Landlords are Cunts.

[arafel]

At least in this area - there are Renters Rights.
Advise your Landlord that you will get the vent fixed. Fix the vent.. and deduct costs from your rent.
Submit the bill (that you paid) with your rent, On Time. 2 wrongs still do not make a right.
Problemo solved.

I've been on both sides... There is not a shortage of low-lifes anywhere.
But being proactive makes problems go away.

This whole conversation affirms why I must meet someone, and spend a little time with them, before doing any business with them. I Smell something stinky? .. "thank you for meeting me, but goodbye".

I'd rather own than rent or lease.

Leeds - wow. I think i might need to dispose of someone if they wrecked my hardwood.

[leedsquietman]

[Machinesworking]

Agreed on the landlords being cunts part, and I just became one more or less.
My last rental wasn't so bad, but the main reason I got the house was because she was a stewardess and never in town, and she knew I worked construction.
Basically she would pay me for parts on things I would fix around the place. Still owe her for a huge heating oil refill bill, but I'm not sweating it, I remodeled her basement for her. Had another landlord move a carpenter into our basement to make a duplex out of it, I'm sure completely illegal, he was livid pissed when we deducted the carpenters share of the rent from our monthly bill!

Here's the thing, as a landlord I'm making money off of my renters, even if I just break even I'm sitting on property that I'm paying minimally for.
In my case I'm renting a room to friends, and they cover more than half the mortgage. The place is almost a duplex to begin with. You can paint it out to be all kinds of things, but in the end I'm making out. Sure occasionally someone will ruin a rug, or other crap, but I'm getting all the credit rating, all the equity, all of it. People are retarded in the sense that they want it all, they want to make money off of other people and always get the nicest most easy to deal with people, doesn't work like that. annnd! If you're broke and renting, you have little choice but to deal with assholes who immediately treat you like a money drain, and do as little as possible to make the place habitable.

Just to get all conservative for a moment though, sadly enough most of my friends are too scared to buy in Seattle right now, and it's dirt cheap. I literally have $50 to my name, but I did it, and no regrets! My rental was $100 a month more than my mortgage, and with roommates it's about $400 cheaper. This includes utilities.

[ethios4]

add all those up and you're looking at LEAST $5k-6k a month in payments, and that's for a shit 1-2 bedroom place in a crap neighborhood. Typical rent is between 750-1200 a month, which means that to own your own place you'd have to be making about 5 times your current salary to maintain the same standard of living. If you can afford it already, then why rent? Or a better question is, if you can afford to own then why COMPLAIN about renting? Just go, its a buyers market!

Yea, depends on where you're from. My mortgage payment is the same as I was paying for rent on a place 500 sq ft less. Over 6 years the amount of money I have saved on rent will cover the entire cost of interest for the loan. Also getting back about $500 each year from tax deductions on interest payments, which goes into the maintenance fund plus another $100 each month, so no heavy maintenance surprises we can't handle. It would make no sense for me to keep renting.

[ethios4]

I had to sue a landlord once to get back my deposit. He tried to say I had left the house in bad shape. After I had cleaned everything when moving out I took photos of everything and had that day's newspaper in every photo. When we were in court I busted out the photos and the newspaper which proved I could not have possibly taken the photos any earlier. Booom!! I won.

[dum]

At least in this area - there are Renters Rights.
Advise your Landlord that you will get the vent fixed. Fix the vent.. and deduct costs from your rent.
Submit the bill (that you paid) with your rent, On Time. 2 wrongs still do not make a right.
Problemo solved.

give me some credit man. I'm in my late 20's, I've rented on & off for 10 yrs, and I'm not clinically retarded yet.

I would have done that, had I not been advised against it by the experts. The rule here is full Rent has to be paid, always - and disputes happen on the side of that. So, I could have done that, but there's no guarantee the asshole would have reimbursed me. Considering he is a developer (construction), he has his own staff (they were here today with equipment, in fact) , and no doubt my bill for the vent could be triple what it would cost him or more.




