Welcome to the world of Moving Drama! In brief: Moved in with friends-a couple with 3 kids-a year ago. I and one of them is on the lease. I did it because they needed the credit boost (they are horrible at managing what little finances they have) and also to lessen their rent (so they could work on paying me back money they owe me-haha). They can barely keep the house clean. They both have jobs (shift parenting). Kids are messy, and they have several pets (I have two cats, myself). House is looking like a wreck and I spend nearly all my time in the house secluded (with all my hoard of stuff in my room, protected from rugrats). I've given up helping them with their mess. I am moving out this weekend, as lease is up end of month. Roommates told the landlord they would be out and house clean and painted by this weekend (what a joke). They're MIA right now, I think they took the kids down to Florida where she's moving near her parents with her kids (because their credit was too bad for them to find an apartment). I think they went to drop them off to get the 6-year old registered for school in FL and so they can pack and move their things undistracted. Landlord (who I've barely spoken to for the term of the lease, except to write him a letter telling him he needed to fix the leaking pipes because they were causing safety hazards and water damage to the house.) called today complaining how bad the house looks, complaining that it's not painted like they said we would do, not ready for him to show to prospective tenants, etc. He rumbles (jocularly, if such a thing be possible) that he's so concerned that he's consulted a lawyer about suing for damages to the house. He says he knows it's likely them, not me, who've got the inside of the house looking like trash, but since I'm also on the lease, yadda yadda, he'd hate to see me get stuck with it. No security deposit for him to take, since it was applied to final month's rent. He's made rumblings like this before, according to the roommates, threatening to evict us after the plumber acted as his spy and reported that the house was a "total loss". However, this house wasn't in the best repair when we moved in. His follow up on the plumber-spy a few days later resulted in him saying the place looked fine to him (at that time). But I'm worried that he's trying to find some tenants to sue so he can catch up on his own neglect of the house. Maybe he's just trying to motivate his tenants to fix the place up, but I'm still worried. My roommates are not the best at getting the lead out and I'm worried I'll be stuck with a big clean-up job and might get sued. Commisseration and advice appreciated. -nervous ingenue
He is ultimately going to go after you to recover any damages or whatever he makes up. You have the credit and responsibility to line his pockets so to speak. How is he gonna wreck her credit anymore by going after her or even suing someone who doesn't have a pot to piss in? Nope my friend, he's gonna ultimately have you in court! Heres what you need to do.... Upon moving out take a video of the apartment and I mean include everything!! Make sure it is clean and list and write down any major damages which wouldn't be considered normal wear and tear. Get rid of any and all trash! I have seen Judge Judy have a hissy fit over pictures of how people have left their apartments. In my state the tenant is not required to do any painting. This is required only of the landlord before he can rent it out again, I think he is trying to make you do his work for him! I would not paint anything unless it was put in writing in the lease. Again make sure everything is clean and if there are holes in wall then I would fix them. Are any doors or windows broke? Fix them. Are the carpets stained? Get them cleaned. Keep accurate records and receipts of everything you do and the condition of the house upon you leaving. If possible have a final walk through with the landlord and have a friend present or videotape it. You must prepare now to consider that you may be left holding the bag for your deadbeat friends. If you can show the tape in court of how you left the property this can explain to the judge more then a thousand words could ever do. He will sue you and you will then have to sue your friends to recover your money. Good Luck! Tac
Since you're on the lease, you better make sure it is cleaned up and fixed up. Then when you get ready to go, make certain the landlord does a walk-through with you, and signs off on the things he mentioned he might sue for. Make a list, and have a place for him to initial each item on the list. Better to spring for some paint and cleaning supplies, than to have a jerk of a landlord ruin your hard-won progress with your credit.
