Landlord is inept, tenants below are nightmarish

By Silva22

Silva22

(Landlord) has proven to be completely inept. His foot dragging on cleaning the apartment prior to our moving in, fixing some minor and few major problems from the very beginning were a clear indication of  the future but we chose to try and look on the brighter side.  Now 8 months into living here even the most minor issues are 4 to 6 week delay before (landlord) grudgingly addresses them. What has made the situation intolerable is the rental of the first floor apartment. We live in a 2 story house and the landlord decided to rent the apartment downstairs from us to the neighbors son & girlfriend and her son. Within days of the move in I had to go down and ask them (twice) to be quiet (post 11:30PM). They’ve since thrown out the landlords (first floor) refrigerator (which took up residence in the driveway for 4 weeks) they tossed his washer and dryer (the landlords and located on our side of the basement on the lease as useable by us on the second floor) and installed their own (I had to go and tell them to wire it to their own electricity)! They dragged all of (landlords) stuff from their side of the basement and put it on ours, making it impossible to pass by. Their friends are menacing when they visit, their dog scraps in the yard and they are "too busy to pick it up right away" (if at all) etc.

I have complained to (landlord) over and over again and of course he says "I’ll try to talk to them". When he does things quiet down for a week or two and then we are back to the mayhem.
At this stage, we are going to approach him about renegotiating the terms of the lease, since we no longer have a secure basement, the debris in the yard was never cleaned up until I did it, he has yet to provide a working lawnmower, the roof is leaking, the first floor apartment fireplace was never inspected, resulting this winter in my calling the Fire department over twice as we were being smoked out on the second floor. He still has not fixed that (even after I tracked down a chimney sweep a dnd set an appointm,ent for it to be inspected! These tenants downstairs  have no respect for the property, him or us and (landlord) actually seems ok with it! I am writing to see if you have any expert advice to offer. We are so disappointed that after working so hard to improve the property, the yard etc he just rented to a couple of people who treat the place like their own personal junkyard and toilet.
What can we do? We might try and last to the end the lease (october) but we are struggling with the daily task of coming home to an environment that is both unfriendly, unsafe and unpleasant.
Please if you can offer some advice!

Edited on: Monday, October 7th, 2013 4:13 am

4 Responses to “Landlord is inept, tenants below are nightmarish”

My response: (We welcome stories, examples, explanations, answers and a touch of your personality)
 

Ciara

June 2nd, 2010 12:22 am

It sounds like you are looking to break your lease early, right?
 
To end your lease early can be difficult.  In fact, many times its not possible.  The only real way to terminate your lease would be if you could prove that the landlord had breached the agreement he made with you.  If the landlord specifically included the washer/ dryer in the agreement and now you have no access– that could be enough to be breach of agreement thus allowing you out of your agreement early.
 
Most likely you will need some type of help resolving this dispute.  I would suggest hiring an attorney or filing a complaint with the RPA.
 


anonymous

June 2nd, 2010 7:00 am

The advice I would give would be to either force your landlord to make the needed repairs by properly escrowing your rent until the repairs are made, or do as Ciara said above and find a solution to terminate your lease early.
 
 


Silva22

June 3rd, 2010 5:05 am

Thanks for your advice and feedback.


marty

October 7th, 2013 8:05 pm

You might need to talk over this serious concerns you have to your Landlord. And if he cannot settle all these complaints you have with your neighbor downstairs, then there is a section in RPA’s website that you can use to file for your complaint if your Landlord has not done anything to solve the problem you have. And worse,if your landlord chooses not to cooperate, well its high time for you to sue your Landlord for not doing his part on taking major actions on these issues with another tenant he has.


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