Anyway fellas, it came to a head today. I was in bed with a torn ligament, and the guy literally walks in on me while I'm sitting there reading. I was in awe... he said he wanted to fix the vents, and I said come back later. I was pissed off, so I ring him and make sure he'll be around to have a chat with. So he returns 15 mins later, lets himself IN again and starts hounding me about what I want to talk about. LOL.

So I gave him a dressing down, told him I've had to pester him for 6 months about the vent, mentioned his inappropriate methods of contact, and how he's now so eager to fix the vent he's just barging in unannounced. I asked him why I was paying so much to be treated like a bellend...and he was like, not liking my analysis of his behaviour - and said he wasn't going to fix the vents and he was going to send me my written notice, and off he went.

HOHO! ... I guess his emotions got the better of him, because he still hasn't got this month's rent. And now he won't be getting it. Secondly, he's not aware that I've got an encyclopedic knowledge of the squatting laws here and experience to boot. I was also considering getting a second tenant in because the rent was starting to drain me, and I'm probably travelling around for the summer. And because of the way education benefits work here, I can't leave a property without a real good reason - so he's given me that too.

So, alls well that ends well...I love any opportunity to fuck with these kinds of cunts.

brb, changing locks

[beats me]

Actually being a rental property owner myself, I'm pretty sure tenants take the overall scum awards. You guys only have one landlord to deal with and that person actually owns the place. I got multiple tenants who THINK they own the place but never have to actually take care of it or pay for it. Oh boo hoo you get charged for turning in your rent late! Well the bank and utilities dont wait for my ass to send them their money past the due date, they just hit me with huge fees and ding my credit.

I'll agree with you that a lot of tenants can treat their rented dwelling like shit, which never made sense to me because they have to live there, not the landlord. I apply that to entire shitty neighborhoods. Sure there are scumbag landlords but that alone doesn't account for the mentality or conditions of entire neighborhoods.

But I don't think that justifies treating each and every tenant like the lowest common denominator. I treat each and every place I live in like I own it. I'll even do repairs myself that aren't major or something I think I don't need permission from the landlord to do. In some cases I do a better job than the landlord would do because they can be all about cutting corners and cost.

We've been more than patient in the long time frames it has taken them to do some repairs or replace something. It took them 2 months to replace a stove that only had 1 of the 4 burners working. We didn't get irate about it and just gave friendly reminders every week or 2. But the one time we were going to be ONE day late on the rent in a year they wouldn't budge on the late fee. Suddenly the lease contract is the be all end all contract when it works in their favor. This doesn't create a good relationship when it's still largely a renters market with lots of cheaper options out there.

[outershpongolia]

I had to sue a landlord once to get back my deposit. He tried to say I had left the house in bad shape. After I had cleaned everything when moving out I took photos of everything and had that day's newspaper in every photo. When we were in court I busted out the photos and the newspaper which proved I could not have possibly taken the photos any earlier. Booom!! I won.

That's a damn good idea, could work in many situation..

[dum]

I had to sue a landlord once to get back my deposit. He tried to say I had left the house in bad shape. After I had cleaned everything when moving out I took photos of everything and had that day's newspaper in every photo. When we were in court I busted out the photos and the newspaper which proved I could not have possibly taken the photos any earlier. Booom!! I won.

That's a damn good idea, could work in many situation..

yep, however I do the photos when I move in AND when I move out. And I make duplicates of a written list of everything worn, damaged, etc to go with the photos from when I moved in. One copy for the landlord, one for me.

This kind of thing might seem confrontational if you haven't done it before, but any straight-shooting landlord won't be bothered by such precautionary measures.



btw, the reference from my last place was glowing. I left the place in better shape than I found it, and I was there for nearly two years...

[dum]

I treat each and every place I live in like I own it. I'll even do repairs myself that aren't major or something I think I don't need permission from the landlord to do. In some cases I do a better job than the landlord would do because they can be all about cutting corners and cost.

We've been more than patient in the long time frames it has taken them to do some repairs or replace something. It took them 2 months to replace a stove that only had 1 of the 4 burners working. We didn't get irate about it and just gave friendly reminders every week or 2. But the one time we were going to be ONE day late on the rent in a year they wouldn't budge on the late fee. Suddenly the lease contract is the be all end all contract when it works in their favor. This doesn't create a good relationship when it's still largely a renters market with lots of cheaper options out there.

