hmm…isn’t the car on the earth, which is orbiting the sun, which orbits the galactic center, which is heading for a meeting with the Andromeda Galaxy, etc. I’d say your car is constantly in motion.
If I received a note like that, I’d be steamed, too. It didn’t seem that Osbie was attempting to blow off his responsibility to the landlord - he was just trying to blow off steam before he discussed his options with the landlord.
Give the guy a break already. He came in here for a sympathetic ear. No need for you to piss in his Cheerios.
BTW, atarsy22 - 
I like your argument!
[Monty Python]
Just remember that you’re standing on a planet that’s evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour,
That’s orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it’s reckoned,
A sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour,
Of the galaxy we call the ‘Milky Way’.
[/Monty Python]
Monty Python? I thought that was the Animaniacs?
I am the office manager in a 44 unit Govt subsidized complex and I can tell you that there are valid reasons for a landlord to call you on the carpet regarding an inoperable vehicle. I would assume that there is limited parking in your complex. This is a problem in most. If I were to allow one tenant to keep an inoperable vehicle on the lot I would have to allow others to do so as well. I could then quite possibly end up with a lot full of cars that dont run, have flats, etc. Could end up as an eyesore and create parking problems for others. I might add, inoperable vehicles are specifically mentioned in our lease.
The line you quoted doesn’t say the car has to work, it just has to be moved. So, have a party every once in a while and have some of your friends go out and push it to another parking spot.
Oh, wait. It has to be every two days. That’s probably too many parties, unless you have some friends who are good sports.
This is going to suck come wintertime, if you have to shovel your car out after a snow storm just so you can move it to the parking space next to where it’s currently at.
What the fuck are you talking about???
This doesn’t fall under the heading of EVIL LANDLORD TRYING TO SCREW RENTER. It falls under the heading of ‘friendly reminder’. The manager did not mention eviction. Simply that a policy existed and should be adhered to.
The manager isn’t even saying ‘do it now!’.
Once again, if he lets this guy slide, he’ll have a harder time enforcing it when someone who does NOT pay the rent on time and follow the rest of the rules breaks it.
The manager did nto ‘get in his face’ about it.
Are you really asking for clarification on my point? I surly will be glad to try (although I will warn you that this post may start to read like a manifesto of what is wrong with our society at the moment).
Basically, at some point, it seems that we have departed from being reasonable as a people and have decided that we need to regulate and legislate every aspect of life. My feeling is that people in general are more interested in celebrating their freedom and less interested in the responsibilities that go with them. As a result, we have had to make a lot of rules about things that should be obvious (otherwise, the fear is that people will just do things because they can rather than thinking about how their actions will impact others. Much like swearing at other posters just because we happen to be in the Pit, rather than asking politely for clarification 
).
Now, specifically in the case of this sort of leas clause, this is what I can tell you: I have had experience as a property manager. In the buildings that did have parking, we always had this sort of a clause on the lease. Here is the thing, though, we never ever enforced this unless we were “stamp collecting” to build a case for evicting a problem tenant. Now, as tempting as it might be to think that this was just our evil company that did this, my contacts (in industry type meetings and the like) lead me to conclude that this is pretty much the accepted practice.
So, you see, my experience leads me to think that even this sort of a warning is out of line (for a “good” tenant). Even if it is not something that is acted upon, all of these sorts of communications go in the tenant’s file. It is not a wild scenario to worry that this could come back and haunt (for example, the tenant is looking to move and needs a housing reference and someone is called and only has the file to go on).
Which leads me back to my comments earlier about law and order. As someone will no doubt soon point out, the warning is technically valid. The tenant signed a contract and the landlord is just enforcing that contract. That being said, I think that the general contempt for the rule of law that can result from having a bunch of stupid laws is something that is worth thinking about.
Just curious, your car was functioning last June, how does the Landlord know that your car is broken now?
But did you ever have a problem tenant claim that you were selectively enforcing rules or clauses? Selective enforcement may hurt you if you are dragged before the housing authority or hauled in to court. Surely it’s better to be politely consistant, and that’s all I see here.
I understand stamp collecting and I don’t think it’s evil at all. It is something that can be abused by anal retentive manager, but for the most-part it’s a needed tool in litigeous times. I wish it wasn’t so difficult to evict problem tenants. Some of those folks are truly evil.
I can’t see where it is explained how long Osbie’s car has actually been sitting unmoving in that space - if, for example, it’s been several weeks or even months, then I’d be concerned too. If it’s only four days or something, then that’s absurd.
Please, I’d like to know.
Osbie, the answer’s so simple I can’t believe no one else suggested it. What you need to do is get a can of spray paint, and paint
Not Abandoned
across the windshield and hood of your car (or the side, if that would be more visable). Hope this helps! Good luck!
