Many of you saw my last post on facebook regarding our current landlord 'situation'. Here's a quick rundown of what all has happened and what we're dealing with now.
When found this place on Craigslist after LOTS of unsuccessful searching. Zach talked to the guy who is now our landlord over the phone about the place and we decided to drive up and check it out as it was, by far, the best option we'd found. The house is an old top-bottom duplex which our landlord has "completely" gutted and renovated. When we came up to see it in June he was still in the process of finishing the renovations, but it looked decent (other than from the outside, which looks like a crack house) and he assured us the work would be DONE well before we needed to move up in August. We had seen pictures of his other properties online and they all looked really nice. We told him we weren't sure when we would move in, as it all depended on when Zach got a job, I definitely wouldn't be up until late August. As part of our conversations with him, we asked him for averages on bills, he assured us they would be VERY reasonable due to all the renovations. We decided to go for it and put in an application.
Fast forward to July when we emailed him to check up on things. He assured us it was "done" and ready for us to move in at any time. We asked if we could go ahead and move our stuff in July 31, since we had found renters for our house starting August 1. He said 'go for it'.
Fast forward again to July 31, we arrive in Minnesota to find our "done" apartment in virtually the same condition it was in when we saw it the first time. NONE of the doors were hung, there were no locks on the doors, no cabinet doors, and the place was, in general a TOTAL mess! This lead eventually to some emails back and forth between our landlord and Zach regarding the state of things. He claimed that he didn't think we were moving in until later and he was being "nice" letting us move our stuff in "early". Keep in mind, we're paying rent on this place starting August 1 and we moved our stuff in less than 24 hours early. We pushed back on his claim that is was "done" and felt we'd come to a resolution that there was some poor communication on both sides and we would try to do better.
Fast forward AGAIN to a week later when Zach was supposed to move up. We had let our landlord know the moment Zach got a job (late July) that he would DEFINITELY be living there by August 7. At this point we're now trying to be sure everything is ready for Zach to move up with the dog. We are informed earlier that week that the apartment (that we are paying rent on!) still doesn't have an occupancy permit. Our landlord is frantically trying to get it to pass inspection but it's not happening. Finally, the day before Zach is supposed to leave, we find out it hasn't passed and won't pass until at least Monday. As a result, Zach has to stay with friends and can't take the dog. Our landlord offers to pro-rate our rent for the days Zach can't stay there (but not for the rest of the month when we couldn't live there if we wanted to or not!). It finally passes on Monday, but is still a disaster area (still no doors on cabinets, etc and still a MESS!).
Zach comes back to Missouri to get me at the end of August after spending weeks pestering our landlord to get stuff DONE. He assures Zach that over the weekend we're gone he's going to get a bunch of stuff done. We arrive back (with the dog and cat in tow) to an apartment where NOTHING has changed since Zach left, he didn't do a thing.
Zach has continued to get after him about a variety of things. For every one thing he FINALLY fixes there are at least 5 more that need to be addressed. One problem we had was the horrid water pressure in the shower. It was literally a trickle. Zach told him about it and that we needed to fix it ASAP, our landlord went off on some whole thing about how the pipes were all new and that it should be fine...except it isn't!!! We talked about options and that it needed to be addressed NOW...it of course wasn't. I finally went to Home Depot and got a new $20 shower head that Zach put on to fix it. We told our landlord what we finally did and that if he wanted to reimburse us he could, if not we'll take it with us when we leave. He agreed to reimburse us.
After that conversation, Zach sends him an email with a reminder of the list of things that need to be fixed ASAP (btw, one of those is a window in the bathroom that won't close, and it's getting down in the 50s at night here). Also in that email he asks if we should deduct the days where Zach couldn't stay here and the showerhead from our rent or if he wants to give us cash. We get an email back stating that he didn't like how the showerhead thing was handled and that he didn't know there was a problem (which was a flat out lie). In addition, not being able to stay at the house for 2 days wasn't that big of an inconvenience to us and he really needed the money. This, of course, MASSIVELY hacked us off! Because of course it was a HUGE inconvenience and we were being really nice only expecting him to reimburse us for 2 days. We told him that, paid him the full rent and he gave us a check for the two days, we never got paid for the showerhead, so it will be going with us when we leave.
Fast forward to two days ago...we have continued to get after him to get stuff FIXED...NOW! We don't even have our own mailbox at this point! We get an email from him stating that there is a "dog waste problem" and that we need to only take Barks out in the backyard and clean up immediately and completely. He said our downstairs neighbor and "others" had complained. First off, we pick up after Barks DAILY, not necessarily every time (though we are now) but once a day without fail. Second, we fully believed our neighbors downstairs may have mentioned something (and we'll get to that in a minute) but NO ONE EVER walks by our house. We are out on walks twice a day and have NEVER seen anyone walk by. Thus, we fully believe the "other people" part is lie. Third, we can't take the dog down the back stairs to get to the backyard. For one thing they are WAY too steep, for another, they are COVERED with our landlord's crap! It's dangerous for us to walk down them!
In this email he also mentioned that he was going to 'finish' the stairwells this week and then he was "done" with the indoor renovations (keep in mind we still have a fairly long list of things that NEED to be fixed!) We emailed back and apologized for the poopy, but also mentioned we can't get down the stairs with all his stuff. We also reminded him of the giant list of things he still isn't done fixing.
Wednesday night, after this email exchange, we decided it would be a good idea to go down and take a 'peace offering' to our neighbors (cookies) and apologize for the poopy problem and to also encourage them to talk to us if there's an issue. We have had small conversations with them, but haven't really gotten to know them yet. We went down and got all our worst fears about our landlord completely confirmed.
Our downstairs neighbor is moving out November 1, and not by her choice. She moved into this place in March and has had VAST problems since she moved in with him fixing things including, but not limited to NONE of her windows opening all summer (and our places don't have A/C). She has a mouse problem caused by a gaping hole behind her fridge leading directly down into the dungeon of a basement. She had finally 'had it' this month and told our landlord that she will not be renewing her lease bc of all these problems. He asked to talk to her and, when they met, he said that he wanted to "end the relationship now instead of in March and that she should be out by November 1". This is a working woman who is living with and caring for her disabled mother, in addition to have 2-18 year old sons living with her! It was RIDICULOUS!!! She also informed us, as we talked about all the problems she's had, that our heating bills will be 2-3 times what we were quoted.
Zach spoke to our landlord again last night about all the stuff that needs to be finished and he assured us it'll be done "soon". He also got wind that we'd talked to our downstairs neighbor and he tried to get more info out of Zach what they said. He, of course, didn't tell them, which lead our landlord to lie and blame her "choice" to move all on her mother's disability (which their is some truth in as her mother can't get in or out of the clawfoot tub) but he mentioned nothing about basically kicking her out months early.
So there it is. We're in a year long lease, which doesn't end until August, stuck with a landlord who (in my opinion) lies and is completely useless. He has, in our opinion, gotten himself over his head financially and has no concept of how to be a landlord. I'm angry and heartbroken. Home is very important to me, having somewhere I feel is 'safe' and 'comfortable'.
I'm honestly not sure what to do...all I want is to leave this place and find a 'home' where I can be comfortable. I really just want him to kick us out too, so we can go find somewhere where we can be happy.
So that's the short (long) story of our current apartment woes...thus endeth my rant
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