Opti
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Post by Opti on Jun 18, 2014 20:59:43 GMT -5
Less than an hour ago the pole in my coat closet decided it was time to break and fall. Its not really a landlord emergency but I'm not happy all those clothes will be touching the floor for at least 12 hours.
What annoying things have happened to you while renting?
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NoNamePerson
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Post by NoNamePerson on Jun 18, 2014 21:07:57 GMT -5
Frig died once when I was out of town. What a stinky mess that was. Management deducted price of lost food from my rent though and sent maintenance in to help me get bagged food to dumpster and then they had something that pretty much cut the smell.
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Opti
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Post by Opti on Jun 18, 2014 21:15:43 GMT -5
Yuck NNP. My stuff seems to happen on nights and weekends. I'm on frig#3. The last one croaked around 9PM too. Luckily it was less than 24 hours and it was replaced. Just a PITA.
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NoNamePerson
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Post by NoNamePerson on Jun 18, 2014 21:20:13 GMT -5
Yep everything happens on weekends!! My son now has a mantra similar to the Soup Nazi except it is "no fish in freezer for Mom from June to November - hurricane season and possible loss of power for weeks at a time
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Apple
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Post by Apple on Jun 18, 2014 22:59:48 GMT -5
Less than an hour ago the pole in my coat closet decided it was time to break and fall. Its not really a landlord emergency but I'm not happy all those clothes will be touching the floor for at least 12 hours.
What annoying things have happened to you while renting? Can you lay them out on the couch/a table/chairs instead? Not sure why they can't be moved off the floor. I only ever rented for a year, and I HATED it! Most annoying thing was during winter, the front door swelled so much we couldn't shut it. We had a preemie in the house, still on a heart/lung monitor, and we couldn't close our front door. Landlord tried to blame it on us, still have no idea how it was my fault
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 18, 2014 23:17:09 GMT -5
What annoying things have happened to you while renting? It was the weirdest thing, but at one of our tiny apartments, the large primary window "sang." Wind would vibrate it and make this strange humming noise, like a bored kid playing random notes on a recorder. The "notes" would scale up and down with wind gusts and pauses. We thought it was the upstairs people for while. When we figured it out and reported it, the maintenance staff said they hadn't seen anything like it, tried unsuccessfully to fix it twice, then left it alone. We kept a cloth wrapped sack of beans against the glass to try and dampen some of the vibrations, but it still hummed. Really annoying at night, imagine a kid playing a recorder all night long on breezy days. When the wind got really strong, it sounded more like a train whistling. Mom said "what is that?" on the phone when she heard it for the first time. The price for the place was very good though, so we kept the blind down to block and shield in case it broke from the vibrations, and just learned to sleep through it.
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NoNamePerson
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Post by NoNamePerson on Jun 19, 2014 6:35:41 GMT -5
Oh, I forgot about the time I was out late, had a few and couldn't remember the code to punch in for gates to open (I had just moved in) Luckily there was a car ahead of me and I just followed them in. Real secure system
No longer rent but my son still won't give me fish during hurricane season...
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milee
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Post by milee on Jun 19, 2014 6:55:59 GMT -5
Yep everything happens on weekends!! My son now has a mantra similar to the Soup Nazi except it is "no fish in freezer for Mom from June to November - hurricane season and possible loss of power for weeks at a time Good reminder. Right now in my freezer I've got a big box of frozen squid to be used for fishing bait. If we lose power that would be a disaster. Good excuse to go fishing soon and "use it up" to prevent that disaster.
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giramomma
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Post by giramomma on Jun 19, 2014 7:58:05 GMT -5
In one apartment, DH's upstairs neighbors had a toilet issue. We discovered that as a whole bunch of water ran DH's bedroom closet. I don't think it was the landlord's fault. These folks argued alot, and didn't seem like the sharpest tools in the shed...
In college, we rented from a landlord that didn't believe in keeping the house up to code. But, he also turned a blind eye since we had more people living in the house than we were supposed to.
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The Captain
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Post by The Captain on Jun 19, 2014 8:08:10 GMT -5
My first apartment out of college the upstairs neighbor had some drunk friends who thought it would be great fun to break into his apartment and surprise him in the middle of the night.
The decided the easiest way to do this was to go in through the apartment under his - mine.
