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Really need some help with this. I can see how it's a lovely situation for both myself and my former landlord but I cannot afford to make rent payments on a condo I haven't lived in for 4 months and I believe it could have been rented out more quickly if he was not reliant on my payments. Used to live in CT, got a job offer in CA and had to take it. Moved out with 8 months left on my lease. Landlord said he would re-list it and find another tenant, and my work would cover owed rent for 2 months, no problem. Rent was $1300/mo. I move out October 20th, I had the condo professionally cleaned and left the unit in better shape than when I moved in. I pay rent for November, and while checking ads I notice he hasn't listed the condo for rent anywhere. I pay for December rent and notice he has finally listed the unit, at $75/mo more than I was paying and he extended the lease term to 18 months (unusual for the area). So he waited a month before re-listing the unit. I end up paying January rent because the unit is still vacant. The unit is STILL vacant today and he wants another rent payment and is threatening to report me to credit agencies. Does anyone have any ideas on what I can do here? I believe if he were asking a reasonable rent and lease term he could have rented the unit earlier. He also still has my deposit. I do feel bad about leaving the lease early, however I gave him a ton of notice and have been paying regularly. Very frustrated and stressed about this, I can't afford to get my credit dinged.
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Feb 24, 2015 20:30
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What does your lease say? It seems like renters usually responsible for finding someone to take over their lease.
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Feb 24, 2015 20:45
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There's no provision in the lease about it. CT tenant law states that it is the landlord's duty to put forth a reasonable effort to re-rent the unit in a case like this.
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Feb 24, 2015 20:49
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Jerome Louis posted:There's no provision in the lease about it. CT tenant law states that it is the landlord's duty to put forth a reasonable effort to re-rent the unit in a case like this. Does the lease say anything about what happens / what you have to pay if you leave early? In most every situation I've heard of, people who break the lease just don't get their deposit back. They don't have to keep paying for an apartment that is ready to rent. It really really sounds shady that it's been vacant for so long. Also, people sometimes leave their leases early. That's one of the things you need to deal with as a landlord. Don't feel bad for leaving, the blame for this lies quarterly with your landlord.
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Feb 24, 2015 21:06
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Did the landlord know your work was going to cover the two months of rent? If so, he might've let it sit for easy money.
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Feb 24, 2015 21:18
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Drunk Tomato posted:Does the lease say anything about what happens / what you have to pay if you leave early? In most every situation I've heard of, people who break the lease just don't get their deposit back. They don't have to keep paying for an apartment that is ready to rent. It really really sounds shady that it's been vacant for so long. It doesn't -- it just says I owe the full amount of the lease term. It's just some guy who used to live in the condo, not a professionally managed unit. I feel that way too however I worry about the damage he can do to my credit. quote:Did the landlord know your work was going to cover the two months of rent? If so, he might've let it sit for easy money. I didn't say that specifically, just that I got a good job offer in CA. I feel that is what he is doing though, just letting it sit.
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Feb 24, 2015 21:40
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Couple pages back I wrote a (somewhat) lengthy post about someone who was in a dispute with their landlord, who was generally in the right (and the landlord generally in the wrong), and described what they would need to go through to get their money back. If you have a moment, re-read that, as it applies to you. If you can prove what you've suggested here, that your landlord didn't re-list the apartment, then he probably didn't do his part to get it re-rented, and you will probably be released from the lease. In short, you'll tell him he didn't try hard enough (and he raised the rent and changed the terms) and so you've fulfilled your obligations under the lease and you're done and you want your deposit back. He will disagree, and he has your deposit, and he'll probably keep it. He may take you to small claims to get further rent from you. You may take him to small claims to get your deposit back (and January/February rent back if you feel you have a case). To do this, you will need to return to the east coast for potentially two court dates, and once (if) you get a judgement, you will then need to collect from your landlord. There is also the possibility that you'll lose and have to pay more rent. In some jurisdictions you are due back your security deposit when you vacate (not when your lease ends), and there are penalties for it not being returned on time, you may investigate the possibility of that where you live. You should know that it is virtually impossible to rent an apartment in November/December/January, and only slightly less than impossible to rent one as long as snow flies. This may factor in if this goes to court. Best of luck. Edit: In reality, he probably can't do anything to your credit. (Unless he gets a judgement against you in court.)
