My DH disagrees with me on this so I’ll post here to see what you all think. We have been in our rental for 4 years now and it’s a pretty old house so we’ve always had bug issues and the roof has leaked for a while. Every storm I tell the landlord that the roof still leaks and he comes to put roof tar to try to patch it. It works for a little bit but eventually starts leaking again. This has happened several times. Finally he got a clue that the roof needs to be replaced altogether. Yesterday and today the roofers are here working. The existing roof had zero insulation and it’s a peaked roof so roof bits and dirt fell through the cracks and my entire house wa covered in a thin layer of particles. I spent all day yesterday vacuuming and will have to do it again today after the job is done. We haven’t been able to use our house so we’ve been posted up in the hallway because it’s the only spot with a normal ceiling. Oh and on top of that I’ve got a 4 year old and an 8 month old who are both sick. I think we should be compensated for the inconvenience and cleaning of the mess but my DH says just let it go. Thoughts?
You might also enjoy...
-
If there were repairs for any rentals I was in I wouldn’t expect compensation unless it was required that I be out of the residence for 24 hours and then needed to buy food or shelter outside of my house. It’s a crappy situation for you, but I don’t think there is much they could provide you with? I mean I guess you could either ask or mention about your current situation and how much of a hassle and inconvenience it is and see what happens. It also depends on what kind of landlord you have.
-
I wouldn’t expect compensation unless the house was not livable. The bonus of renting is that you didn’t need to pay for the repairs. If you owned the house you’d have to pay the repairs and manage the cleaning.
-
I would not expect anything. However, I’m sorry your having a rough few days - hope it’s smooth sailing from here!
-
@kiddosc: that’s the thing though, it’s not livable except the hallway where all four of us have been crouched for 5 hours. There’s just dirt and dust falling everywhere else. If I had known it would be like this, I would have insisted on a hotel.
-
It’s the landlord’s right to keep up their property, but under a standard rental agreement, you should have “special circumstances” rights, too, in this case. It might be an uphill battle (filling in the blanks from how you described your landlord), but I would look into rental rights in your jurisdiction. It’s a little late to get into whether you had proper notice, whether the house is truly habitable or not and if your right to quiet enjoyment of your rental has been violated or not. It might all be a gray area, but you could approach your landlord with actual rental rights concerns and see where that goes. Approach it as a negotiation and request what you feel is fair.
It sounds like the house might not be habitable if you are truly living in a small portion of it, have air quality issues and lots of things dropping from above. I know that I would be hyper-concerned about that if I had an infant/young toddler especially and one of us SAH’d.
ETA: Not an attorney btw.
Maybe one with expertise will weigh in.
-
Did you communicate with your landlord about the falling ceiling bits? Was the landlord inside your place during construction?
I used to rent out a house I owned before marriage and I do think it’s the landlords responsibility to clean after reno or repair, and what you are describing to me is borderline unlivable conditions. You should also be aware that he can write off all those expenses against his rental income at tax time, so there’s no reason for him NOT to keep a dependable renter happy with a small gesture like a $140 cleaner or a $140 1 night stay in a clean but lower end hotel.
I had a massive issue with our rental property and we had missed rental income for 8 weeks plus 15k in major repairs after a serious water leak that me tenant DIDNT tell me about. The fact that your landlord even knows and gets to save his house from serious water damage is a plus for him and he should suck up the other expenses, then wrote it off on his taxes at the end of the year. We wrote off everything we possibly could, so barely ever showed any income at all each year, but had someone else paying my mortgage and adding to my equity. When I sold, I still came out 40k on top, despite the 15k in repairs—from all the years of renter equity.
But you need to be communicating nearly and often about everything—inviting the landlord over the show him. Unless he sucks, he’ll be interested in protecting his investment.
-
@Anagram: He only gave us a few days notice for the roof and texted me the night before that there would be dirt falling. Our neighbor just had her roof done by the same company and she assured me it was only a little dirt. I initially said let’s reschedule due to the fact that my girls are both sick with 102 fevers. The roofer called and said it will be a quick job, 3 hours total, so I reluctantly agreed. Fast forward, it took around 7 hours and the roofer did not come in to clean like he had originally promised. I was trying to sooth my screaming baby and before I knew it they were gone, and left behind tire tracks in the front yard. The landlord asked how it was inside and my husband told him there was a lot of dirt but we didn’t realize the extent until he left. I will be sending pictures and trying to negotiate a lower rent for this month. I’m just so frustrated.
-
@Anagram: and no, for some reason he doesn’t seem too interested in protecting his investment. He has always done all the shoddy repairs himself. And I’ve always invited him over or texted pictures of any issues. There is also a language barrier so that doesn’t help.
-
That’s tough. I feel like I could side either way. What’s “livable” is also very different for different people. Take pictures and explain the situation to the landlord. It can’t hurt to ask for some compensation. Perhaps demand a cleaner too.