One police call, broken screen and a lot of drama later the mangement company decided not to press charges. I didn't have any recourse because they didn't actually enter my apartmet, only damaged the exterior screen.
I broke my lease and was out two months later.
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Post by The Walk of the Penguin Mich on Jun 19, 2014 8:11:39 GMT -5
There has only been one thing that royally pissed me off.
Maintenance came into my apartment and stole my Vicodin out of my medicine cabinet while I was at work (they were repairing my toilet). Idiots left the aspirin on the counter, otherwise I wouldn't have noticed it missing. Contacted management and told them, figuring that they would deal with the problem, and contacted my doc for another script.
A few months later, I needed something else done so contacted for repairs. My new script was stolen again. This time, I contacted management and called the cops. Maintenance guy was fired. I should have called the cops the first time, but figured I'd give management the chance to discipline their employee.
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Cookies Galore
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Post by Cookies Galore on Jun 19, 2014 8:21:15 GMT -5
We haven't had any major issues as renters, pretty much stuff that would happen to a homeowner (fridge dying, heating element in oven dying, washer issues) but we've been lucky to have very responsive landlords and most issues have been fixed very quickly, even on holidays.
The worst annoyance we face right now is the vibration in our bedroom from the portable AC unit the people above us have, but it is light years better than the douche with the acoustic guitar and terrible singing voice (hardwood floors, people!). The firehouse across the street also has what sounds like an air raid siren, but we turned it going off into a drinking game. Plus, we are surrounded by single family homes, so at least we didn't pay $300,000 to get woken up at 2 am (though I'm so used to it that it wouldn't bother me if we bought on this block)!
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cael
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Post by cael on Jun 19, 2014 8:25:46 GMT -5
HA, let me give you a brief rundown of my story. It isn't so bad considering what happens to other people (I see crap landlords and nightmare apartments all the time), but it was awful for us. We lived at our place for 5 years and really liked it. Sure, there were things that could have been done, but it was cheap, close to everything, we had friends in the building, and we really liked the apartment. Over the winter I had several instances of finding lone bedbugs on my livingroom carpet. at first I thought I had tracked them in from work somehow, but the last one I found was at a time when I hadn't been into any bedbug infested buildings in weeks. I called my landlord (who's technically the owners son and lives on the first floor with his wife) and let him know, telling him I didn't know where they came from and that we weren't getting bit and hadn't seen any in our bed, but that somehow I was finding them here and there, and in random spots. He said there had been no complaints from anyone else and told me to keep him informed. 2 weeks after that, we had a visit from him and his wife and... an exterminator. Checking all units for signs of bedbugs. I happened to be home and was happy to pull my bed apart, show them everything, and tell the exterminator the story. Meanwhile, my DH and the LL's wife are in the livingroom chatting. They all leave and DH looks like he saw a ghost.... the wife told him they had been having a problem for MONTHS. we were LIVID. The exterminator had said he'd seen signs in the two apartments under us (we're on the 3rd floor, one apt between us and LL's apt), and the wife kept saying how you can get them from anywhere and how we have so many consignment shops near us... IMO trying to make excuses as to why they had them without actually saying it. WE WERE BULLSHIT. I did not feel much better knowing where they were coming from, because I couldn't control the source - they were probably meandering up to us through walls, pipes in the baseboard heaters etc. So, we'd been planning the move to my mom's to save up for a house anyway - we said fuck this, and we've been at my mom's about 6 weeks now, finishing moving our stuff out of the apartment. It really killed us to have to leave that way... I bought a new bed because my mother was paranoid (can't blame her), we're putting a lot of stuff in storage and getting rid of a lot of stuff. During this ordeal we have seen mattresses and shit out for trash collection from the LL's apt, and just yesterday DH was cleaning and saw the exterminator there AGAIN, and a bed frame put outside, so clearly they're still having problems. Peace out, I want nothing to do with that shit. Our friend who lived behind us is moving into our place and I'm like good luck... hope they don't come upstairs to you. I was lucky enough to find the stray bugs before they got to our bedroom/bed, or we would've been screwed, because I deal with bedbugs at work. The exterminator was impressed I'd found/seen them on our brown carpet. ...that was long! But that's the worst personal thing we've had happen renting. Hopefully we will never rent again now.