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Feb 24, 2015 22:26
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Thanks -- that is clear. I did some digging of my own to see what exactly "reasonable effort to re-rent is" and found these cases: https://casetext.com/case/thorne-v-broccoli https://casetext.com/case/sapere-v-intertown-realty-co-no-cvh-7128-apr quote:In Thorne, the court considered a number of factors in evaluating "reasonable efforts," including whether the landlord spent any money advertising the rental, placed ads in the newspaper, put up a sign, contacted real estate firms, showed the apartment to prospective tenants, and offered the apartment at a reduced rate. I can't prove that he didn't list it the whole month of November but I can prove he raised the price $75/mo and increased the lease term -- which would mean he did not put forth reasonable effort and I am released from the lease as of when I vacated the property. He was also supposed to give me my deposit back within 30 days or he owes double. I don't want to get courts involved -- if he continues to press me I'm just going to send him those case texts and tell him to leave me alone.
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Feb 24, 2015 23:34
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I'm not saying you're wrong, but you seem quick to accept that you are in the right, when your situation is not the same as at least the first case you linked (I didn't get to the details of the second, it was way too long). I would not be so sure.
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Feb 25, 2015 01:14
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You're right they're different situations but the key text in the first one is: "Subsection (b) of § 47a-11a of the General Statutes states that if the landlord fails to use reasonable efforts to rent the dwelling unit at a fair rental, the rental agreement is deemed to be terminated by the landlord as of the date the landlord has notice of the abandonment. In this case that date is conceded to be December 2, 1982. The court finds that the plaintiff did not make a reasonable effort to rent the apartment. Not only did he fail to spend any money advertising the rental, but neither did any one of the real estate agents place one ad in the newspapers. Furthermore, a fair rental under the circumstances would have been the same rent the defendant was paying or less. Here the plaintiff offered the apartment for over $75 more than the defendant was scheduled to pay during the period from December, *293 1982, to March, 1983, a period which he conceded was a difficult time of year to find a new tenant under any circumstances in Stonington." And "The court therefore finds that the defendant was justified in abandoning the premises and that the plaintiff failed to use reasonable efforts to relet the apartment. A decision under either claim would be sufficient to require a judgment in favor of the defendant." The 2nd case references the first case as a definition of reasonable effort, where the landlord listed the unit at a higher price than the tenant was paying, thus the tenant not liable to pay rent for when they weren't living in the unit I do understand that the situations are different but based on these cases I could make a very solid argument for my situation. I don't mean to sound so absolute in my reasoning. Jerome Louis fucked around with this message at 01:38 on Feb 25, 2015 |
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Feb 25, 2015 01:35
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The first case is predicated on the argument that the apartment was basically uninhabitable, so she was forced to move out. The plaintiff's counterargument was that she was moving out just 'cause. But that's what you're doing, right? The apartment was fine and you just wanted to go elsewhere? In which case it seems like your lease, which says you're responsible for the whole thing, should apply.
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Feb 25, 2015 01:42
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i like nice words
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The tenant had two defenses, either of which, alone, they could have used to win their case - 1. The apartment was uninhabitable (not applicable to my case) 2. The landlord didn't use reasonable effort to re-rent the apartment
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Feb 25, 2015 01:52
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My fiance and I lease an apartment and our lease is up in August. We've decided to move to a different neighborhood, but most (like 99%) of the apartment listings that we find in our city are available immediately. Ideally we'd like to have something lined up ASAP so we're not frantically hunting for an apartment a few weeks before we move, but it's difficult to navigate when everything is looking to be filled immediately. Is it reasonable to contact the landlords posting these and ask if it would be possible to sign a lease that starts in august assuming we like the place, or is that way out of line? I know it would mean the apartment would either be vacant or rented on the short-term during that period, but all of the places I've rented are from huge management companies that are very well laid-out so I'm not sure how best to approach this.
