?
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Feb 21, 2012 06:17
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Mortalworld posted:One for not earning enough (though we earn enough to cover rent and (we considered) feed / clothes / etc ourselves) . Most places like the rent to be under 30% of your income, atleast state side.
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Feb 21, 2012 06:53
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Blooshoo posted:Most places like the rent to be under 30% of your income, atleast state side. It was. The place we were turned down for is the same price (give or take) as all the other places we've looked at. Once we found out we needed to ask, everyone else has said we've had enough. This landlady wanted us to have an extra £7000 a year between us beyond what anyone else has asked for. As for the couple thing - she didn't specify 'married couple'. She just apparently doesn't want to rent to sharers. This is bizarre to me as it's a two bedroom flat where both bedrooms are decent sizes. A couple could pay much less for a one bedroom or a double / single combination. Also, she doesn't have a couple living there now. Who knows? Any answer as to whether out credit (or lack thereof, I guess) is likely to be an issue?
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Feb 21, 2012 07:31
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Carbon Thief posted:I'm trying to rent a room/ find roommates via Craigslist/Kijiji/whatever. Is there anything I need to watch out for/remember that I wouldn't think of? Or just the usual get a rent receipt/make sure the agreement is on paper sort of thing? I'm actually interested in hearing about this from the other side, too - I'm looking to use craigslist to move into a spare room when my lease ends in a few months.
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Feb 21, 2012 18:39
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I found a roommate on craigslist once. We got along very well and had a lot in common (vegetarian/vegan catlovers) and I liked living with her. The main thing I would suggest is that you meet them in person and talk with them for a while, and also make sure you see their living space (and they see yours, I guess). It helps you to know if your standards for tidiness are compatible. If red flags start to go up at any time in the process, call it off and look for someone else. Craigslist can totally work, but as with most things it's up to luck whether you find someone you can do well with or not. The usual online caveats apply: meet for the first time in a public place and/or with a friend... okay that's the main one, really.
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Feb 22, 2012 01:49
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It might be paranoid of me, but I'd get their full name and run it through your local court records and see if they have a criminal history. It's public information and freely accessible through your court's website. Or pay someone do to a background check on them with their SSN. This is only applicable to US goons, obviously.
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Feb 22, 2012 01:55
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psydude posted:I'm actually interested in hearing about this from the other side, too - I'm looking to use craigslist to move into a spare room when my lease ends in a few months. I think I worded that weirdly. I'm looking for the same thing you are but haven't had any luck yet.
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Feb 22, 2012 02:03
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Re: craigslist roommates: Definitely meet in person and try to see their place to see how they keep it. Another thing to ask is if they're night owls or morning people, it can get irritating if you need to go to sleep early and they're up and being loud late at night or vice versa. As for my situation: About how long does it take between turning in an application and getting a lease/rejected? I turned in an application today and I'm wondering how long it'll take before I hear back. I've never dealt with big commercial leasing companies before, and this is my first time being the tenant instead of the landlord so it's a little weird for me.
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Feb 22, 2012 05:40
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Aquatic Giraffe posted:About how long does it take between turning in an application and getting a lease/rejected? I turned in an application today and I'm wondering how long it'll take before I hear back. I can't recall it ever taking more than a week to get approved or denied an apartment. Alternatively, you can call and ask them what their usual turnaround is.
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Feb 22, 2012 05:49
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Update: We have an appointment with the landlady of the place I was asking about credit checks for. Apparently, she likes to meet all prospective tenants. Fingers crossed she doesn't find some new reason not to rent to us.
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Feb 22, 2012 15:22
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2508084 posted:Some places are super prompt, others aren't. I'd give them ~5 business days. I used to work for a company doing background checks and, even with a backlog, it didn't take that long to get a company their results. Credit checks should be even quicker. I called them and they said it'd be 1-2 weeks before I had a lease to sign, but everything checked out and they were just waiting on employment verification. Does it REALLY take 1-2 weeks to come up with a lease? It's a huge complex so surely they've already got one on file and it's not like I'm asking for anything special here. They're not very busy at the moment because it's the lull between the undergrad rush for housing for the next school year and when transfer students get their acceptances and scramble for housing.
