Is it against your lease to keep a bike in your apartment?
What’s the rationale for this rule?
I’ve never lived in an apartment, not familiar with their rules. My kid had to deal with a combined sewer overflow from a drain backing into her garden apartment after torrential rains in the downtown Chicago area. It was pouring through the door jamb and coming up in the bathtub very disgusting and gross. So anyway looking at her lease following this episode ( it happened again a week later) for info on tenant rights and the buildings obligations I noticed a prohibition on storing your bike inside.
Why is that a problem for landlords? My daughters roomie keeps like 3 race bikes inside they’re very expensive so she doesn’t want to use the designated area.
Is it for cleanliness? A hazard in case of emergency, a deterrent against thieves running a chop shop of bike parts?
I used to keep it in the bike rack outside, but the weather was not kind to it. Now I have a tall rack that looks sort of like a gallows, to hang it vertically from, to save space.
Is the prohibition on storing your bide inside the apartment or inside the building (such as common areas or hallways). I’ve never heard of the first, but the second is pretty commonplace.
I’ve only ever lived in apartments my whole life. I generally store my bike somewhere in the apartment, as none of my leases or rental contracts made mention this practice.
As for why someone would not want a bike stored inside, the only thing I could think of is that in the wintertime you could track mud and dirt into the apartment from the bike’s tires.
Every apartment in my condo has a storage locker that is easily big enough to store a couple bikes. Ours is full of boxes mostly containing books, but I’ve seen bikes in some.
My bikes were my primary mode of transportation for quite some time. They were not exactly high-end, but would be a nuisance to replace. I always found space inside my apartment for them. If it is likely that a landlord might complain, just get
The landlord is probably worried about hooks in walls or ceiling, as someone already said. When I lived in apartments I put hooks in the ceiling. They were great and my bike was up and out of the way. When I moved out I filled and painted the holes, and they weren’t noticeable. Good to go.
What? I’ve never heard of such a rule. Dogs, sure, but bikes are house-broken. I’ll bet the lease was some boilerplate "Generic Lease Agreement"and the landlord doesn’t even know the clause is there.
To refute it, I’d quote Seinfeld vs Any Landlord, where it’s clearly shown in many episodes that Jerry keeps his bike in his apartment.
Some types of bike lube will accumulate road grime and flake off and it’s really hard to get out of carpets. And there are people who might want to work on their bikes in their apartment, which can make a real mess.
When I moved out of my last apartment I got dinged for “rust stains on carpet” and the landlord withheld a cleaning fee from my security deposit. I don’t know if the landlord actually I knew I kept my bike inside, but something did indeed leave a small stain on the carpet where I kept it. (IIRC the stain was actually chain oil, but it was the same color as rust). As far as I can remember there wasn’t any prohibition against storing it inside in the lease, just one against using the balcony for storage, which was probably more about appearance.
Maybe it’s similar to why the bus drivers around here don’t let you bring your bike on the bus (they have bike racks up front) or why the light rail has a limit on the number of bikes per car: they think you’re a hazard to other people on the elevator, etc. during rush hours. Maybe. Seems a bit overblown to me but it may be yet other example of jerks ruining it for the rest of us.
I’ve never lived in an apartment where the lease prohibited keeping your bike in your apartment. I have lived in places where getting your bike to your apartment would have been a major feat.
Currently, mine is in my basement storage locker. I installed a ceiling hook there to hang the bike up for maximum efficient use of the storage locker.
Same here. And there’s also a bike room (although you have to pay a fee to keep your bike there).
I don’t use either our storage locker or the bike room. I have a folding bike, which fits neatly into the hall closet.
Obviously folding bikes aren’t for everyone – serious roadies wouldn’t have any use for one. And if you’re over six feet tall, you have to accept the fact that you look like you’re riding a clown bike. But for urban bike commuters, they’re great.
Could be, in a rental building, although here in NYC, tenants don’t have a lot of negotiating power (at this moment, it’s a bit different, but that’s certainly a temporary glitch).
But this is a condo building. And you’re negotiating with the seller, not the building, who can’t really offer you discounts or freebies on building services.
It’s not a big deal, anyway. I forget what the fee is, but it was somewhere around $100 per year.
For me, the bike room fee wasn’t a factor in anything. I like coming home and being able to go right to my apartment, and fold up the bike and put it in the closet. Super-convenient.
That’s what I thought, until a Serious Roadie friend of mine toured Eastern Europe and India with a folding bike , jumping on and off trains and carrying it into hostels…