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Feb 25, 2015 14:38
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There's nothing unreasonable about asking, just know that they probably won't be interested. Most places get rented out a few weeks ahead of time.
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Feb 25, 2015 15:46
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Why would any landlord agree to hold a unit for you for 4 to 5 months and eat an enormous loss on the year? I mean you can ask them, but I would be amazed if anyone agreed. You can probably get people to flex on a date by around a month, but that's probably it.
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Feb 25, 2015 15:46
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Landlords are unlikely to know their availability that far in advance. They may have a priority waiting list you can get on by putting down a deposit and thus getting first selection at whatever comes up in that time frame though.
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Feb 25, 2015 16:50
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Has anybody had any experience dealing with a lovely owner of a building? My wife and I are looking for apartments in San Jose, CA, and found a nice apartment in a historical neighborhood close to downtown. The building was pretty old (built in 1932), but the apartment was ok, the property manager was super nice and it's affordable. However, when we were leaving a tenant grabbed us and said the owner was evicting a bunch of people illegally from the building, had raised somebody's rent $480/mo, and some tenants were taking him to arbitration. I have a feeling it's because the woman said she had lived there for 6+ years, and it's the Bay Area, so I would assume the dude wanted to kick people out who were paying way below the market rental value here since it's so crazy to rent. Looking around on Yelp I see another person claiming the owner was telling her the final rent check bounced when it clearly had not and that maintenance was bad, but the review was 5 years old. I feel like it's hard to get a clear read on the situation, since I feel anybody would be biased if they are getting evicted, but if he is actually doing an illegal eviction that's concerning. I also feel like we would probably be shielded from his potential rent price bullshit since we would be paying a fair market price for the place and it's a year lease. Is having affordable rent and an good property manager onsite worth the potential issues with the owner? From what I can tell there is very little interaction between the owner and tenants and everything is dealt with the property manager who lives in the building. lmao zebong fucked around with this message at 22:29 on Feb 26, 2015 |
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Feb 26, 2015 22:20
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If someone who lives at a property is literally grabbing me and telling me not to live there I think I would take their advice e: I lived in a property with a great property manager and a lovely owner and had to deal with all sorts of fun poo poo like things never getting fixed properly because the owner wouldn't pay to fix them, and constant foreclosure notices being sent to me deadwing fucked around with this message at 22:58 on Feb 26, 2015 |
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Feb 26, 2015 22:53
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Yeah you make a good point. It's just hard because I see a lot of tangible positives for the place, but the potential negative is pretty huge. The woman who did talk to us said literally everything else was great, the maintenance guy was awesome, the property manager was as well, and they loved the apartment, but yeah I can see getting evicted making somebody pretty upset and I think if I were in that position I would tell people to stay away as well. This place is like $200/mo cheaper than our other option as well which is making it even more difficult of a decision.
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Feb 26, 2015 23:18
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I would say that you are not dealing with a lovely owner, but an owner of unknown quality who is getting rid of lovely tenants. I don't know if that's any better, but the stuff they are accusing sounds fishy to me. Yelp is a terrible place to get a good read on rental property, basically nobody shares good stories (for rental property), it's just a list of people with a grudge. Perhaps this is optimistic of me, but I'd tell the manager what happened (without identifying a particular tenant) and ask about the stories. I suspect the manager will have a different take. Regardless, you should be able to tell whether the manager is full of poo poo or not.
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Feb 26, 2015 23:19
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You can also ask the manager for a reference from a previous tenant; if the place is multiple units and they can't provide a single tenant reference, I would call that a red flag. Alternatively, you can ask some questions about vacancies - why people moved out, etc. You might not get a straight answer, but how they answer and the response you do get can still be informative.