Winston
Keep in mind that what I am sharing here is 100% personal experience, but no, not really. My experience was that once it got to the point of anyone being involved in court, that the judges were pretty much willing to rubber stamp the eviction. I am sure that this is different in some places, but that was my experience. I am guessing that a lot of this is a cultural capital issue (there I am, the landlord, all slick and polished in my gray suit and there the tenant is unshaved in jeans).
To answer your question GuanoLad, the car has been out of commission since January. I have not been in a hurry to get it fixed for three reasons: a) I prefer taking the bus or walking and b) It’s going to cost quite a bit to get it completely fixed and I am a student working part-time and c) I’m not sure yet if I want to fix it or get rid of it.
It’s not going to take much to get it running, but my beef is that even after that is taken care of, the damn car is still going to sit there 98% of the time because I take the bus, walk, or ride with someone else most places. I guess I don’t see what the difference is - unless the landlord is concerned I’m going to abandon the car - which, as I’ve stated before, I’ve given them no reason in the past to cause them concern. The car is not an eyesore by any stretch either.
I imagine it stems from an incident in January when the snowplow came to plow the lot and I couldn’t move my car. Now before anyone pounces, let me state again that where my car is parked (see the OP) is not a hinderance to the snowplow clearing the rest of the lot. In fact, had I moved my car, he would have pushed the snow up against the back of the building where it would have slid back into the space and effectively cut it in half - which would mean I’d have to park halfway into the next space and so on down the row. I know this is true because it is exactly what happened the previous year. Since I knew I wasn’t going to need the car, I didn’t care if I got plowed in.
I have not been able to speak to my landlord either. Arrrgh. Maybe I should just get rid of the damn thing. I hate cars! Everything about them is expensive and annoying! Christ, I’d be wiser to spend my money on Beanie Babies.
I totally understand your frustration, Osbie, I get really defensive too when I feel like I’ve done something wrong unintentionally.
But I can understand the clause too. The building I live in is a 6 unit house. There’s a garage behind it, the landlord rents it out. Right now, all the spots but one are rented by tenants. The last garage is occupied by a large SUV, with 4 flat tires and body rot and no windows. The person that lived in my apartment 2 tenants ago abandoned it, and there is such legal rigamarole to go through in order to have it removed that it’s still there. The landlord can’t just have it towed or somesuch. He loses money because of it.
So it’s the bad apples that spoil it for the bunch. Your landlord is just covering his ass, and probably did not at all mean to imply s/he thinks you’ll abandon your car. But, they’ve had it happen in the past, hence the silly clauses, etc.
God I love my situation and landlord. I have no lease, just a “rental agreement” and the only real rules are simple: Don’t be a jerk. As long as I pay rent, don’t destroy anything, and don’t disrupt my neighbors my landlord doesn’t care what I do. But you can bet if he noticed my car hadn’t moved in a while he’d call me and ask what was up.
So vent away now, and when you talk to the landlord, keep their side in mind and you’ll be golden.
i do not know for certain, but I’m told that here in California, it can be rather difficult to evict someone. I have also heard that once eviction notice is served, the tenent can delay moving for up to three months, essentially rent free.
Which don’t seem fair, and I would be happy to learn was not true.
Living in a buildling which does not have nearly enough parking for tenants and where we pay a very substantial premium (this is NYC afterall) for parking, I can sympathize with the impetus behind the “move-every-48-hours” rule. I can sympathize with an apartment manager who sends out an ultimatum-free reminder letter when it comes to their attention that a tenant’s car has not moved in a substantial amount of time. (And to be fair, five months is quite substantial.)
I can also sympathize with a tenant who feels offended because there woud be other circumstances which would mean that their car was not moved at those intervals, and they’re trying to rectify the situation to some extent.
But the bottom line is that this situation is still at a no harm, no foul level. Osbie can make assurances to the building management that the car will be repaired or sold soon, as soon as he is sure which route he is taking. Osbie can point out to management that even when the car is running, it often stays in one place because he prefers to use public transportation, and therefore doesn’t need to use the car on a regular basis, and ask what management feels is an appropriate compromise position between Osbie’s lack of use and their desire to keep cars moving around in the lot. (Move the car once a week? Don’t worry about moving it at all so long as it’s operational now that the situation is explained? Something between the two?) There are a lot of ways to deal with this situation civilly and with a positive resolution for all involved.
So, Osbie, while I understand your worry, your rant may have been a teeny bit premature.
If you go to building management, give them your side of things and then they get all legalistic and assholish with you, then please come back and rant until you’re blue in the face. It’ll be well deserved then.