Landlord Announces his Unannounced Visits (PLUS: CECIL COMMENTS)

My landlord recently sent out a newsletter broadcasting the fact that he is making unannounced apartment inspections. He went on to mention how filthy some apartments were and so forth. Since when do tenants need to start dusting just in case the landlord pops by? More importantly my problem is this is completely creepy and, I thought, very illegal. How can he just announce this in a newsletter?

http://www.avvo.com/legal-answers/an-inspection-agent-entered-my-town-home-without-p-336197.html?cm_mmc=Avvo-_-Notification-_-Questions_Notify-_-question I do not know if this is everywhere, but they do not have a right to walk in unannounced in many states.

Look at both your lease and more importantly your state specific landlord/tenant law (which would override anything in the lease). The landlord does have a right to enter the premise, but in most cases it is only after giving adequate warning to the tenant (a good landlord will only do it while you are present as well unless you give them permission otherwise). I would start out by trying to keep it friendly by just simply sharing your objections with the landlord and asking him to give you 48 hours notice before he enters the premises.

I’m assuming you’re in Chicago since you’re posting in the Chicago forum. According to the Chicago Tenants Union, landlords are required to give 24 hours notice at a minimum, for non-emergency entries to apartments. If yours has sent a letter giving a specific date range of inspections, that’s allowed. More normally would be an inspection just at time of lease renewal, but if all the apartments need the fire detector batteries replaced, or they want to have an exterminator enter all the apartments, they’re within their rights to do that as long as they gave written notice with a range of dates they may be entering the units.

My old apartment building, where I lived for 8 years, required entry to each apartment every 6 months for extermination. They gave a letter to everyone with their new lease or lease renewal, explaining they did this, then every 6 months the manager would put a letter under everyone’s door stating what day the exterminator would be there - usually they did the letter on a Monday or Tuesday and the exterminator came on Thursday. I truly think they did this more as a ruse to just see everyone’s apartment and make sure there were no hoarders or extra tenants or animals around. I never needed exterminating services in my apartment. Never saw a roach or beetle or anything but those centipedes that are apparently resistant to the stuff used for roaches. Whenever I let them in my place I told them I had cats and no problems, and they would just put some paste on the cabinet hinges and the pipes, no spraying.

If your landlord sent a letter just saying he may enter any apartment at any time, without stating a specific dates, then that’s not allowed. It sounds like he may have a legit reason - I’m sure it’s not dusty households that are a problem. There are a lot of people who are pigs out there, and if the landlord has been getting complaints about pests he may rightly believe there are some apartments with kitchen-trash type problems with food grime that’s attracting the need to call exterminators too often. Landlords do have the right to protect their property, and you have to suffer for someone else being a total disgusting pig slopper.

If I got that letter, I would call the landlord and request a specific date, and if they want to just come now, or tomorrow (if they’re worried I’ll “clean up” if I have enough notice), then fine, as long as I know they won’t come back unannounced, and this way they will know that I know my rights and won’t screw with me. The other tenants can deal with it however they want, but I have no problem with landlords trying to get rid of pig tenants.

Presumably there’s a limit on this, else the landlord could just send out a letter each year saying that “Inspections may be held between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31”. OK, that one would probably be thrown out by a court, but where’s the line?

My read says it has to be specific and can only be for one of a few particular reasons. The landlord can’t set a date to stop and see what you’re having for dinner or which books you’ve been reading at all and legitimate visits need to have “2 days” notice. It’s all detailed in the city ordinance:
City Clerk’s Ofc site -Scroll down to 5-12-050 Landlord’s Right Of Access.

Can a legal lease hold a tenant to some cleanliness standards that the landlord then uses as justification for regular inspections under section (g)?
" to determine a tenant̓s compliance with provisions in the rental agreement;"

I looked over the ordinance, and don’t see anything that strictly defines this, but by “specific date range” in my head I was thinking of the time they were inspecting smoke detectors and sent a letter saying they would be in the apartments on one of three dates that were specified. I considered that to be reasonable. I would think much looser than that could certainly be questioned/argued by the tenants.

Though by the muni code posted, if the landlord thinks someone is not taking care of their trash properly, they can inspect the premises with 48 hours notice - unless they can come up with an “emergency” reason (such as sighting rodents, I would think). I got the 24 hours notice wrong - it’s 48!

I had to threaten a landlord with taking them to court, He would just ‘pop in’ randomly [but oddly enough it was whenever I seemed to be taking a shower …:dubious:] to do ‘small repairs’ like change batteries in the smoke detector, or look for leaks reported by the flat below mine and such. It got bad enough that I not only bought and installed a security chain, I installed a barrel bolt top and bottom of both doors, and got one of those cheesy door alarm wedges. Right after that, I had a friend from work over while I got ready for us to go out for dinner, and amazingly enough shortly after I started my shower, she heard a key in the door, the door knob rattle and a shoulder block to the door … the barrel bolts held but the wriggle of the door in its frame set off the wedge alarm … He acted all offended when she answered the door … When I confronted him, he said he was there to change the batteries in the smoke alarm. I pointed out that he had changed them 2 months previously and that the batteries in every other smoke alarm I had ever had had never gone flat for at least a year. He said that I damaged the door and frame by screwing the barrel bolts and security chain in, so I countered that he wasn’t going to ever give me back my security deposit anyway I didn’t care. [he had a bad rep in the city for finding the most minimal fault as a reason not to return the security deposit] Then he ordered me to take them off my door and I refused, and told him that he never gave me any notice when he was going to enter for nonemergency repairs, so I wasn’t going to take his shit any further and he could notify me and wait for me to let him in. If he was going to get stupid about things, I would sue his ass for sexual harassment. That little witnessed shoulder block definitely counted as harassment, he never even rang the bell or knocked and I had a witness.

Did he live next door where he could hear the shower? What a creep, and how very creepy! Good on you for knowing your rights. I can’t tell you how many young women I’ve talked to who don’t know that kind of stuff is not allowed. My current place has no chains on the doors, and I worried about it at first, thought about installing them, and just haven’t gotten around to it. Current manager is a woman, though, with 8 other buildings to manage. She hasn’t the time to screw around with entering apartments unannounced.

As the former owner of a rental property (albeit a triplex rather than a large apartment block) my sympathies are entirely with the landlord.

Filthy doesn’t = dusty. Filthy means food left out that attracts rats and cockroaches…that then get into other people’s apartments as well.

Then there’s the bedbug epidemic.

Depending on how big your apartment complex is, remember that the “owners” probably don’t own it, they are buying it from their bank and depend on your monthly rent to make *their *payments. You screw them, they can’t kick you out for a month, in which you can vandalize the apartment as much as you like, ad they’re the ones who will lose their livelihood while you move blithely on to wreak havoc at your next place of lodging.

He did live in the same building, it had 6 apartments in it. Being rather cheap 60s construction, any time any person living there took a shower, the pipes did the air hammer thing. Everybody knew when someone was taking a shower.

I can recommend adding a chain, what if some nutter gets into the building and knocks, and shoves their way in, at least with a chain there is a tentative stop. I think it more acts as a deterrant as it would make a hellacious racket to slam down the door and the neighbors would hear it.

Congrats, running4cover, Cecil His Own Self has responded: http://chicago.straightdope.com/sdc20101209.php