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Feb 27, 2015 01:44
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lmao zebong posted:Has anybody had any experience dealing with a lovely owner of a building? My wife and I are looking for apartments in San Jose, CA, and found a nice apartment in a historical neighborhood close to downtown. The building was pretty old (built in 1932), but the apartment was ok, the property manager was super nice and it's affordable. However, when we were leaving a tenant grabbed us and said the owner was evicting a bunch of people illegally from the building, had raised somebody's rent $480/mo, and some tenants were taking him to arbitration. I have a feeling it's because the woman said she had lived there for 6+ years, and it's the Bay Area, so I would assume the dude wanted to kick people out who were paying way below the market rental value here since it's so crazy to rent. Looking around on Yelp I see another person claiming the owner was telling her the final rent check bounced when it clearly had not and that maintenance was bad, but the review was 5 years old.
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Feb 27, 2015 01:46
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If it's so horrible why is she still living there? Assuming she's not one of those getting evicted. Story kind of reeks of crazy to me. Isn't it almost impossible to get a tenant evicted in California? At the very least it's probably expensive and not done on a whim. Maybe see if you can talk to another neighbor?
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Feb 27, 2015 01:57
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photomikey posted:Yelp is a terrible place to get a good read on rental property, basically nobody shares good stories (for rental property), it's just a list of people with a grudge. My favorite Yelp thing was I looked up a moving service and they had a long review, the thrust of which was that the author of the review mistakenly handed the movers her next month's rent as a tip (she'd put the planned tip and the rent in two piles of cash next to each other) and found them to not be very receptive when she called back a day or two later asking for the money back.
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Feb 28, 2015 08:23
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Not entirely sure if this is the right thread - I am moving from Philly area to the Southern California area in 6 months. I am aiming for the first week of September. Right now, I'm trying to figure out costs involved. I live with my wife in a 2 bedroom condo. Most of our furniture is Ikea, so that's not coming with us. I could go either way on the sofas, but the whole set was $900 like 4 years ago. If it costs more to move it, then its gone. Could go either way on the mattress too, but leaning towards taking it with us. So we basically have clothes, kitchen stuff, and some random items. Moving should be what? $2000-$3000? Then we are planning on selling the wife's car and driving mine across. This might be another thread, but figuring $1500 rounding up for this bit. Then I have to figure out how to sell my place, or manage renting it out from 3000 miles away. This is the hard part I think. I don't know where to begin with this. I do have family and friends there to mooch off of if things don't go perfectly on that end, so I'm not worried about that. It's dealing with the things I have here. Am I way off here?
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Mar 3, 2015 16:55
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FogHelmut posted:Not entirely sure if this is the right thread - When my wife and I moved across Canada 3 years ago, we got quotes on a few moving companies and ended up paying $0.89/lb for about 3000lbs of stuff plus fuel surcharges, taxes and so on. we ended up paying about $4,000 in moving expenses. In retrospect, I would have liked to get rid of a lot more furniture and books and other heavy stuff. We kept about half of our clothes and our electronics, jewelery and valuables with us in the car since the truck would be arriving in Vancouver about a week after we did and sometimes things happen and sometimes stuff gets "lost". Inventory your stuff before you hand it over to the movers and keep anything that you can't replace with you if possible. We drove about 5 days and budgeted $175/day for gas and food and $75/night for motels. We would buy sandwiches, fruit and bottled water from grocery stores in the morning and that mostly kept us from surviving on gas station food for a week. Decide how long you want to spend per day driving (we managed about 10 hrs/day with breaks every 2 or so hours) and find motels along your route and book them ahead of time to save a few bucks and keep yourself from having to drive around buttfuck nowhere at 9pm after being in the car all day looking for a place to sleep. We were renting when we moved so I can't really help you with the condo, but if you liked