Dealing with Landlords

My girlfriend and I recently moved into our current apartment. It was, by far, more stressful than I had first anticipated. The fact that she had lived there for six years clearly demonstrate she had accumulated more than her fair share of things. From her three piece sofa to the rest of her furniture (i.e., bed, wardrobe, bookshelves, night stands, tv stand and any other assembled things she have) to her thousand of shoes, we didn't get enough boxes and time to pack.

You see, we started looking at the beginning of May to get "an idea" how much prices are in our area as well as "an idea" of what kind of an apartment we want this time around. Looking too soon is a major mistake because the landlords/owners don't want their apartments vacant and therefore wants you moved in either on the 1st or the 15th of the month. If your lease is not up then you are surely to lose your deposit. We then stopped looking altogether and agreed to start looking towards the end of July. At least that gives us at least over a month before we had to officially move out.

We found some wonderful places and some okay looking apartments. They may be nice but simply out of our price range or far from the train station. Finally, one day, while checking out craigslist.org, we found a listing for an apartment in our favorite building. Each apartment has a working fireplace and if lucky, a nice terrace. In this case, it had both but when we met up with the realtor, which my girlfriend was adamant about not using since she refuses to pay finder's fees. Anyway, we went to see the apartment and it was more than we imagined but simply too small. Rich, the realtor, told us that he has several apartments available with lesser rent and bigger spaces. We took him up on his offer and set out to check out these places. To our surprise, he was telling us the truth so we agreed to view more apartments. With that said, we found one that we extremely fell in love with and had the perfect layout.

Luckily, for us, we found out that we landed ourselves a rent stabilized apartment but unfortunately, we had to wait a few extra days to find out the "new" rent price since they renovated the entire kitchen and did some minor fix-up in the bathroom. When we found out that we had the apartment, they wouldn't allow us to move in sooner than the 1st. Sadly, we found out during this time period that my girlfriend's grandfather passed away so between the packing, we were attending to relatives who came from afar, to helping out her relatives with some funeral arrangements and being there during the wake and funeral. What made it more difficult is the non-understand current landlord who was being a real piece of work by not being sympathic at all! He inquired when our departure was and if we plan to leave a few days earlier than the 31st. He wanted to paint the entire place for the new tenants and took no consideration to us. What made us mad is that when my girlfriend moved in, he did absolutely nothing to the place. The former tenant moved out either that day so that left no time for the landlord to clean the carpet and do any other minor repairs or fix up.

The fact that she thought the place was cleaned was too late to do anything. She had already taken her things from storage and moved everything into the apartment. Too little too late to do anything. Now, after moving out, we found out that the old landlord is demanding $1000 to pay for a new carpet. Is this guy for real?!?!?! After 6 years, I think everyone would expect some wear and tear. The funny thing is the carpet should have been replaced and cleaned before she first moved in! The carpet is basically the kind you find at those office buildings that don't want to spent too much on any kind of expenses. You would imagine that he would be excited for us to leave so he can jack up the rent. Even the new rent was more than reasonable but for some reason, he didn't want us to leave. He had spoken to us about negotiating the new rent but we knew it was time to leave. Come on, she had lived there for six years!!!

A few weeks later, he even suggested taking his other apartment which was across the hall for our apartment. But we flat out declined his offer and told him, once again, we were leaving. We made every attempt to avoid him so we don't have to hear him trying to convince us to stay. He made our lives more difficult as the time came closer to move out. Now, we came up with that flimsy excuse that we messed up his carpet and in demand of $1000 in damages!!! Absolutely absurd!!!

I told my girlfriend that he has a thing for her so he's making both our lives miserable! And now that we've moved out, we still can't get rid of him. Wouldn't you imagine that the landlord would be pleased that we left so he can make some money on his place?