+1 on all points, extra +1 for the piece in bold.

with my current scumfuck landlord, he goes a step further and actually has a secretary which he uses as a proxy. She's not an agent, so she's not held to the responsibilities and obligations of an agent. So, he uses her to do the nagging for money and making the illegal phonecalls, but when it comes to his landlord obligations he is very 'absent minded' or 'didnt get the message' ... nice system he has there.

[beats me]

I treat each and every place I live in like I own it. I'll even do repairs myself that aren't major or something I think I don't need permission from the landlord to do. In some cases I do a better job than the landlord would do because they can be all about cutting corners and cost.

We've been more than patient in the long time frames it has taken them to do some repairs or replace something. It took them 2 months to replace a stove that only had 1 of the 4 burners working. We didn't get irate about it and just gave friendly reminders every week or 2. But the one time we were going to be ONE day late on the rent in a year they wouldn't budge on the late fee. Suddenly the lease contract is the be all end all contract when it works in their favor. This doesn't create a good relationship when it's still largely a renters market with lots of cheaper options out there.

+1 on all points, extra +1 for the piece in bold.

with my current scumfuck landlord, he goes a step further and actually has a secretary which he uses as a proxy. She's not an agent, so she's not held to the responsibilities and obligations of an agent. So, he uses her to do the nagging for money and making the illegal phonecalls, but when it comes to his landlord obligations he is very 'absent minded' or 'didnt get the message' ... nice system he has there.

Exactly.

The main thing that pisses me off is we live in a fairly large complex that has had a lot of vacancies so I see no reason in having zero wiggle room with the few people that are left. And FFS take a few minutes to look at your history with that tenant. And fuck them with the "If I do it for you then I'll have to do it for everyone" response, as if I'm going to flyer all the doors with announcements of the negligible special treatment I've gotten ONCE.

[ethios4]

yep, however I do the photos when I move in AND when I move out. And I make duplicates of a written list of everything worn, damaged, etc to go with the photos from when I moved in. One copy for the landlord, one for me.

This kind of thing might seem confrontational if you haven't done it before, but any straight-shooting landlord won't be bothered by such precautionary measures.

Most definitely. If the landlord is bothered by it, it's probably a shitty landlord.

On the flip side of all this, I once rented from the company that is most infamous in my town for fucking over tenants...notorious for evicting people the day before their lease is up for frivolous reasons. We broke a 1 year lease four months in, but I meticulously cleaned my bedroom and exactly 1/3 of the rest of the house. When I signed out of the lease I explained to them the living situation was no longer working, but my third of the house was clean and I would like my third of the deposit back please. To my surprise they very kindly gave me my deposit back and were totally pleasant about it. I guess it sometimes pays to be reasonable and do your best.

It was just a few months later that someone put a garden hose in their mail slot and flooded their offices. I felt a little sorry for them, dealing with such a load of destructive college age assholes.

[LoopStationZebra]

So I gave him a dressing down, told him I've had to pester him for 6 months about the vent, mentioned his inappropriate methods of contact, and how he's now so eager to fix the vent he's just barging in unannounced.

You realize, don't you, that you've just outlined the plot of around 85% of all gay porn movies?

Did this really happen, or are you paraphrasing from a vast collection of filthy jizz encrusted betamax tapes?

[dum]

that whole 1/3 of the responsibility thing doesn't wash over here, for the most part.
They'll keep 100% of the deposit on everyone, until they are 100% satisfied with the condition it was vacated in. So, if one person fucks up with late rent, or an untidy room, or some minor damage they caused, whatever - everyone else pays 100% for it...

Which is bad, because you'll find people in house-shares who keep the place in good nick, but when everyone else isn't looking after the place they don't see the point in it either seeing as they won't be getting their deposit back anyway, despite keeping their individual end of the contract.

Not fair, but as it's been noted, Landlords look for any reason to take your money and will try anything in order not to spend it, or give you your deposit back. That's literally the official analysis of landlords in my country.

[LoopStationZebra]

85% of all gay porn movies?

Listen, Missssster Landlord! I'm very upset with you! You need to clean my pipes this instant!

lol.