the agent that sold you your condo, get in touch with them and let them know that you're selling. You should be able to let them know that you don't want to hand over the keys until a specific date. Alternately, there are property management services that can rent your condo for you but I don't have any experience with those either and I can't see that being worth the expense if you're still paying the mortgage unless the rent you can get is significantly more. Your real estate agent would have a better handle on the rental market and recommendations for property management. Edit - There's a rental property thread in BFC that might help more with renting your condo and I'd be happy to try to answer any other questions you have. Rockzilla fucked around with this message at 19:33 on Mar 3, 2015 |
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Mar 3, 2015 19:04
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FogHelmut posted:Not entirely sure if this is the right thread - Check out U-Pack, my boyfriend and I used them to move our stuff from Michigan to Florida, and it only cost $1100 (this is including gas, tolls, taxes, etc.). Let me see if I can find my post about it. E: Skutter posted:I just wanted to say that my experience with U-Pack was great! When I called to schedule the truck in the first place, I waited on hold for half an hour, and they knocked off $100 as an apology for that. The trailer was dropped off Friday, we packed it up Sunday evening, they picked it up first thing Monday morning, and it beat us down to Florida by a day! They scheduled our drop-off for between 4-5:30PM and they showed up at 4:00 on the dot. We had it unpacked in an hour (which they didn't believe) and they picked it up about an hour after that. I have nothing but nice things to say about the process, and I'm really glad we used them. There was some minor damage to our furniture, but that was our fault (USE LOTS OF MOVING BLANKETS PEOPLE!). I would recommend this place to anyone looking to move long distances. They drop off an almost full-sized semi trailer and charge you by the linear foot, meaning you can stack as high as you want. Make sure to put sturdy, heavy stuff on the bottom. We had a bit of damage on our box spring because we stacked stuff incorrectly. Then you secure it with large pieces of plywood and those racheting strap things and you're good to go. We packed up our cars with our breakables and valuables, as well as our blow-up mattress, some bedding, some clothes and toiletries in case we beat the truck down there. Skutter fucked around with this message at 19:36 on Mar 3, 2015 |
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Mar 3, 2015 19:31
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I also used U-Pack for two moves. My first move I moved from VA to TX and it only cost me about $1000 IIRC since I was only moving clothes and stuff and minimal furniture. The next move from TX to NE we had a whole household of items and it was more but still reasonable. I highly recommend them. My only complaint was that the movers they contracted to unload when we arrived where we live now loving SUCKED. They didn't even offer to help assemble furniture and spent half the time they were here taking smoke breaks (when you're being paid hourly for a job that should only take an hour or two that is Not Okay). As for getting yourselves there, pack up irreplaceable and really important things into your car to take with you but don't overdo it so your car is packed to the gills. When we moved we had our firearms, important legal documents (birth certificates, passports, etc), and pets in the cars along with a small suitcase each with clothes and toiletries to last us a few days till the rest of our stuff caught up. Most commercial moving companies have lists of things they will not or cannot transport, so check that while packing. Most can't/won't transport firearms, explosives, chemicals, etc. and they'll generally have a list of prohibited items on their website. Some of them are obvious, some not so much. For your trip, plan it out in advance. Say you're going to drive from City X to City Y the first day, then City Y to City Z the second and so forth and book your hotels in advance. The way we did it was one of us drove in the morning, then we'd stop for lunch, then the other would drive in the evening so we never got super burnt out from staring at the road for hours on end. I don't know how fancy you want to get with your hotels but we stopped at Homewood Suites each time because they have dinner included for guests so we didn't even have to go out foraging for food after a long day on the road. Make your first stop at your destination a Walmart so you can pick up basic house stuff like paper towels and toilet paper to hold you over till your moving truck gets there. When we moved here we had to wait about 4 days for the truck to catch up living on a blow up mattress in our living room and subsisting off of takeout food since we had no kitchen stuff.