I was going to do pictures on the house and try to get the landlord to sign-off on a document I will prepare stating that the house's condition is comprable to move-in, no damage liability, blah blah blah. At that time, I may suggest to his Lordship that I'll stop by every few days after move-out to check for unforwarded mail (and to make sure I catch any new tenants within 72 hours of their lease-signing to tell *them* my sob story). The floors are wood. I can tell there's been carpet over them previously because there are carpet nails in the floor at the edges of some of the rooms. He's cheap-maintained them by coating them with polyurethane which makes the wood look dark, but the wood now looks light in patches where normal foot traffic ha worn away the polyurethane. It looks awful but probably only needs another cheapie coat of polyurethane. The only siginificant hole in the wall is the one that he had to have patched after the plumbing fix. Before the plumbing fix, that part of the drywall hat rotted out due to the leaky pipes. A few of the doorjambs have come loose from the walls, but I think that's more a matter of his neglect and haphazard repair than roomies abuse. The interior doors were all crappy quality upon move-in, their outer laminates peel away from the core just from everyday opening and closing of doors. But the downstairs bathroom door is splintered around the doorknob because of an episode where 3-year-old child locked herself in the bathroom and couldn't get out. One window is broken because I locked the door and male roomie broke window to get in because he didn't have their set of keys with the house key. This is partly the landlord's fault, we were never able to get any copies of the keys to his crappy lockset to work in the locks, so we had only 2 keys among 3 adults. I offered my roomie that I'd pay for half of the window fix, but roomie has not done anything but duct-tape the crack. The crawlspace/basement couldn't possibly be worse than when we moved in, as at that time is was (and still is) storage of the junk belonging to landlord and/or preceeding tenants. There's mold damage on the bathroom walls and the paint is peeling there, but it looks to me like he's been cheap-fixing it for years. I remember scrubbing mold-stains off the bathroom walls when I moved in, but as move-out has neared, I've given up on this $hithole. The refrigerator that came with the place is on the back porch. The freezer was filled with rotting food when we moved in, and even after roommies cleaned it, it reeked. Plus it was pretty damn old. My roommates' put in a fridge of their own. The landlord knew about this within 2 days of our move-in, so he'd damn well better not have a problem with the fridge having been left outside for a year. We were assaulted by fleas our first day there and had to bug bomb twice before we moved our stuff in. The wiring in some of the fixtures is suspect. My dad's an electrician, so I know what professional wiring looks like, and some of the bulb fixtures in the basement look like a do-it-yourself stuff. Those fixtures and a few others on presumably the same circuit burn out new light bulbs within a few weeks. There were also some HVAC neglect issues - filter old and vent pipes that had completely separated and were spilling heated/cooled air into the crawlspace instead of the house. Landlord's also complained about the condition of the yard, but it looks *better* than when me moved in. When *I* cleaned the yard and trimmed the bushes, I found junk from the previous tenants, including broken glass, vials of suspicious-looking seeds, rotting shoes, also boards with nails in them that the landlord mainly stored in a pile at the back of the yard. Roommies have been paying neighborhood kid to mow the lawn, I don't think the previous tenants did *that* at all. The landlord offered us $25 off one month's rent to clean the gutters and roof right after we moved in. I cleaned it myself since my roommates are afraid of heights. The gutters were so clogged and had not been cleaned in so long that the dead leaves in them had become a rich humus soil and plants were growing in them as if they were flowerboxes! It took me at least 6 hours of work to finish the whole job. We had to nag the landlord for four months to fix a plumbing problem in the kitchen - only a trickle of hot water would come out of the kitchen taps, so we also couldn't use the dishwasher. One of the plumbers doing estimates said our water heater was under recall for interior finish peeling, but that NEVER got replaced. The original galvanized pipes were in this approx. 50-year-old house, and the corrosion was impeding water flow. After that was finally fixed (the plumbers also fixed the laundry taps, which were *both* connected to the hot water), the next problem was the *drainage* pipes in the kitchen, so running the dishwasher or draining the sink spilled water all under the sink cabinet and out under the wall, damaging the drywall and the floor. Phone nagging (for three months) by woman-roommate (the one adult not on the lease), got nowhere, I had to write landlord a letter stating that these things needed to be fixed and we wouldn't accept responsibility for damages due to his neglect. That was also the incident of the plumber-spy. So my worry is *beyond* my roommate's mess. That can be cleaned up, and with the window repair, paint, and polyurethane on the floor, the house will be about the same as when we moved in, except for the water damage due to his neglect of the plumbing, and with a cleaner yard than before. I don't think we are required to paint, either, but roomies told landlord they would, and I'll gladly help if it will placate him. I'm worried that this guy might know that he's been neglecting the house and can't keep renting it without some serious repairs that have little to do with anything we've done to the house. If he sues, I'm thinking of motioning for discovery of all repair receipts for work he's done on the house as far back as possible, to try to show that he's neglected it for years and is trying to sue a sucker to finance repairs that he should have been doing as regular maintenance. Another purpose of such discover would to aim at suggesting that he will pocket money without doing repairs (unless he brings repair *receipts* instead of *estimates*, which I doubt he will do.) *pant*pant* So subsides the rant. -ingenue
It sounds to me like whatever happens, you are winning just by getting the heck out of there, so I congratulate you on that. All the rest are just details, and it looks like you're on top of those.
