I am having issues with my slumlord as well. You're in California aren't you?

Yup. But how long does my permission to enter last? I guess I'll be much more specific from now on.

Read your lease regarding landlord access, and if you feel your landlord has violated those terms, consider very carefully whether or not its worth complaining about or prosecuting--it's entirely possible you won't have your lease renewed if you complain too strongly. If your written lease has expired, and you're just on a month-to-month agreement, this becomes an even more important point.

I should have linked you right to this page. Sorry.

Thanks, goml, that's a good page to bookmark!

Wolfdaddy, so far this is the only time it's happened. I will be much more specific next time, and if it STILL happens then I'll get more up in arms. I don't care if they renew my lease or not- I'm not in love with the place, and have a stellar rental and credit record, so finding a new place is just annoying, not a disaster.

s_r, perhaps we should start looking for a house to share rent on, my landlord is about to get his ass handed to him. I have decided I can tell, talk to, ask him until I am blue in the face, I am reporting his ass to the Renter's Board.

go goml! tell us how it turns out!

Hmm, what is the difference between a mess on Tuesday and a mess yesterday? At least the electrician showed up! I agree with WolfDaddy, read your lease. Links like goml's only go so far if you signed away those rights up front. After all, tenants are not the only ones who read those websites.

It wasn't a mess on Tuesday- it was a mess on Thursday because I didn't figure anyone would be rooting around my apartment.

I intend to speak to him one last time today. So far this month I have had my garage door removed and not replaced, my bedroom window removed and a piece of drywall TAPED over the hole, my front door removed, replaced, but not finished, again with drywall TAPED over the hole where the side window used to be and a huge gap at the top of the door, my cat was trapped in a room behind a sheet of plastic ALL DAY while I was at work and the workers were there, there are about half a dozen holes in the wall where a new duct system is being put in, which is hanging from the ceiling with exposed wires and fiberglass shit hanging from the ceiling FOR DAYS NOW, not to mention NO NOTICE they are going to do work, he says I should just EXPECT that people will be coming in and out of my house for the next 90 days. I pay for a one car garage that I can't park in because A. there is a work station set up in there, and B. my driveway has been torn out, I had no water this afternoon when I was home for lunch, there is a constantly stagnant swimming pool, and a leaking/running commode in the pool bathroom which is attached to my kitchen, I had my exhaust fan above the stove removed and not replaced for no reason, I can't cook in the house because it stinks everything up and my furniture and clothes smell like food, Shall I continue? This is just the tip of the iceberg.

So much for a warranty of expressed/implied habitational condition.

I want to keep going, but you know what, I's gots me a blog.

He doesn't need it handed to him, he needs it thrown at him.

Did I say that?

Hmm, now, goml appears to have an honest-to-goodness problem.

What? You thought I was kidding when I said SLUMLORD?
The above comment I made is just what I could recall off the top of my head. This, and worse, has been going on since the first of March. I don't have any photos, except what it looked like before the "work" started, so I am very thankful for Vox, had I not been grumbling there I would have no record of what has been going on since the first of March. I wonder if INS would like to know the "work" is being performed by "illegals"?

I take that back, I didn't mean it. About the illegals, I mean. It isn't their fault my slumlord is an asshat.

Slumlord? Well yeah, I thought you were kidding, because a slumlord would not sink that much money into renovating a rental property; such actions are the antithesis of a slumlord. Although I do think you may have a bigger problem just over the horizon, all those improvements sound like someone getting ready to sell.

Don't be surprised if after the work is finished, you have real estate agents calling you during every waking hour. Read your lease about that, because you may have already agreed to maintain your living space to showroom standards at all times. In fact, you may have already agreed to own furnishings of a minimum standard of quality and the landlord can demand that you remove or replace any item that does not meet that standard. Further, you may want to reread the law from the very beginning, because a lot of tenants' rights go out the window once a property is listed as on the market.

I'm not trying to pick a fight here. I learned of all this when I owned a house with tenants (albeit in Georgia but that state has fairly strict tenants' rights laws as well). I was facing foreclosure and had put my property up for sale. The real estate agent clued me into all of this.

Oh yeah, a foreclosure and/or bankruptcy on the part of the landlord also negates many of a tenants' rights. Then the matter goes federal, especially if the lender is out of state, and any rights granted by the state are superseded by federal regulations.

If you think a landlord's lawyers are snakes, wait until you meet a landlord's real estate agent or a commercial bankruptcy judge.

He's NOT selling. I know that for a fact. A hard, fast, true fact. This home and property has been in his family for over 4 generations. They aren't selling it.

Part of the story is our neighbor hates my landlord, and alerted the county about his zoning violations, such as the missing retaining wall that came down in a small landslide 2 years ago that holds a 30K gallon swimming pool up, which is currently poised to flood the neighborhood during our next quake... then my landlord ignored it went and applied for a permit to remodel his own house and they wouldn't give him the permit until he brought my unit up to code.


I say SLUMLORD, because the ONLY reason he is doing any of this is because he was turned in to the county for zoning violations, and he is being fined everyday my unit is not up to code. I say SLUMLORD, because he is doing a SHITTY JOB, using cheap, crap material and having unlicensed contractor-type people doing the work.

Oops, I forgot about code violations. That carries its own burden on a tenant. Such are the perils of renting.

Also, in a sense he is not paying those fines, you are. He may not be able to write those fines off his taxes, but every other expense involved can be, and a good accountant can advise the best timing of paying those fines.

Sorry, I'm coming off as an asshole here and that is not my intent.