Landlord Issue

[mrsleeve]

. For security deposit did you do a walkthrough and note everything before hand? if not, then you're fucked. When I moved out of my town house, my land lord thought it was cleaner then when I moved in LOL.

In our area rents are getting outta hand, and the security's are in many cases double a months rent. And looked at as FREE MONEY. Even if the place is in better condition than when you moved in and can document that fact, many of the cash strapped owners have either spent the security, or want to keep it anyway............

[BobombETA]

ok, you need to start documenting all of the incidents. once you have a small handful, you send him a certified letter as to why you are breaking the lease and the date you plan to move out. this is what you can use against him if he tries to take you to court. generally, judges side with the tenant if unless you do something egregious. i am pretty sure any judge will feel that a howling dog and breathing marijuana filled air are more than enough to get the hell out of there.

as far as your security deposit is concerned, you are probably fuckt! i highly doubt this guy will be giving that back without a fight. i would put language in the letter threatening him with a lawsuit if he doesn't return it, but that doesn't mean very much. i am pretty sure you will need to take him to court to get it. you probably need to chalk that up to a lost cause.

We will start a log of the incidents, and the next time he's smoking I'll knock on his door.

just ask him if you can bounce early because A,B & C. If he says i'll try to stop, then give it a few. If nothing happens then call the cops. but first thing is communicate god damn it. For security deposit did you do a walkthrough and note everything before hand? if not, then you're fucked. When I moved out of my town house, my land lord thought it was cleaner then when I moved in LOL.

We didn't do a walkthrough, so that's one thing in our favor.

Howling dog and pot smoke are more than enough leverage. Send him a letter outlining the reasons you need to leave and that unless they are resolved within a certain period of time (1 week?) that you'll be forced to break the lease and require your security deposit be returned minus any damages incurred. If he doesn't respond by fixing the issues, then take him to small claims for the security deposit (be sure to have ample evidence). He may try to bring you for breaking the lease, but he'd be an idiot and will lose. The biggest thing is to document every issue and take video evidence when possible, if that includes call the cops for the pot smoke...then do it. Oh yeah, I'm not a lawyer. Suggest talking to one if you want some fact based advice.

I'll try to take a video of the dog barking noise, I figured the time of day made a noise complaint lose its merit.

Poop in his sock drawer.

If he doesn't play nice I have a 100 watt tube amp that shakes the windows when the volume is on 3. Maybe I'll take up the drums too.

if you break the lease, i doubt you'll get the security deposit back.

landlords suck.

Indeed. Saving for a down payment on a house as we speak.

Check the New York State landlord/tenant code (if it's not available online you can probably find a copy at your local library). If New York is anything like Hawaii (which is also a blue state), the code will generally favor the tenant. To wit, if you're landlord did NOT do a walkthrough prior to your move-in and provide you a copy of that record when you moved it, burden of proof is exclusively on him to prove damage, wear & tear, missing items, etc. In Hawaii, a landlord has two weeks (or 15 days, I don't recall which) to return security deposit to a tenant and must provide documentation in order to retain any or all of that security deposit. Without a walkthrough record, he is on VERY thin ground to retain deposit and has a small time window in which to act.

Meanwhile, the dog issue and his lack of respect for 24-hour notice (a MAJOR privacy issue with respect to tenants) are both issues in your favor. As others have suggested, keep a log of his unannounced visits and make note of your complaints about the dog noise (as well as his lack of action or even token concern). Re the dog, if you wanna go nuclear, call animal control or even the cops -- they respond to those kind of complaints on a daily basis.

Again, check your landlord/tenant code. If it's anything like Hawaii's, you're on firm legal footing. That's the good news. The bad news is, if push comes to shove you will have to take your landlord to small-claims court (where you will almost certainly prevail) to get your security deposit back. Unless your landlord can make a case that you've been anything other than responsible -- and it sounds like the two of you have been, plus the burden of proof is likely to be on him -- he'll have to return your full deposit and the judge may have some authority to punish him further (i.e. require him to return some of the rent you've paid).

Sounds like you're doing everything right so far ... do a little research and I think you'll be fine. Good luck.

P.S. I'm a landlord myself and have to take this kind of thing seriously.

I found the "Tenants Rights Guide" on the attorney general's website. I'll be reviewing it. Thank you.

[ainadude]

For security deposit did you do a walkthrough and note everything before hand? if not, then you're fucked.

Check the New York State landlord/tenant code (if it's not available online you can probably find a copy at your local library). If New York is anything like Hawaii (which is also a blue state), the code will generally favor the tenant. To wit, if you're landlord did NOT do a walkthrough prior to your move-in and provide you a copy of that record when you moved it, burden of proof is exclusively on him to prove damage, wear & tear, missing items, etc. In Hawaii, a landlord has two weeks (or 15 days, I don't recall which) to return security deposit to a tenant and must provide documentation in order to retain any or all of that security deposit. Without a walkthrough record, he is on VERY thin ground to retain deposit and has a small time window in which to act.

