Posted by Shlanny on 6/17/2009, 3:05 pm
Hi,
My roommates and I have been having a major problem with our landlord for the three years we have been living in her unit. She recently came by for a "surprise visit" and screamed at us for keeping the house messy (trust me she is overexaggerating, we clean the house well at least once a week) We have two rabbits which we had rescued from abandonment a few months ago, and she told us that we have to get rid of them within three days or else we would be fined 5 thousand dollars because she is allergic (Although she owns a dog herself). The contract says no dogs or cats and we thought that according to the landlord tenant rules landlords are not allowed to tell us otherwise. Plus, our neighbours have a cat and another has a rabbit (and they live within the same house). The neighbours upstairs seem to always get special treatment and the landlord always seems to pick on us because we live in the cheapest unit. And this is only the beginning...
She has overcharged me with NFS fees because she mistakenly deposited a postdated cheque before the date eventhough I had told her prior to handing it to her. She has also threatened us saying she would charge for pest control, eventhough I have pictures of dead cockroaches and mice droppings in our pantry from when we first walked into the house.
She is very quick to tell us of complaints our neighbours have but don't seem to do anything when it comes to complaints we have. For example, while I was studying for my MCATs, our neighbours used to throw parties that lasted late into the night (think 5 am at sometimes). I asked her if she could somehow help with the amount of sound travelling from their living room to my bedroom and she only kept saying she was trying to get them to buy a carpet. I recently went to their unit (because we are friends) and lo and behold...there is still no carpet after two years.
When we first moved in, I took pictures of the house to make sure that they wouldn't charge us for damages that were already there. Think water damage, (parts with mold) A huge chunk of missing tile in my closet which opened in to a dirt hole, loose pantry doors (which nearly fell on my head when I opened them), cracks in the ceiling or walls which we had told the landlord but she didn't fix (although I think the crack in the closet miraculously disappeared and I think these things should have been fixed prior to us moving in anyways)
Her handyman is quite rude as well and has been verbally agressive to me a few times. One instance where he didn't even bother to say hello when I opened the door, and as we went down the stairs to my unit started ranting and raving about why the windows were open, why our house smelled bad, why it was dirty, etc, and proceeded to do a full inspection of the house, getting really angry that my roommate's bathroom was dirty (they were not home) so I told him to look at mine and he had nothing to say. However, he came back later that day without notice and thought it would be pertinent to hand us another copy of contract with highlighted portions for areas he thought we werent doing right.
The landlord also badmouths my roommates to me and vice versa. She told my roommate that I was emotionally, psychologically unstable and to me has stated many things about my roommates and even about one of their mom's which I really don't think is professional or necessary. She has yelled or lectured us many times over exaggerated or petty things, and when we get upset because she did something wrong, she tells us she "doesn't need to be lectured" and quickly hangs up. She also told me that the reason why she allowed us to take the unit was because we were of asian descent, which I didn't think was appropriate to hear. She has also come into our unit many times and lectured us about how we keep the place, much like an annoying extra mother who has no right to persistantly tell us what to do.
We have lost the energy or patience to deal with this whole matter by taking her to court and what not, but I was wondering if there are other options and if there are exceptions for the pets in my home. We are only living in the unit for another month and then we will never have to see her again. My roommate is very upset and really wants to tell her off when we move out, but I think that that may elevate the problem. Is there anything we can tell her so that she can get off our case and let us live peacefully for the next month?
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