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Jun 19, 2014 8:28:51 GMT -5
Less than an hour ago the pole in my coat closet decided it was time to break and fall. Its not really a landlord emergency but I'm not happy all those clothes will be touching the floor for at least 12 hours.
What annoying things have happened to you while renting? If you owned the place would you have run right out to Home Depot, bought all the supplies and fixed it at the moment it happened, or would you have waited for the next day or even waited for the weekend to fix it, or hire a handyman? 12 hours is a pretty good response time. If that happened in my house, no surprise if 2 weeks went by before it rose to the top of the list. Plus - you know you can take those clothes off the floor - maybe fold them or lay them across the kitchen table. I'm sure you can find somewhere else besides the floor.
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gacpa
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Post by gacpa on Jun 19, 2014 9:20:00 GMT -5
The bedbug issue would have given me a nervous breakdown. I seriously cannot handle bugs of any kind. And that is saying something because I live in Georgia, and there are bugs everywhere. When I grew up in MO, only dirty housekeepers had bugs. Here in Georgia, they are everywhere. We keep our house sprayed so no bugs, and thank goodness I don't have to deal with someone else's bugs.
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Sam_2.0
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Post by Sam_2.0 on Jun 19, 2014 9:31:16 GMT -5
The worst for me was the apartment complex that used the same set of 8 keys for each building (there were 10+). One day DSis and I were sitting on our couch watching TV when a man unlocked our door and walked right in. Thankfully he was just as upset to see us as we were to see him. Turns out he lived in the next building over, same unit. We hardly slept that night, but apparently the next day he went into the office and gave them hell for it and we had new locks the next day. The guy came back to check on us again to make sure no one else had gotten into our place. Thankfully he was a nice person!!
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justme
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Post by justme on Jun 19, 2014 9:58:47 GMT -5
They all came from the same landlord in a short time span. My car battery died and I didn't find out until I was getting ready to leave the city I was in to drive to where I was moving in. Then I hit traffic. She got all huffy with me even though I informed her along the way and eventually had me meet her at a gas station to get the keys! She then completely failed to mention that the A/C was broken in that if it was on it was ON until you shut the whole thing down. I found out after I left to get food and came back to a 60 degree apartment (when it was 90+ outside! and the apartment gets afternoon sun!) even though I set it to 75. I ended up having to go in late for my second day of work to wait for the A/C repair guy to show since she couldn't be bothered with waiting even though she knew about the problem before and failed to get someone out before I moved in. Also on move in I found that the kitchen faucet sprayed water every time you moved it and an outlet in the bedroom didn't work. She sends her "handyman" un-escorted (that was a hell of a fight and I couldn't take off work again after just starting) into my apartment and his fix for the faucet was to just tighten the bolt so much that I couldn't move the faucet at all! Kind of annoying when you have to sinks and it's stuck in the way of only one sink! And his fix didn't fix the outlet. I also found out during that fiasco that the deadbolt was so worn down that only MY key would open it. A copy of my key would not. And she was yelling at me about replacing the deadbolt even though I asked her how happy she would be getting a $200 locksmith charge when my key failed to unlock the door. By this time I was sooo tired of dealing with her that my parents came over. They spent $15 on a new faucet and installed it in 10 minutes. They put in a new deadbolt for me (that I at least got her to reimburse me for that finally). And, since my dad is an electrician, found out the handy man royally screwed up the outlet. The only reason why it didn't cause a fire was because he screwed up twice and the second screw up kept the first one from starting a fire! And this was all topped off by a call from her less than 2 weeks before rent was due (6 months into my lease) saying she sold the apartment, had no contact information about the person who bought it, but don't send the check to her. Luckily the guy who bought it is AMAZING. If it was still her I would have moved to another place in the same complex.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Jun 19, 2014 10:01:19 GMT -5
My weird one was right after I loved back to Florida. I always rent the top floor because I don't want stomping on my head noises. I'm showering and I hear this pounding on my door so I shut off the shower, go out and maintenance is coming in! The people below think I've flooded the bathtub. I NEVER take baths, always showers. But there were cracks that I couldn't even see in my shower floor bottom and the water leaked through.
