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Renting Advice - Am I over-reacting?
Help!!
Currently we are renting a house because we were working on fixing up our credit for our first home purchase later on down the road. We are coming to the end of our year lease and I am a little, ok maybe A LOT concerned about what is going to happen since there has been.. some, bumps in the road so to speak.
Everything seemed ok, until our landlords decided they wanted to renovate a part of the house. This was not work we requested, nor was it essential to make the house safe and liveable. But, it's fine. It's their house, I understand that they can do what they want. They gave us a date their contractor wanted to come do the work. Well, that day was not good for us. My husband was scheduled to have 2 wisdom teeth removed in the morning and we weren't going to know the time of his appointment until the night before. I needed to have my parents take our dog, and I didn't want to have to take her to their house at 5:30 in the morning if his appointment was made for 6:45. So I explained that to the wife (we rent from a husband/wife) and that their contractor could come ANY other day.
I get a text message to the extent of this: This is the only day so and so can come and do the work, and it needs to be done. Your mom is going to have to take your dog. If this isn't an option then there is going to be changes to the lease because the lease says we be in the house anytime we want.
To me that sounded like a threat. So I bent over backwards and made sure that my dog was at my parents and our 2 cats were boarded for them to come do the work. (Which I was willing to do to begin with it was just with the added chaos with my husbands surgery) My husband was miserable, while this contractor was in the house from 8a-5p pounding, nailing, etc. He came home from his surgery and just wanted to relax but obviously, that was impossible. But again, we didn't say anything and just dealt with it.
Previous to this event, we had gone away for 1 week at the end of May. We came home to our bathroom light on. They had been in the house, I have no idea for what reason. I thought they had to at least TELL you if they were in the house. I feel like I have to hide my private things now.
The wife makes it very obvious to us that she is not happy that she can't just walk in the house anytime she wants because of the dog. Well, aren't they required to give notice? We have told them if they need in there to let us know 24 hours in advance and I can take our dog to my parents if we are not home.
Our year lease is up next month and it is supposed to just go to a month to month. I am in fear on a daily basis that they are going to give us a 30 day notice to quit when the lease is up, and/or try to make us sign a new lease with the changes she threatened me with. And the only changes I can think of would be for us to have to get rid of our dog and or all our pets. I've had my dog for 7 years, I rescued her from an abusive situation. She is very shy and scared and would end up being put down if I had to surrender her to a shelter.
I really don't know what to do. I feel like I am living in a prison right now, as there has been a few other things that have happened that was just basically her enforcing the fact that she does in deed own the house. (I wanted to plant flowers in a flower bed and she told me no she wanted to do it her way, but she never did it.) just one of the little things.
It's so hard to rent with a large dog, I am just not sure what to do.
Re: Renting Advice - Am I over-reacting?
I have no idea but as a landlord I would never do any of those things. The thing I find the weirdest is her being upset that she cannot enter the house anytime she wants without notice. If she wants to do this then she shouldn't rent it out. It should be spelled out in the lease. This is from the PA Law Help Tenants Rights brochure:
Entry of the Apartment by Landlord
When you rent an apartment, you are being granted a legal interest in the unit.
You should read your lease to find out how much notice your landlord must give you before entering to perform routine maintenance, show the apartment to prospective tenants, or inspect the unit. If the lease contains a provision that the landlord does not need to provide notice of entering the apartment, you might consider asking him to modify the provision. Oftentimes, leases will waive notice to enter for an emergency.
Here is the link to the whole brochure:
http://www.palawhelp.org/files/A50D42DC-FCAA-1883-E79C-9619DF2007FA/attachments/09ED582B-CC0A-3769-6A30-8C38F59DE086/4660712010-01-24%20-%20Tenant%20Guidebook%20FINAL.pdf
Personally, I would probably start looking for a new place to live because these people sound batty.
they do need to give notice before entering, usually 24 hours. but i'm not entirely sure that that needs to be confirmed. so if they left you a message and didn't hear otherwise, they can enter if they need to do something or tend to something.
if they want to make renovations, i believe that is up to them. it's courtesy to work something out that is amicable for both parties. i'm not sure why your husband wouldn't know his dentist appointment more than the night before (we've both had our wisdom teeth out, those appointments were set in advance more than just the night before, but, whatever). is it possible they felt some friction from you guys and felt like they needed to push back?