But I’d also not be surprised if the landlord says no. Unless you want to take him to court, I’d probably just move on. -
It totally stinks and I'm sorry you all are dealing with it, but I'd also try to see it from your landlord's perspective. We replaced a couple years ago and it's not cheap--probably between 10 and 15k. He's already dealing with that cost, so I'd let it go. It's an inconvenience whether you are a renter or an owner (we stayed out of the house and cleaned afterwards--I've actually never heard of a roofer cleaning the interior). It's also a major hassle to deal with scheduling and rescheduling because of weather and the tight schedules of the roofers. Once you have an appointment, you keep it. Legally, maybe you have an argument but I'd just write it off as a crummy situation and move on.
-
I would say the roofer is more at fault for how this went. But since the landlord is ultimately responsible for the people they hire and the resulting living conditions, I would let him know how unhappy I was with roofer and that you don’t have time to address the unreasonable mess that was left there.
I think if they are reasonable, you will be compensated for a cleaner, they will send the roofer back to clean, or they will reduce rent since you had to clean up after the roofer extensively.
If they aren’t reasonable, you may get nothing.
I’d say my overall thought is if you just roll over, they may take advantage again in the future. We had a similar situation. We had to be out of the house “for the afternoon” for a repair, while caring for an infant, toddler, and dog. My husband, with his background in architecture, knew it was BS and booked us a hotel. We ended up being in the hotel for two and a half days, and when we returned, they hadn’t cleaned like they were supposed to. They got muddy footprints on the carpet and left bangs on the wall. We told the landlord, but they didn’t do anything, and we didn’t press. When we moved out, they tried to take $1000 of our security deposit for the prints on the carpet and the bangs on the wall. I had to threaten legal action and mention my picture evidence to get it back.
-
I’m a real estate attorney. Whether you have any rights to compensation depend entirely on your lease. However, even if your lease doesn’t say anything, you certainly can still ask for the landlord to rectify the situation and/or compensate you. I would reach out and tell him that a layer of particles is covering your entire place and as a result you will need to have the place professionally cleaned. (There may be langauage in your lease regarding the landlord’s standard of care in their maintenance obligations.). If this extends beyond a day or two, it’s also worth an ask that they put you up in a hotel. At the very least, it might cause him to tell the service provider to take precautions so as to minimize the effect on you (placing plastic tarping, cleaning up after themselves, etc). It’s entirely possible your landlord has no clue.
-
We own a condo that we rent so I just asked DH what he would do, as the owner. He said maybe he would put the renter up in a hotel for the night. Do you have a regular cleaner you use? If so, I wonder if you could suggest the landlord pay for an extra cleaning to make up for the extra mess. Otherwise, not sure how much they are likely to do. It does sound the roofers were at least partly responsible anyway.
That really really sucks though. When it took longer to get a new oven in our condo, so our renter couldn’t cook for a week aside from toaster oven or microwave, I think DH brought him a nice bottle of wine when he oversaw the installation of the oven.
-
@Foodnerd81: Yes the roofers did not express the extent of the mess, if they would have, I would definitely have covered everything more thoroughly. That is, if I had time. Really we only had a couple of hours to prepare everything.
@Shantuck: Thanks for your input. The landlord definitely knew what at least part of the house looked like. He walked through after and sheepishly asked if it was “okay inside.” I sent him a text explaining how long it took me to clean...no response yet.
@Iced Tea: That’s how I feel, if we let this slide we’ll just get taken advantage of again. The roofers were also totally careless. They trampled my flowers and left all of my patio furniture all over the yard. My guess is it was a cheap deal and they didn’t care too much.
@babypugs: he’s dealing with the cost of the roof, but why should I have to clean up after it? It’s taken me at least 5 hours so far. I’m probably halfway done. I own a business and take care of both of my kids at home. I can’t afford to waste all this time on something that I believe should be his responsibility.
-
Here’s the top of my washer. That’s what my whole house looked like.
-
@turquoisemama: that is freaking disgusting. I’d be livid. Who knows what’s in that mess. You could send it off to be tested if you wanted to make a case for yourself
In my view and experience, there are three types of landlords:
The ones that care about their tenants (and their property in order to keep tenants happy) AND their bottom line
The ones that care about their property and their bottom line (less so about their tenants).
The ones that care only about their bottom line (they don’t care about their property or their tenants if they are getting monthly checks). .
If you have a landlord that is a number two or three, you might face an uphill battle
-
@turquoisemama: I totally get it. Anything having to do with home maintenance just sucks and is frustrating and excessively time-consuming.. I hope he provides you with a resolution that you find satisfactory.
-
@Littlebit7: yeah he is usually okay about making repairs but does it the cheapest way possible. Good idea about getting it tested. He just responded to my text after 8 hours and said he’s having the roofer come back to clean tomorrow. Which is good but I’ve already done the lions share.
Maybe one with expertise will weigh in.
- Google Plus
- Stumbleupon
- Twitter
- Facebook
- Pinterest
- Favorite0
18 comments