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cael
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Post by cael on Jun 19, 2014 12:11:51 GMT -5
The bedbug issue would have given me a nervous breakdown. I seriously cannot handle bugs of any kind. And that is saying something because I live in Georgia, and there are bugs everywhere. When I grew up in MO, only dirty housekeepers had bugs. Here in Georgia, they are everywhere. We keep our house sprayed so no bugs, and thank goodness I don't have to deal with someone else's bugs. I was taking benadryl for a week or two just to sleep. definitely not fun. Took DH a little longer but he got to that point too. I'll take ANY bugs over bedbugs - literally I would rather have cockroaches in my kitchen, because at least you can kill them. Bedbugs are waaaaaay harder to get rid of unless you want to shell out for heat treatment, which is great but isn't 100% effective. They did spray our apartment, the apt under us, and the LL's apt on the 1st floor so hopefully most of our things are ok. And I have to just keep telling myself we didn't *have* them, as in we weren't infested, they weren't biting us so they weren't staying and thriving, but even stray random bugs getting in somehow freaked us out enough. Peaced out of there so quick. (a note on spraying - it will work, if it comes into direct contact with the bugs. It doesn't leave any residue that will affect them though, so unless the spray hits all the bugs, all the bugs won't be killed. So, works, but not entirely. This is how I understand it.)
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Mardi Gras Audrey
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Post by Mardi Gras Audrey on Jun 20, 2014 0:44:53 GMT -5
I've been pretty lucky... My landlord issues have been limited... most of the issues I have had were caused by ignorant neighbors. The 2 landlords that stick out as not cool were 1. a private apartment complex and 2. a private university housing office (Dorms). At the private apartment, the heater would not turn on again after it got to the temperature on the thermostat. This was fine for a few minutes but as the apartment cooled (Winter in MA), it would stay off and you could see your breath in the apt. Management was convinced there was "nothing wrong with the heater" and I should just crank the thermostat up to 90' so the heater never got to temperature (Poorly insulated and 10' outside). I was paying for gas and electric and my gas bill was $200+/mo for a 500 sq ft apt when you could see your breath. They finally fixed it after 3 months of complaining (Some issue in the heater itself). The University dorm was worse. The heaters didn't work (snowing outside) and we couldn't have space heaters. The heating pipes also clanged in the walls (So you were freezing and listening to pipes banging all day/night). They told me the heater wasn't supposed to be working if it was warmer than 40' outside during the day ( ) and I should have sympathy for their office people since they had to listen to the clanging during the day (Uhhh, if its annoying at 2PM, how annoying do you think it is at 2AM?). The ceiling also collapsed and fell in every time it rained. So the halls would be full of ceiling debris and trash cans (catching the "rain") whenever we had a storm. They told us to commute and not lived there if we didn't like dealing with it...
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Nazgul Girl
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Post by Nazgul Girl on Jun 20, 2014 7:35:03 GMT -5
As landlords ( that's a misnomer ) of two houses ( our vast LL empire ), in the last month, we've had a tricky leak problem fixed in the bathroom of one of our homes, had to have the carpet cleaned due to the flooding the leak caused, and put in a new dryer for the tenant.
The other tenant bounced her rent check ( the riskier tenant ), but paid with a certified check at our demand, paid the late check fee, and paid the water bill on time (actually transferred the $$ to the checking account for that house and we paid the bill as per our agreement ). It's nice to have a LL pay to take care of the building's physical problems.
We've never had bugs from a tenant, thank goodness.
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teen persuasion
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Post by teen persuasion on Jun 20, 2014 9:46:10 GMT -5
Our first apartment, a dining room wall sconce would collect water when it rained. I cannot figure out how, it was on an interior firebreak wall, and we were on the first floor. Our second apartment, we rented it immediately after a new owner took over. The agreement was that heat and hot water were included and we paid electric and gas for the kitchen stove. When winter hit, that gas bill soared - our third floor apartment apparently had its own furnace on our gas bill, a surprise to the owner, too. We worked out a deal of some sort, I don't remember details anymore, but we probably deducted the excess gas bill from the rent. Later, when we had tenants, an upstairs tenant's younger dog decided to jump out of the window, thru the screen. Mama dog had to follow, of course, and tenants were at work. Another tenant spilled a pot of coffee, which somehow leaked into my closet, staining some clothing.