we just moved in to a new rental unit. the a/c died a few days later. the repair man said it needed to be replaced and when the landlady called she asked when would be good for us. we're flexible, so it didn't matter. however, we do understand that this is not our house and things like needing to be home from wisdom teeth surgery may not rank high on reasons not to have a contractor in the house.
that's the downside of going month to month-you only need to give the landlord 30 days notice but they also only need to give YOU 30 days notice. so you have to be prepared for that to also potentially happen and decide whether you feel it is worth it or not and whether or not you think they might do that because, let's face it, chances are you're only going to give 30 days notice when you leave.
it sounds like they need to be more accommodating. it also sounds like everyone needs to be a bit more adult like and communicate via the telephone and not via text messages.
and yes, it is their house. if they want to make renovations, they are welcome to it. there doesn't need to be a reason and it doesn't have to be just because it is fixing something that is broken or unlivable. it sounds like they may be making renovations so that they can increase the rent once you guys are gone.
I didnt understand the dentist thing either. They set him up the day then told him they would call the afternoon before with the time and it could be anywhere from 6:45-noon. His appt ended up being 10am.
I never said they couldnt make the renovations. I understand it is their house, but I have never had a landlord that refused to work with me. In fact in all my experiences they preferred you to be home because then they didn't run the risk of you saying "Hey I left $500 in cash on my table and now its gone!"
I don't think I deserved to be threatened. All I asked for was if another day was possible.
I thought that they had to let you know if they needed in your rental also, unless there is an emergency of some sort. Our management company has called maybe twice since we moved in 3 years ago after maintenance had already been in but that was because a pipe had burst in the apt. above ours..and some other reason that I can't remember.
I personally would look for another place to live. I know that it's not easy to rent when you have pets but the sooner you start looking the better off you will be. I've heard several people say that they have had luck with craigslist.
As for giving up your dog and a shelter putting her to sleep - I volunteer at Animal Rescue League and we would not put a dog down just for being shy. The dog people work very hard at rehabbing dogs.
Good luck!
I don't know about any of the legal stuff that deals with a rental situation, but the whole thing just sounds off to me. I would be completely weirded out if the landlord had been in my house for seemingly no reason, and without notice. That alone would bother me.
And FWIW, I have been in the same situation as your husband with the dentist...they often don't give you a scheduled time for procedures until the night before, so that's no weird to me at all.
I would start looking for alternate housing, it just doesn't sound like a good situation for you
Jake - 1.15.08
Liam - 5.17.11
I can sympathize with it being hard to find a rental with a large dog. When we sold our house, before buying land and starting our build we looked forever to find a rental. There are some apartment complexes that will accept large breeds, but I would have gone there as a last resort.
I agree with the others, I would start looking for a new place now. Those landlords sound too overbearing. My landlord always calls before he drops by, even if he is just planning to put some paperwork in between the storm door and the regular door.
Is she just big, or is she also on the typical breed restriction list? What area are you looking in?
She is a big dog, about 80lbs and tall.She's a Labrador, so not really a breed restricted type. But an apartment situation would be out for her, she wasn't in a good situation before I got her and she is really protective of her home. She barks like crazzzy when she hears voices in the yard (the LLs kids come over and play in the yard sometimes as they left their basketball hoop over here.. yeah another one of those weird things) so if she hears them outside she will bark. I know most dogs do that anyway, but I would really feel bad if it was disturbing someone else in the apartment building.
But good news! We decided to see if we could get approved for a mortgage and just buy our own home. We had been working on our credit for the last 2 years but never tried to see, A friend of mine gave me a number for a guy that would helps us and first look at our credit to see if it was really as bad as we thought. (I thought my student loans were going to cause us major grief but really they didn't)
So we are just gonna do this, we have been wanting a home and we have been really talking about it over the last few days. Going over numbers. We could actually pay less than we pay for rent, so then we could be able to save even more so if something needs fixed up we can do that. This guy went over everything with us, and we are more ready to buy than we thought.
This might have been a blessing in disguise as it kinda pushed us to see if this was something in the cards for us and it is. I think we just needed a reality check to pull the trigger and do it! LOL