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Feb 23, 2012 18:53
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Okay this is fairly specific, please let me know if there is a thread that would be more appropriate: We came home last week to find our apartment rather quickly flooding. The clean(!) water hose in the back of the toilet had broken off somehow and was spraying water everywhere. Because we have wood laminate flooring, it quickly got into basically every room, except somehow missing our living room electronics. The damage was extensive to the apartment, so the floors needed to be ripped out. We also had some property damage, but we do NOT have Renters Insurance. My landlady is filing a claim with her insurance for the damage to her property, can we submit a claim to her for our property? She has moved us to another unit in the building, for the time being, and has said she will pay for moving expenses incurred (like utility deposits, etc).
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Feb 23, 2012 22:31
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Zeitgueist posted:My landlady is filing a claim with her insurance for the damage to her property, can we submit a claim to her for our property? No. Well, you can, but unless you can prove negligence on her part, you won't get anything. That's what renter's insurance is for. Unless you had previously reported that the line was leaking and they didn't do anything about it or maybe they put some tape on it or something, you're out of luck. Always, ALWAYS, get renter's insurance. It shouldn't cost more than $150 a year or so. It will protect you in situations like this, as well if your idiot neighbor burns down the building and he doesn't have insurance. Even if he does have insurance, your insurance will pay you and then go after him, rather than you having to take on an insurance company by yourself.
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Feb 23, 2012 22:36
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Flash Gordon Ramsay posted:No. Well, you can, but unless you can prove negligence on her part, you won't get anything. That's what renter's insurance is for. Unless you had previously reported that the line was leaking and they didn't do anything about it or maybe they put some tape on it or something, you're out of luck. Yeah we're getting it, of course this is literally the only time either me or the fiancee have ever needed it in 10+ years of renting each, and we didn't have it. We fell into the trap of the young healthy person looking at medical insurance.
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Feb 23, 2012 22:39
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Don't feel bad, that's the typical response. Around here it's become standard to require proof of insurance at move in. It protects the tenant, and it also protects the landlord if the tenant fucks up. As someone who has been on the scene of some pretty bad apartment fires, I can tell you the difference between the folks who have insurance and the folks who don't is night and day. The ones who have it are worried about salvaging their pictures or other sentimental items. The ones that don't are trying to figure out how to start over in life. It won't help you this time, but hurry up and get it so you'll be prepared next time.
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Feb 23, 2012 23:06
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Take a look at your auto insurance company (if they offer insurance other than auto insurance anyway). You can sometimes get a combo deal with renters' insurance. I have State Farm and was paying 90 a month for auto insurance. Renters insurance was 9.50 a month, but having both gave me a 10% discount on my entire premium so I actually ended up paying a few cents less a month...
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Feb 24, 2012 03:22
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Well now I'm gonna get Renters insurance. How much coverage should I get. Progressive says they pay replacement cost, not value, which is cool. I can understand in a flood or something I can figure out what I've lost, but in a fire, how would I know? Do they just cut you a check for the policy amount, or do you have to "prove" it somehow, or what?
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Feb 24, 2012 17:13
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FISHMANPET posted:Well now I'm gonna get Renters insurance. I've heard its good to take a video of all your stuff (and get a good look at serial numbers while you're at it. would help a bunch in case you are ever burglarized) and keep a copy somewhere..obviously not in your house. Failing that a bunch of photos.