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Opti
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Post by Opti on Jun 20, 2014 17:45:13 GMT -5
There are some interesting stories here. I think the singing window would be really tough and I've decided I'll wait on reading about the bedbugs.
My clothes are mostly in a pile on my bed and the couch now that I've moved coupon inserts, etc. I need to go through off it. I'm going to Freecycle and donate some of it as I don't really need to hold on to all of it and the pole is thinner than the prior one. I actually didn't notice it was replaced until I had half the clothes out of the closet and on the couch. They must have replaced it when I ran some errands before the library opened.
Oh well. Its summer and I don't sleep well in the heat.
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Opti
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Post by Opti on Jun 20, 2014 17:51:28 GMT -5
Big bummer. I know how fun it is to get coffee stains out so I hope you were able to save them all.
Not a rental story, but when my parents were raising the roof on the house for the second story the workers had to tack down plastic overnight. Of course it rained and in my closet as well. Nice sheet of water came down when I opened it. Made me stoic about the leaks in my hallway ceiling at the end of hurricane Sandy and for a few weeks until the landlord got a roofing crew out to fix the roof. Walking down stairs trying not to walk into the buckets was always fun.
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steff
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Post by steff on Jun 20, 2014 19:39:41 GMT -5
I have a great rent disaster story, but it's a little long.
We were renting from a land lord in a not great area & he had another duplex in a nicer area that was also closer to family. Like on the same street as my brother & around the corner from my mom. he was in the process of selling the duplex we were living in, he was a great landlord all things considered, wo we cut a deal to rent the better duplex without getting to see it because he was in the process of evicting the current tenant. she was supposed to be out by Thursday, he was supposed to do the carpet/turn around on Friday & we were moving in to new/cleaning old on Saturday. We had scheduled the exit walk thru for Sunday afternoon with the new owners & they were scheduled to start remodels on Monday. so everything was cutting it close to begin with.
Friday hubby works, I'm busy with last minute packing & couldn't get in touch with the landlord. Not a big deal because we'd never had a problem and we had already rented from him for 3 years. I figured he was busy with getting the place ready. Saturday we get everything loaded up, hubby & the truck head over & I stay behind to do all the cleaning. I get a call about an hour later to find out that the lady is still in the house. The landlord's son is there literally tossing her stuff out & then everyone realizes....she's a semi-hoarder w lots & lots of birds. I have hubby loosing his shit on one phone, the landlord freaking out on another and pretty much literal shit hitting the fan. The place was pretty much unlivable. the landlord had to rent a storage unit for our stuff, we stayed at my aunts for a week while we made the basement livable. then the landlord paid us to do the clean up. Which turned out to be great because I got to pick the paint, wall paper, new cabinets & appliances. Plus we had our deposit wiped out for all the bullshit & ended up making a small fortune off of doing the work & got our deposit on the other house back in full. The landlord came over each night to help out too. It took about a month of living in the basement before we finally got it livable. We lived there for almost 4 years before we upgraded to a single family house in a better area.
He wasn't a sucky landlord but he did drop the ball big time on that one. He left it up to his son who didn't pay attention to the super tight timeline we were on. I know we never ever dealt with his son after that. if something needed to be done, he always came over to take care of it.
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NancysSummerSip
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Post by NancysSummerSip on Jun 20, 2014 20:43:46 GMT -5
Yep everything happens on weekends!! My son now has a mantra similar to the Soup Nazi except it is "no fish in freezer for Mom from June to November - hurricane season and possible loss of power for weeks at a time OMG, same here! No meat or chicken in the freezer, either, aside from maybe a meal or two's worth. I've had the A/C die on me when I rented. Things were a tad warm 'till the landlord arrived. To be honest, I liked the guy. Very fair, treated his tenants well and only raised the rent price once in the six years I was there.
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TheOtherMe
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Post by TheOtherMe on Jun 20, 2014 22:00:26 GMT -5
I rented a single family about 500 sf in the mountains of Colorado for one year. I was the one who wanted a lease instead of month to month. Was I ever sorry. The place was so small I had to get a storage unit. It had one tiny closet and I had to buy one of the freestanding ones just to hang my clothes and winter coats. Kitchen and bathroom had been added on and were only heated by electric baseboard in the bathroom. Always too cold to spend much time in either room.
