Having rented apartments of various types over the past 50 years, I would like to share some suggestions about renting. You can get yourself into a mess with the landlord if you break your lease. Leases can be full of tricky little items concerning litter, pets, payment dates and repairs.
Rule No. 1 Do: Do read your lease, if one is offered. If no lease is offered, your deal with the landlord is defined by the laws of your community. Check with the city, state or county that you live in. Various legal organizations offer quick access to these laws on the internet.
We all know that if you want to get the landlord’s attention quickly, all you have to do is stop paying the rent! Rule No. 2 Don’t: Do not stop paying the rent! In most states, if you stop paying the rent, you will be the monster and the landlord will be the saint. There’s a whole process to demanding repairs. You have to call your landlord and explain that you need repairs. If no repair is made, most states require that you explain your repair needs in a letter to the landlord sent by certified-mail. This letter becomes proof that you made a formal request. If repairs aren’t made within a “reasonable time,” call the health, fire or housing department to make government experts aware. If you still can’t get repairs, get an attorney so you can withhold your rent by putting it into an “escrow” bank account. Can you afford an attorney? If not, there’s something else you can do. Do keep reading!
Rule No. 3 Do: Do try to stay on speaking terms with your landlord. Even if it is by phone, email, or regular-mail letter. A word rarely used in our society by working people is the term “negotiate.” When it comes to landlords, you can push back and forth, negotiate a little better deal for yourself. After you agree to some deal, be sure to write it down and send it to the landlord in a letter or email stating, “If I do not receive a response from you by [certain date], I will assume that you agree with our discussion as written here.”
Rule No. 4 Do: Do speak with, be friendly to and wave “hi” to your fellow renters (tenants). After all, you share a community of interest. You all live in the same building, apartment complex, high-rise etc. Staying in good with your neighbors gives you an opportunity to learn what others are experiencing. Communication is your most powerful defense. Do it!
Rule No. 5 Don’t: Do not find fault with your neighbors because they do something that is not allowed. If they break the lease, it is the landlord’s problem, not yours. Unless their behavior creates a life-threatening event, then you may need to report it to the landlord, the fire or health department or the police.
Rule No. 6 Do: Create a tenant association. In the event that something goes wrong—and that could be anything from a busted water pipe, to a shoot-out in the hall way, you and your fellow renters can create a tenant action group and together contact the landlord for a settlement of your concerns. There is power and safety in numbers! The more tenants you get to join your association the stronger you will be in dealing with the landlord. This is an alternative to hiring an expensive attorney and going to court.
If you would like to experience renter/tenant organizing, read my novel, based on my experience with the New Jersey Tenants Organization. My novel, Mystery of Quercus Gardens, lets you walk through an organizing drive to see what some of the pit-falls are and what you need to Do!
I was a renter in apartments and rooms in about 20 locations until I was about 27 and bought a small cottage for $27,000. I don't recall any landlord who complained about me except one after I dropped a coffee maker pin into the garbage disposal, and then within a month, my car, on a slight slope, broke loose from its emergency brake when it cooled and rolled into the side of the apartment building making a foot-long gouge in the stucco. When I applied for a security clearance I had to list about 20 residences and if I had any bad record they may not have given me the clearance that I got.
I was a land manager for a university and have been a landlord myself because the tax law is so favorable toward landlords. I have evicted people, some who deserved it and behaved criminally, and some who were just out of money and had no way of getting any. It hurt me to evict for women with children from roach infested university property with no air conditioning. Fortunately, we were able to refer them to social services that could help them move on. One woman that I evicted over 10 years ago for nonpayment of rent, recently came by my partner's shop. She remarried and stabilize her life for her and her daughters quite well.
Ron