Meanwhile, the dog issue and his lack of respect for 24-hour notice (a MAJOR privacy issue with respect to tenants) are both issues in your favor. As others have suggested, keep a log of his unannounced visits and make note of your complaints about the dog noise (as well as his lack of action or even token concern). Re the dog, if you wanna go nuclear, call animal control or even the cops -- they respond to those kind of complaints on a daily basis.

Again, check your landlord/tenant code. If it's anything like Hawaii's, you're on firm legal footing. That's the good news. The bad news is, if push comes to shove you will have to take your landlord to small-claims court (where you will almost certainly prevail) to get your security deposit back. Unless your landlord can make a case that you've been anything other than responsible -- and it sounds like the two of you have been, plus the burden of proof is likely to be on him -- he'll have to return your full deposit and the judge may have some authority to punish him further (i.e. require him to return some of the rent you've paid).

Sounds like you're doing everything right so far ... do a little research and I think you'll be fine. Good luck.

P.S. I'm a landlord myself and have to take this kind of thing seriously.

[evandael]

if you break the lease, i doubt you'll get the security deposit back.

landlords suck.

[Nick_S]

Poop in his sock drawer.

[ParsedOut]

Howling dog and pot smoke are more than enough leverage. Send him a letter outlining the reasons you need to leave and that unless they are resolved within a certain period of time (1 week?) that you'll be forced to break the lease and require your security deposit be returned minus any damages incurred. If he doesn't respond by fixing the issues, then take him to small claims for the security deposit (be sure to have ample evidence). He may try to bring you for breaking the lease, but he'd be an idiot and will lose. The biggest thing is to document every issue and take video evidence when possible, if that includes call the cops for the pot smoke...then do it. Oh yeah, I'm not a lawyer. Suggest talking to one if you want some fact based advice.

[Thizzelle]

just ask him if you can bounce early because A,B & C. If he says i'll try to stop, then give it a few. If nothing happens then call the cops. but first thing is communicate god damn it. For security deposit did you do a walkthrough and note everything before hand? if not, then you're fucked. When I moved out of my town house, my land lord thought it was cleaner then when I moved in LOL.

[flyboyx]

ok, you need to start documenting all of the incidents. once you have a small handful, you send him a certified letter as to why you are breaking the lease and the date you plan to move out. this is what you can use against him if he tries to take you to court. generally, judges side with the tenant if unless you do something egregious. i am pretty sure any judge will feel that a howling dog and breathing marijuana filled air are more than enough to get the hell out of there.

as far as your security deposit is concerned, you are probably fuckt! i highly doubt this guy will be giving that back without a fight. i would put language in the letter threatening him with a lawsuit if he doesn't return it, but that doesn't mean very much. i am pretty sure you will need to take him to court to get it. you probably need to chalk that up to a lost cause.

[BobombETA]

Me and my girlfriend have been renting the same apartment since September 2012. It's a 2 family house and the landlord lives below us. At first he seemed like a decent guy, but the past 6 months or so we've grown pretty tired about our living situation. Unfortunately we are stuck there until our lease expires in September 2014.

The best way for me to characterize our landlord, is he is like Clint Eastwood's character from Gran Torino. Old (early 60's), racist, and intolerant of his neighbors.

The issues:
- He leaves his dog (black lab) home during the day while he's at work (8am-2pm) and the thing howls literally the entire time he is gone. It's not as much an issue for me as I'm at work during those hours, but my girlfriend works a split shift and sometimes tries to catch up on sleep during that time. Needless to say it's impossible for her to get any rest, or have any quiet enjoyment while she's home.. We've asked him to find a solution for this and he just laughs it off and says his dog just misses him.

- He's a pot smoker and the smell fills our entire apartment. It's not an every day occurrence, but a couple times a week when I get home from work the whole apartment smells. I'm not against smoking pot, I just find the smell intrusive. We have not addressed this with him, and we're not sure how to approach him about it.

- Our lease says he's supposed to give us 24 hour notice before entry to our space, but he routinely ignores it. Usually it's for maintenance, which is fine, but one time he came up with a bucket and a sponge and asked if he could clean a spot on our carpet. OCD much? The apartment has wall to wall (cheap and thin) carpet, even in the kitchen, which is where the spot was. Of course there's going to be spots here and there.

We'd like to find a new place, but we don't want to have to pay 2 rents if we do.

Would any of our issues with him allow us to get out of the lease?
Is there a process we should start to document the issues?
Calling the police about the noise or pot smoke?

We also don't want to have to fight to get our security deposit back, and given his somewhat OCD nature, it's something I anticipate being a battle. He also has a history of going off on his neighbors, we've overheard him yelling and swearing at them.

We are completely respectful. No noise (I don't even have my guitar amps there out of respect), no pets, and we almost never have people over as it's not a very big space. We're mostly either at work or sleeping.

What would r3v do?