I don't think there was much insulation as the wind blew all winter and I could see the curtains move and the heat bill while I froze was 3 times what I pay now.
We had a below zero cold snap and the pipes burst, so I had no water for a few days. That was fun. The place was mice infested. The landlady told me I could park my car in front of the house. It got hit the first night and the police officer who came said it was illegal to park there. So I had to park my car about a block away, which was a long way in snow. I had the friendly coyote who accompanied on my daily walk to the car so I could go get my mail. He was so tame. I had raccoons under my steps from road to porch and under porch. Neighbor told me last tenant fed them. I never did. They found food somewhere. If I came home in the dark, I'd see eyes peering at me as I walked up the steps.
I couldn't wait to get out of that place.
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TheOtherMe
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Post by TheOtherMe on Jun 20, 2014 22:09:57 GMT -5
My other horror story was my last rental before I bought my current house. Without knowing it, the people above me were drug dealers. The steps to their apartment were wooden and outside. There were people stomping up and down the steps 24/7. Supposedly, the police were watching them according to management.
Eventually this family didn't pay their rent and got evicted. They fought the eviction, but finally left in the middle of the night and had the power turned off. We had sub zero temperature right then so the pipes burst. Luckily I was home when it happened and got management there to turn off the water quickly. I had brown water running in to my bathroom, master bedroom and 2nd bedroom closet. It was gross and it stunk. I called my insurance company and they said my apartment was inhabitable. I didn't think it was, so a friend let me stay with them for a few days.
All management did was put big fans to dry out my carpet and touch up some paint. That was fixing it as far as they were concerned. I wanted the carpet cleaned, but it didn't happen.
Maintenance told me the water in the toilet bowl in the 2nd floor apartment was frozen. They let me see the place. They had two small kids and two dogs in there. There were dirty diapers every where and dog feces everywhere. There was a path to the master bedroom where business was conducted. The kids used the bathtub to color on. Mom supposedly home schooled the oldest. There were numbers written on the bathtub.
It took a good month before that apartment was totally renovated so it could be rented again. Luckily, they were a very nice couple who worked and led normal lives.
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Mardi Gras Audrey
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Post by Mardi Gras Audrey on Jun 21, 2014 1:32:06 GMT -5
Crazy neighbors seem to be a given in some areas. We had some nutso neighbors in the triplex that was owned by the nicest landlords. My BFF and I lived there together for a year in college and only saw the landlord twice. Both were issues with the neighbors. The first was the day we got the keys (Didn't move in until the next week because we were going on vacation). The rear neighbors were a car lot and they were doing some remodeling on their lot. They were digging with a backhoe at the fence line and ended up going under the fence and taking out our backyard sprinkler system. Their construction team started screaming at us about how THEY were going to SUE US because the water was impeding their construction project... We felt bad calling the landlord on our first day. The second time was when one of the other people in the triplex was getting evicted and turned off the water main to our unit and the third unit. We didn't know they were getting evicted. We just knew that it was midnight and our water is going in and out. The neighbor was in their garage "doing laundry" and said they knew nothing about any water issues... We waited until the next morning to call the landlord (How much water do u need at midnight?) and find out that the third unit is also having water issues. Apparently, Mr. eviction's water was shut off and he was trying to turn it back on himself but was mistakenly turning everyone else's off. Mr. eviction and his family were weird anyways... his kids broke into the third unit and stole jewelry and canned foods . They came back shortly after breaking in and replaced the glass window they broke thinking the resident wouldn't notice stuff was stolen (She had seem the broken glass/window while home on her lunch break but hadn't had the time to report it to the police until after work when everything was "cleaned up"). Who steals someone's stuff and replaces the window? It didn't help that Mr. eviction's wallet was found next to the newly repaired window when the police went to investigate (It was a second story window that only the people that lived in those two units knew existed. It was blocked from ground level view by roof AC units and the roof pitch). Needless to say, we were happy to see them go....
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toomuchreality
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Joined: Sept 3, 2011 10:28:25 GMT -5
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Post by toomuchreality on Jun 23, 2014 3:10:24 GMT -5
Several times a year we have inspections. I have one today. They check for cleanliness and to be sure the apts are being maintained properly. UGH. I hate them!
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