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Mar 4, 2015 01:40
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I just signed a lease for an apartment in California yesterday for a move in April 8. I'm breaking my current lease in New Jersey to do this, which ends May 1st. I plan on telling my landlord tomorrow. I got my lease renewal form while I was away and it asks that if I choose not to renew my lease to give a specific date that I will be vacating the apartment. The lease renewal makes it very clear that I cannot extend this date once I give it. What should I do here? I was thinking of saying the apartment will be vacated on the 6th so by that time the movers will have taken everything and we would still have time to fly out and meet them at the new apartment.
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Mar 6, 2015 04:11
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Cheesegod posted:I just signed a lease for an apartment in California yesterday for a move in April 8. I'm breaking my current lease in New Jersey to do this, which ends May 1st. I plan on telling my landlord tomorrow. I got my lease renewal form while I was away and it asks that if I choose not to renew my lease to give a specific date that I will be vacating the apartment. The lease renewal makes it very clear that I cannot extend this date once I give it. Always set things to end after you're going to be out. Lease, electricity, water, etc all shut off a couple days after you plan to leave just in case poo poo happens and your move gets delayed. A few moves ago I had to postpone my move a week because it snowed the day of my move and they couldn't get the truck to my house.
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Mar 6, 2015 04:24
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Aquatic Giraffe posted:Always set things to end after you're going to be out. Lease, electricity, water, etc all shut off a couple days after you plan to leave just in case poo poo happens and your move gets delayed. What about the post moveout walkthrough? Or can I still do that with my things in the apartment? I've honestly never done one before. My apartment before this the landlord didn't want to inspect it after I moved out and just gave me my entire deposit back (which I thought was weird but I wasn't complaining).
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Mar 6, 2015 04:27
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I've never had one of those done, I just get my deposit eaten in mysterious costs and fees that magically add up to the amount of my deposit.
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Mar 6, 2015 04:34
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Cheesegod posted:What about the post moveout walkthrough? Or can I still do that with my things in the apartment? I've honestly never done one before. My apartment before this the landlord didn't want to inspect it after I moved out and just gave me my entire deposit back (which I thought was weird but I wasn't complaining).
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Mar 6, 2015 08:38
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Cheesegod posted:What about the post moveout walkthrough? Or can I still do that with my things in the apartment? I've honestly never done one before. My apartment before this the landlord didn't want to inspect it after I moved out and just gave me my entire deposit back (which I thought was weird but I wasn't complaining). Honestly it's not that valuable. They can still decide after the walkthrough that you broke something they didn't notice.
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Mar 6, 2015 13:41
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Aquatic Giraffe posted:I've never had one of those done, I just get my deposit eaten in mysterious costs and fees that magically add up to the amount of my deposit. That's not a good attitude to have. I've known people IRL, and seen various posts on multiple internet forums from people who just assume that all landlords are scumbags, and basically see their security deposit as a non-refundable charge. Fight for that poo poo, man! Maybe it's because I live in a very rental-friendly state, but I do NOT let that poo poo slide. Take pictures before, and send an itemized list of everything currently wrong with a place when yo move in. And then ditto for when you move out, and if possible, do a walk-through with the landlord (or if it's a large faceless company, whoever they send out to do that.) Then when you get the itemized list, go over it really well. I had to take a landlord to court once because she was very late getting the list of charges back to me (almost two months, and my state's statues says it has to be within two weeks,) and out of the $2000 deposit, there was a measly $100 left. BS charges all over the place, including one for a broken front door from w massive windstorm (wind pushed the door back up against the house.) We called her and showed that to her the day after it happened, so she knew it was the wind, and at the time, didn't say anything about charging us for it. We settled out of court, even though my roommates felt if we got an actual judgement we'd get more money, but I didn't want to wait that long (it can take MONTHS, even more than a year, to get a date for small claims court.)
