tenant problem
I own a 3 family which I also live in. One of my tenants decided that he wanted to paint his apartment and bought paint last winter. He later asked me to help him paint and I painted his bedroom. Now he has decided that I must paint his entire aprtment and has become hostile…
I own a 3 family which I also live in. One of my tenants decided that he wanted to paint his apartment and bought paint last winter. He later asked me to help him paint and I painted his bedroom.
Now he has decided that I must paint his entire aprtment and has become hostile and aggressive, ,barraging me with nasty emails and phone calls. I have told him that I will paint his apartment, on my own schedule, and have not made any promises. Today he paid his rent, a week late, and deducted 220.00 for the paint he bought. He provided me with a credit card receipt from a paint store, with the total of his purchase, but not an itemized receipt. Is it legal for him to do this? I want to return his rent check and tell him I will reimburse him for the paint,separately from his rent when he gives me an itemized receipt and that he cannot deduct anything from his rent. Is it okay for me to do that? In 12 years, I have never had a tenant like this and am not sure how to handle the situation.
Then, if you don’t mind my asking- just what was your post at 10:35?
However I do assume that, judging from your earlier and informative posts you certainly aren’t the obnoxious idiot who posted at 11:35- and didn’t we hear from you, 11:35 on the dog walker thread? After reading what you wrote, I’m really curious what people skills you actually think you have.
I just can’t believe how someone can ask for information or suggestions and get personally ripped by every scenario writing aggro-poster who simply can’t be bothered to read what the woman actually wrote.
What reasonable, non-conflict-seeking landlords do:
1. Paint an apartment that needs it BEFORE the tenants move in.
2. Buy your supplies for things (like paining your apartments) yourself. Have the work done yourself – don’t make your tenants do it / don’t allow them to do it.
3. Understand that there is never such a thing as “just one mouse.” Ever.
4. Give your tenants a lease. Don’t refuse to give a lease and have them be month to month tenants. If you want them to move out at the end of a lease and don’t want to renew, let them know in advance so they can find another place and move out by the end of the lease. Refusing to renew and going month to month is just asking for conflict.
5. Don’t raise the rent in large increments at one time – a smaller amount each year is better.
6. Understand that your health problems don’t really change the contract you have made.
7. Understand that providing decent accomodations (paint when walls are dirty, not just after paint has chipped and peeled) for the rent you charge, especially when market rate, is just good business sense. Do what you can to keep the place looking good, and upgrade things the the apartment periodically.
8. If you paint when the tenant lives there, hire it done – so it is done quickly in 1 or 2 days – don’t paint it piecemeal yourself on your own schedule. Get the work done and get out so the tenant can enjoy their home.
9. Don’t act like you are somehow better than your tenants because you don’t have to work for a living.
All common sense, really. If you lack it as a landlord, recognize that you are responsible for much of the conflict in your life.
If you don’t possess any of the skills to be a landlord, you shouldn’t be one. Period. You only get into stuff like this with tenants because you are in control of a big part of their lives, their home – and it is their home even if you own the building – and you can’t keep your tenants happy. It’s just like any client/customer management, really. Some people skills and clear communication are necessary, or you just end up in endless conflict. (Some poeple like the drama of that…”poor little me.”
I have developed the needed skills through my jobs, but I have learned enough to never want to be a landlord in a small building I live in – too much potential for conflict. I can’t ever imagine being a sorry sort complaining online that I don’t know what to do with my angry tenant (whose rent I just raised $350), with my medical ailments thrown in to make me look weak. Later, it appears OP knows exactly how to get rid of tenants, and has experience doing it. Doesn’t know what to do in this situation indeed…just wants anonymous support online for her lousy management of her building.
My “trolling” contributions were made at 1:50 and 3:11 yesterday, and I didn’t have to dismiss the input of others posters in order to add my own thoughts.
10:35- then by your lights we can assume you’re simply a troll with nothing useful to add to the thread. Just my assumption because assumptions make the world go ’round.
Ever notice how much assuming is done by the same people complaining about assumers, and how much complaining is done by the same people complaining about complainers? And ever notice how the world runs on assumptions (which, btw, becomes a useful way to dismiss interpretations that don’t match yours).
“FWIW, I think that there is a bias on Brownstoner that equates “good landlord” with “good person..” I don’t think this bias makes sense. ”
Did you mean “bad” person? Otherwise I’m not sure which point you were making.
I don’t think you can be held liable for bad communication skills, Flora, or with being ambiguous. In fact I think its a stretch for anyone to assume much about anyone’s character just by reading posts but if the dog walker thread was any indication, brownstoner is filled with “assumers”.
Your tenant indulged in a typically manipulative move, with little to no understanding of his own legal position. He does seem well equipped with a sense of entitlement tho’. But some people can take one word and extrapolate it into an entire fantasy world- bottom line- he didn’t ask you to paint, he told you he wanted to paint and asked for your ok. That’s a major difference.
The other point is that you did not refuse to paint, but that it would be put into your schedule. No tenant in their right mind expects that for a non-emergency issue it would be done on demand. Within a reasonable amount of time, sure. But not on the tenant’s time frame.
I am wondering when you notified him the rent was going up? 350$ is a big jump- did he start getting hostile after that? certainly doesn’t justify his behavior but he seems so angry at you and it doesn’t seem likely a break up with his girlfriend would be the reason. maybe he’s feeling the increase in rent entitles him to paint- be that as it may, he still doesn’t have a leg to stand on and threatening anyone, especially in a letter or an email so that you can prove in court his behavior, is a truly idiotic thing to do.
Hey 1:22, get your anonymous pussy self off Flora’s back–especially about being an artist! Not only are you attacking anonymously, which is weak, but your post is full of stereotypes that are not substantiated in the actual posts! I don’t see anything here that suggests she likes what’s going on.
Hiring a mgmt company is an efficient way to handle the problem going forward so that you can focus on what you need to do. Just based on the way the facts have evolved over time in this post, there you do sound like someone who leaves things unsaid, and who doesn’t mind ambiguity. These are common and *positive* traits in an artist. But it leads to conflict in this specific kind of situation. You shouldn’t have to change yourself. Good for you for hiring a mgmt company, so that you don’t have to deal with it.
FWIW, I think that there is a bias on Brownstoner that equates “good landlord” with “good person.” I don’t think this bias makes sense. Being a landlord is not easy–it’s a specific and paradoxical set of skills and tasks that I do not think of as intuitive.
I wish people would stop assuming that anyone who’s having a hard time being a landlord is defective.
You raised his rent $350 per month, so he responded by insisting you finish painting the place, and you refused. Who sounds unreasonable here?