On another note make sure the landord has the proper licensing to have tenants occupy the premises. This would most likely be state and or local laws or ordinances. Any state I know of the landlord must have occupancy permits or licenses to rent places. If he doesn't have this and believe me alot of private people who rent don't know this, then he has broken the law and as such you could press the issue with him if need be. Just a though! Tac
Oh, yeah, believe me, I shudder with waves of orgasmic delight when I contemplate my new apartment (moving in the morning-TODAY!) Ahhhh, the equisite pleasure of new carpet! I've been dying to get out of this house. It's a hellhole and I've only stuck it out because I didn't want to break a lease. -ingenue.
I would get the landlord to do a "walk-thru" of the house with you, and sign off on the house. My opinion, is that even if you have a video and it goes to court the judge will be more sympathethic towards the landlord. If there is a "walk-thru" then you have the option to fix a few things, instead of having to go to court. Charlie
I've been dying to get out of this house. It's a hellhole and I've only stuck it out because I didn't want to break a lease. -ingenue. [/B][/QUOTE] We had the same problem in Idaho. We lived on the third floor. Well, after it snowed, the windows started leaking. We told the apartment managers, and they always said, we will get around to fixing it. Well, once we knew that we were moving back to California, I called to see what our options were. (We were on a one year lease). I was told to write up a three day letter demanding that they fix the windows, or we could take them to court. Well, knowing they wouldn't fix the windows, I handed it to the apartment manager, and she just looked at it and put it on her desk. When the windows were not fixed three days later, we wrote our 30 day notice that we were moving. We didn't break the lease, they did, because of the weather proofing. The maintence guy pulled the drywall off from around the windows. In my 30 day, (I was 5mo. preg, with 2 kids), I basically stated what a hazard it was, and listed everything that they neglected to fix, so when we left, we didn't owe them anything. It's been over a year, and I haven't heard from them or seen anything on our credit report. But, I do have pictures, and the two documents I was talking about just incase they try anything funny. Andi
My sister and brother-in-law recently ran into similar trouble, although they (I'm ashamed to admit) had more active participation in it than they'd like to admit. When they moved, because they couldnt' afford the rent anymore, the landlord took them to court. The judge arrested them on the spot when the landlord showed photos of things like: a radiator leaning against an outside wall (already there when they moved in) a broken stove handle (they broke, didn't tell the landlord) peeling up tile in the bathroom (leaky toilet rotting the floor) unusable toilet filled with poo (landlord didn't fix) brown stuff unidentifiable on teh outside of the toilet (most likely due to unusable toilet being flushed by a mover) dog poo stains on the flooring (incontinent dog) broken door (already broken when they moved in) painting (cat that sprays and some was already needed when they moved in) the list goes on... Now, I was not there when it all came out in court, but my mother was. And, boy, was she in for a shock. The judge took statements from everybody, and then arrested my brother-in-law and sister (even though bro-in-law was only named on the paperwork) while their 16 year old daughter (my niece) and my mother watched in horror. The landlord stood up, said he wanted to drop the charges immediately (he did not want them arrested!). The total repairs including about 1200 in past due rents totaled approximately 10K. The case was brought to criminal court due to the amount of money landlord was seeking. Not because he thought they did it intentionally, he just wanted his money. The judge REFUSED to drop the case, said it was out of his hands. My mother offered a settlement to the landlord, which was accepted, and the judge let it go. ?! She paid 6000$ This happened in Gainesville, GA. Poultry capitol of the World. I would never assume a fair judgement in landlord/tenant issues, I would always take pictures, and never neglect to report something broken - in writing. A big part of the repair bill in this case was pre-existing and/or normal everyday use. They didn't report it to the landlord because their house was messy and he'd have to come in. Not good. -z
We had a camcorder...inspected everything!!! We ran both showers all the sinks, and flushed the toilets all at once... Turned on the heater in the SUMMER @ 80+ degrees.