Bad Landlords are the pits.
We're about to move out of our apartment and into the house we just bought, but we're haggling with the landlord.
When we moved in, the option to use his table and chairs, waterbed, and other bits and pieces seemed appealing. It is, after all, a penthouse apartment without an elevator. Who know he was such a jerk back then. I have to admit I had my suspicions, but we put our fears aside out of sheer laziness. The storage was free.
Too bad he won't give us back our stuff.
It's not the best quality stuff, or even an entire household full of stuff, but it is OUR stuff. A carved oak dining table with 3 leaves and 8 chairs, a queen bed with frame, a sturdy dovetaled dresser, a computer chair, and a coffee table and end tables (that I've missed from the day they went into storage). All in all we estimate it's around $1500 of stuff, although it might even be worth more than that here. Boston's expensive.
We didn't respond to the apartment's housing association when they requested our rent money. Our landlord hadn't paid dues in 8 months and, by law, the association can ask us to pay them in lieu of dues and our landlord can't come after us. That was back in December. Sooo, our last month's rent check went to the housing association...
Which generated a nasty gram from the landlord. He wants us out in two weeks because our house is too "cluttered" to show to new tenants.
Um...I've seen some cluttered apartments before. I've seen some apartments I was embarrassed to see before. While we do have a snowboard in the vestibule and a box of kindling by the fireplace, it's really not too cluttered. There are no pairs of dirty underware on the bathroom floor. The dishes are clean and put away or in the drying rack. Even the few boxes that I have packed are stacked neatly in the corner.
We've been debating taking his furniture with us. It would be a fair trade after all. We only put into storage that which was present in the house already. But we don't want any more headaches. That and his stuff, while nice, isn't anything I would buy on my own. We want our stuff or the money for our stuff. The waterbed was tempting, but, on second thought, we'd rather have a new mattress. The heater doesn't seem to work right anyway.
Since two other people are suing our landlord for keeping their deposits and failing to reimburse them for moving out early, we're expecting more difficulty. I will just be so glad when this whole ordeal is over. Either way in April, thank goodness, at least we'll be under our own roof.
2 comments:
We never had that kind of bad experience, but I always hated renting too. You always had to be so careful to preserve the crap lighting/appliances/flooring that they put in there. Though I think we did leave our last apartment with a programmable thermostat, some new ceiling lights (in a style that looked "residential" instead of "institutional"), and carpet that was cleaner than when we moved in.
Kind of scary that you have furniture in storage and don't have access to it. Ick! Good luck getting your things back and with the move and settling with the landlord.
Thanks,
We've about given up on the actual furniture. Truth be told, we're not even sure he's still got the stuff. I wish you could see our rental and you'd see why we put up with him for so long. We're really going to miss this place, even if we don't miss our landlord.
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