The Joy of Landlords

2005-10-28 10:34 - Rants

Okay first a little background: I got new upstairs neighbors in June. Yeah, some four or five months ago depending how you count. They're noisy. Nothing "unreasonable" on the surface, generally footsteps and shifting chairs and routine things. But, they do it in a consistently loud way, and they have no carpeting anywhere to muffle it. There was nothing like this for the first 21 months I lived in this apartment. So I complained in person, a few times a week, for two weeks or so. One day, they were noisy, I knew they were there, but they didn't even answer the door. I had had enough, so I started writing a letter. Hours later the husband shows up at my door complaining that I am scaring his wife when she is home alone. At that point my response is that if they quit making so much noise, I'll gladly quit complaining.

That day was June 26th, I wrote that letter and delivered it by hand to the neighbors and the super. Then it took days to get the exact address of my landlord but I sent it to him via certified mail on the 29th. At the end of August, it was returned to me. Their phone was disconnected, and the super funneled me to his grandson. I did a reverse lookup on the address and got the phone of the son ... or his medical practice. I tried and tried to contact them to let them know I was unhappy, and got nowhere. The best was "I'll talk to them," or "Yeah yeah, it's ok." So towards the beginning of October I contacted an attorney and they wrote up an official letter for me, and suddenly the landlord is ready to talk. He shows up, and this time he's smart enough to bring his grandson as an interpereter, because he doesn't speak english.

That was last night. It started off rather well, all things considered. They weren't terribly helpful, they refused to take any action against the neighbors I'm complaining about, refused to make them install carpeting. But they did offer to let me move to the top (fourth) floor so there would be noone above me. Of course evil thoughts of being above those people who are above me now and giving them a taste of their own medicine filtered in for a moment, but in all reality, I'm not schlepping up an extra two flights, going through carrying all that, re-setting-up phone and internet and tv and so on. But like I said, at least they're being civil, and they offered me something.

Well, I said I'd think about their offer and they left. A few minutes later, the grandson is back at my door. Apparently the woman from upstairs has just gotten back. She's in the lobby talking with the landlord, and she's claiming that I'm a psycho who has been banging on her door and screaming and so forth every two days for the past few months. Like I said above, I did complain in person, but in a civil manner. And that stopped back on June 26th when I was clearly getting nowhere with it. Five minutes ago, the landlord liked me and I was a good tenant who always paid rent on time, and now the landlord hates me, and does not want to renew my lease. The grandson left saying he would talk to him for me.

So where does that leave me? A drawn out expensive legal battle? Towards what end, either staying in an apartment with a landlord that dislikes me and probably still with noisy neighbors? Sigh.

Update: So it's the next day (Friday) and as I get home, again there is the landlord and grandson, seem to be signing some papers with someone else. And guess what, they're happy to let me stay again. Sheesh.


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