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Mar 6, 2015 15:46
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So I work for the enemy. I've been in apartment maintenance for going on five years, with both time as a technician as well as a manager. Figured a megathread was chill enough to just put it out there that if you guys have any questions for somebody in my line of work, I'll check in and answer what I can. My knowledge doesn't just cover things like how to fix appliances or repair drywall. My company drills Fair Housing knowledge and various other things into us, not to mention we're just pretty familiar with how things tend to go. But yeah, if I'm in the wrong place, sorry. If not I'm willing to answer any questions. e: Also it probably bears mentioning that I (naturally) work with the front office staff a lot who know a lot of the legal poo poo in more detail than I do in some cases. I'm not above idly asking them about different stuff, as I've always had a habit of doing that out of professional curiosity anyway. Honky Dong Country fucked around with this message at 02:20 on Mar 7, 2015 |
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Mar 7, 2015 02:17
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I'm a landlord type also, and curious to know if you feel Aquatic Giraffe's comment above is generally true or generally not true. For the record, I think he couldn't be farther off-base, as a landlord going to court as the defendant is lose-lose, I tend to be overly liberal on move out inspections because of this. Curious to know how others handle it. Also curious to know your moveout walkthrough strategy. I go in and immediately check the oven. If the oven sparkles, 99 times out of 100 the whole apartment will be clean and I give it a cursory check after that. If then oven isn't clean, I know nothing will be clean and I look a little closer. Tip I give to my friends who move out of apartments and hope to get their deposit back, empty a $3 can of EZ-Off oven cleaner into the oven and wait 24 hours. Not 1 hour, not 2 hours. 24 hours later, wipe the crud out of the oven. No matter how clean you thought it was before, it'll sparkle when you're done.
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Mar 7, 2015 02:30
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DrBouvenstein posted:That's not a good attitude to have. The first time I'm pretty sure they went in and inspected before my lease ended (I moved out a week before my lease was set to end and came back a couple days later to clean once all my stuff was out and there was evidence someone had been in there before I had a chance to sweep up the dog hair dust bunnies and dirt that got tracked in during the move). I spent most of a day scrubbing that place floor to ceiling and they still took my whole $750 for "excessive dirt". Complete bullshit. It was a pretty shady place and I'm pretty sure they just kept all the deposits. The second time I didn't even get an itemized list or anything. I could've fought that one but I moved 12 hours away and again it wasn't worth it especially since that time there was some damage that was my fault (dogs ripped a hole in my carpet for dog reasons, they've never done it before and haven't done it since). When I moved in they forgot that I was moving in and thus I had no doorknobs and the place was filthy and I had to call my landlord at 10 PM the night before the truck showed up going WTF, so I should've known what I was getting into. I even hired a cleaning company to come in and do a deep clean once I left just in case maybe my cleaning wasn't up to inspection standards and I got nothing back. THIS time, however, I went through the house inch by inch and photographed everything, printed out the pictures with captions of what the damage was and the location, and made the leasing office put it in our file. We're in military base housing now so there wasn't a deposit but they can still charge us for poo poo when we move out. I've also been on the landlord end, we typically give our tenants their deposits back unless they do something particularly egregious that requires more effort than a standard cleaning or a quick trip to Home Depot and a few minutes of effort to fix like ruining the paint or breaking an appliance.