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Feb 24, 2012 20:03
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FISHMANPET posted:Do they just cut you a check for the policy amount, or do you have to "prove" it somehow, or what? My Allstate agent told me to write an email to myself with a list of all my biggish ticket items and their value. I don't know if timestamps in emails are reliable or what, but that's what I'm doing (once all these drat boxes make it to the new place  moving sucks)
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Feb 24, 2012 23:05
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Our apartment's inner front door's glass pane has been broken since December. Last time one of us asked the landlord via email to fix it, he replied "thank you." Can we threaten to withhold rent? (MA)
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Feb 26, 2012 05:30
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Large Hardon Collider posted:Our apartment's inner front door's glass pane has been broken since December. Last time one of us asked the landlord via email to fix it, he replied "thank you." Can we threaten to withhold rent? (MA) I'm too lazy to look up specifically for your state but most likely you cannot withhold rent. Instead of email send you landlord a letter via certified mail (this will look better if you need to go to court). In some states you can hire someone to make the repair and deduct it from the rent after X days of non-response from the landlord if it's under a certain cost. Honestly just look at the statutes yourself, they generally aren't very complicated. Most states have a tenant handbook written by a state agency as well that answers all these questions.
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Feb 26, 2012 18:43
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We put a deposit down! The landlady liked us on sight, didn't even ask any questions. We did have a terrifying five minutes where the agent said the rent was more per month than we expected. We'd taken the per week figure and multiplied by four. What you're actually supposed to do is multiply by 52 then divide by twelve. Both of us previously rented in Cardiff where (as far as I saw) you just get a 'per month' figure so it was a bit of a shock. We managed to come to an arrangement, though, where we made a lower offer (above what we expected for this specific place but not out of our budget) and were accepted. Now we just wait for credit checks / references / etc. Fingers crossed I'll be back with good news (and possibly 'what colour goes with green carpet?' type questions) soon.
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Feb 27, 2012 15:08
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All right I'd like some input on an issue I've been arguing on facebook about: Girlfriend and I are looking to move into a house instead of an apartment for a rental. What is the deal with having to maintain lawns/gardens at someone else's house? In the past when I've LOOKED at houses to rent (always ended up in an apartment) there's been yardwork included or a service that takes care of stuff, either through a HOA or just because the landlord has a crew come in and builds it into the rent. I loving cannot stand yardwork and seeing as how I've never had a house I don't actually own any tools like a rake, much less a lawnmower or trimmer. Is this something I should negotiate with the landlord in advance? How much swing would I have to be like "I'll pay an extra $50 a month towards you doing your own drat yardwork" or "Take $50 a month off the lease and I'll maintain your yard to a minimal standard"?
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Feb 27, 2012 20:15
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You're probably going to have an easier time convincing them to knock some money off of your rent for you to maintain it yourself, as it saves them the hassle of hiring a crew to do it and then still having to pay them in the event you don't stick around.
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Feb 27, 2012 22:20
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Stew Man Chew posted:All right I'd like some input on an issue I've been arguing on facebook about : Whether or not lawn maintenance is your responsibility will be in the lease. If it is a house I'd be pretty surprised if you weren't responsible for stuff like mowing and snow removal.
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Feb 28, 2012 06:26
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So the lease for my new place is finally ready, but between my application and the lease being drawn up rent magically went up by $120 a month. I emailed them back asking why this happened, because several times I got confirmation that rent would be $727 for the particular unit and now suddenly it's $844. Might have to go back to square 1 with apartment hunting, unless they have a super good excuse as to why they're doing this.
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Feb 28, 2012 15:42
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Thoguh posted:Whether or not lawn maintenance is your responsibility will be in the lease. If it is a house I'd be pretty surprised if you weren't responsible for stuff like mowing and snow removal. I'm in South Carolina so at least snow isn't that much of an issue. However, my standard of "lawn maintenance" is planting a meadow-in-a-bag and letting nature take back over so there might have to be some aesthetic negotiations involved. And I'm not spending hundreds of dollars on a machine to mow someone else's grass, that's for drat sure. Thanks y'all.
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Feb 28, 2012 16:01
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