I will preface this by saying our landlord’s favorite words to use are, “Every homeowner knows you are supposed to do ___________”, and “This isn’t corporate, this is a mom and pop operation”, which he chooses to remind me of nearly every time he is here. The problem is … we don’t own this house, and have very little say in what goes on. I’ll give some background on how he is “difficult”, if you want to skip to the TL;DR for the main issue.
When we moved in we were told that we would not be dealing with “Steve” (Landlord), and any issue was to be brought to their friend who lived nearby who would handle whatever came up. We found out very shortly that this was not the case at all.
Prior to this I lived in an apartment complex for 10 years, and if you had a problem you’d call it in, they’d come either same day or next and fix whatever the issue was whether it be a refrigerator, a water heater, or even light bulbs. They were very accommodating and there was very little “relationship” as you would expect from a corporate run apartment complex.
ONE month after moving in we faced a multitude of problems with this house, which is the first house I’ve ever rented. The walls in the bathroom started bubbling. I made the mistake of calling “Steve” directly because I was extremely afraid of water damage. Long story short, the bathroom had a pipe leaking and the bathroom was under construction for almost 4 months, and had to be completely gutted. I negotiated a discount in rent for loss of 1 of 2 bathrooms in the house.
Then the microwave stopped working. He told us to seek out a spare microwave from a friend or family member until he could drive from 8 hours away to replace the microwave, and do “other stuff”.
Why he chose to drive 400 miles and rent a hotel room to have a microwave installed is beyond me. I told him I would go buy a cheap microwave we could use until he could replace the one mounted in the cabinets because a microwave is something we use daily. He objected to this, called it waste of money, and this was a “mom and pop” operation that couldn’t afford that, and to track someone down who had a spare. He then told us again to wait until he could drive down in a few weeks to replace it. I told him “No we will not wait months like we did with the bathroom to get it repaired”. He said I was being rude and abrasive and I was compensated for the loss of the bathroom so I shouldn’t be bringing that up. I got him to agree to drive down and replace the microwave in 10 days.
Then the pipes in the repaired bathroom kept getting clogged and a plumber has been out multiple times to unclog it.
Then the stove stopped working, same deal, wait weeks for him to drive down and fix it along with “other stuff”.
Other stuff includes adding paint to the repaired bathroom cabinetry, trimming the large bushes in our backyard, adding nails here and there, and then generally pestering me about things like adding a couple staples to hang lights in the backyard, complaining about hanging pictures in the house, complaining about not picking up the dog poop frequently enough, complaining about not watering enough (California drought), complaining about having my brother stay with us temporarily because he has nowhere to live, complaining that the only reason the bathroom is getting clogged is because the over-usage of the bathroom due to having a 3rd person in a 4 bedroom house.
While he is here he requires that we allow him into the house for 3-4 days at a time, alone, to fix whatever needed to be fixed including “other things”. Privacy wise, this absolutely sucks having your landlord in your house all day with your dogs assumingly snooping through your shit. We have nothing to hide but it’s still very uncomfortable every time we have an issue we know he’s going to be here for a week in our house.
TL;DR
The last time he was out here I told him a sprinkler was broken and I had to turn off that area because it was shooting water at cars in the street. He said he would fix it, which he then after 3 days said he didn’t have time to fix it, to which I told him, “Ok I can see if I can get my buddy to fix it for me, he maintains his whole yard so he should be able to fix it.”
The problem is, we pay for everything in this house utility wise EXCEPT THE LANDSCAPER.
Per: USE AND OCCUPANCY – Resident shall pay for all utilities, services and charges, if any, except: “GARDENER”.
I was unable to fix the sprinkler that he knew about and the next time he was out he basically told me that I killed a large bush (like a 15FT by 5FT hedge) because I “chose” to turn the sprinklers off and it was going to cost ME “big money” to have it replaced because I killed it.
The problem is, WE HAVE A FREAKING LANDSCAPER! But, our landlord is so cheap, hence driving 400 miles to fix things, instead of paying someone to do it, that our landscaper doesn’t speak a lick of English and is only reachable by letter. So yes I did turn the sprinklers off, because the sprinkler was broken, but it shouldn’t have been up to me to replace the sprinkler watering the hedge (which I ended up doing myself anyways). After a year of living here, come to find out, our landscaper isn’t a landscaper or gardener or anything he’s just a dude that mows the lawn every other week.
So in addition to replacing the sprinkler, I’ve replaced all the sprinklers in the backyard as well because ALL of the backyard sprinklers, including the control weren’t working to some degree (again not my responsibility but I’d like to have a nice place to live), to which I was offered no compensation, but the backyard was something he complained about, and made me feel responsible for, because the grass was in poor shape, mainly because of gophers, additionally because the sprinklers were all broken, or not adjusted properly.
To me I feel like I am not responsible for ANYTHING on the outside of the house. If there is an issue, our gardener should be bringing it to our attention, and should be fixing it, but because he is anything BUT a gardener he pays no attention to anything but mowing the lawn. He doesn’t care for the sprinklers, or the flowers, or the bushes or trees, or hedge, or anything he just cuts grass. I feel like we were misled and I’m being cornered/bullied into responsibility for these things. Am I legally responsible to replace this “hedge” that I apparently killed? What about the rest of the property? We moved in here because we came from an apartment and didn’t know how to care for the lawn, bushes, or flowers, and having a gardener included was a huge motivator in moving here in the first place.
Submitted January 04, 2016 at 05:19AM by exindust http://ift.tt/1ZJdo9z legaladvice
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