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Mar 7, 2015 02:44
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photomikey posted:I'm a landlord type also, and curious to know if you feel Aquatic Giraffe's comment above is generally true or generally not true. I'm not sure what part of what Aquatic Giraffe has said you mean? If it's the bit about magical charges with a hateful tendency of eating the entire deposit, that doesn't happen where I work. I work in Virginia for a company that spans multiple states and nations with apartment complexes and various commercial property investments. As a result, things vary from property to property when it comes to how each manager does things. But at the property I work everybody is a pretty decent professional human being. If we come in for the move-out inspection and it's obvious that you cleaned the place before you left and didn't break poo poo, we don't charge you. That said, if stuff is broken, you're not just paying for the cost of the labor and parts, there's a mark-up on that poo poo. It's a punitive thing and in the case of my property/company said charges are clearly outlined from the start in a Damaged Unit Lease Addendum. But for a bit of history, I worked three years in maintenance before getting promoted and taking over another property for roughly half a year. My company sold that property and the new company sucked, so I stayed with my current company and returned to my original property. I am currently the assistant maintenance supervisor and consequently do a lot of move-out inspections in my boss's stead. When he's there I have limited decision making power at my discretion and when he's not there I'm in charge. If he's busy with something more important I take up what would normally require him to be in two places at once. So having said that, when I walk in for a move-out inspection I'm looking for two things: cleanliness and unit condition. I walk into a unit and start looking it over for signs of having been adequately cleaned. I want to see at least some of the marks a good vacuuming leaves. We don't recommend steam cleaning where I'm at because even if we don't charge the resident at all for carpet cleaning, a steam cleaning is done on every unit while vacant so as long as your carpet isn't a disaster area steam cleaning it here is a waste of your money. But I want to see that it's been vacuumed, kitchen counter tops and vinyl cleaned, bathrooms cleaned (tub, sink, toilet, floor). I don't expect people to be white glove perfect but I want to see that they gave enough of a poo poo to not leave their filth. If the resident has not cleaned at all they get charged $10 per line in the kitchen and bathroom boxes of our move-in/move-out inspection sheet resulting in ~$200. This is both punitive as well as to compensate for the increased charges from our cleaners. But the big one where cleanliness is concernerd is the actual loving trash.  Do not leave stuff behind. Any of it. I'm even lenient with this. If it's a couple coax cables or some stupid cleaning supplies that we'll just take back to the maintenance shop and use anyway, I don't care. But if you leave your actual crap behind we will invariably punish you. Furniture, depending on size/weight and quantity can cost you a lot. For crap we just have to throw in a bag and haul out it's $25 per bag. I have seen bastards that left so much crap it took our four-man crew 2-3 hours to clean out and cost the resident $1200. Do not be that guy. Haul your own crap out. We've all been there and it's just easier/cheaper to stuff it in the nearest dumpster with the help of your friends. But the thing you said about the stove, I get that. Everybody has their little indicators of a possible hellhole. I don't look at any one thing, but I do scrutinize filthy units closer. If I see actually crappy unit conditions like broken interior doors or holes in drywall, I take a very thorough look at the place. The phrase we use is "walking the walls". You walk through the front door and follow the wall at your right shoulder inspecting as you go until you have gone through the whole unit and found yourself at the front door again. I've seen places where the resident clearly had a temper and had gone HULK SMASH on no less than eight separate walls. Hilariously many claim it was from a fall but the holes all have a remarkable fist-shape. But basically, don't tear up your apartment while you're living there and make an effort to clean the place out and up properly. There are properties out there that are shady as all hell and will always try to find a way to suck your Edit: And I'm not too much of a loving puritan to come clean. It does in fact help if you weren't a massive loving rear end in a top hat for the entirety of your lease. Like I said, there's some real turds in my industry, but if you have a good maintenance staff they don't want to screw you any more than you want to be screwed. But when it comes to maintenance staff at various properties, word of mouth is the best way to go. I didn't move in at the property I work at until I'd worked here over a year. Online reviews tend to be skewed by the disproportionate amount of angry users vs happy ones so I only trust my own experiences as well as those of people I trust. I work in this business and even I recommend planning ahead and asking around about good places to live instead of just hitting up every question mark of a property in your target area. Honky Dong Country fucked around with this message at 05:02 on Mar 7, 2015 |
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Mar 7, 2015 04:27
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photomikey posted:I'm a landlord type also, and curious to know if you feel Aquatic Giraffe's comment above is generally true or generally not true. Avernus posted:That said, if stuff is broken, you're not just paying for the cost of the labor and parts, there's a mark-up on that poo poo. It's a punitive thing and in the case of my property/company said charges are clearly outlined from the start in a Damaged Unit Lease Addendum.
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Mar 7, 2015 16:17
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