So, I have a friend.
She rents a mother-in-law suite from a landlady who lives IN the house the suite is attached to.
She began having a gentleman caller overnight, several nights in a row.
The landladytold the friend that she could no longer have overnight guests during the week. This was due to her concern that the gentleman caller would take showers and wash his clothes there.
The friend said WTF to herself.
The next day, the landlady called and apologized for the request.
At or about that time, the landlady told the USPS carrier that the friend was ‘no longer living there’.
Parcels, including some of value, were returned.
After some time, my friend discovered that her mail was being returned.
She straightened that out with the post office.
She then contacted her landlady and members of her landlady’s family to inquire how this had happened.
All claimed no knowledge of the matter.
Things proceeded apace for a few weeks, with mail delivery returned.
Then, the landlady left a paper note to her USPS carrier noting that the friend was, once again, no longer living there. The carrier, recalling the previous BS, verified that the landlady meant what she’d said, knocked on the door and proceeded to talk to the landlady for several minutes.
At this point, my friend is about to discuss this with the landlady.
So… WTF?
What do you guys think of this?
PS- Not asking for legal advice. We all know there is law-breaking involved here, but entering into an adversarial relationship with her landlady isn’t in her mind.
On edit: This thread is actually for my amusement, not advice. I won’t be showing this to my friend.
Sounds like the landlady has lost a few marbles and henceforth should be treated as though she is nuts.
There are post office boxes, both public and private that friend can start using as a mailing address, and it is very difficult for landlady types to interfere with such an arrangement, adding the plus that packages can be received and signed for by the proprietor (private ones) all during the day from non-USPS carriers. I strongly recommend getting such a private mail box located somewhere between work and home. It makes moving a lot easier down the road. Friend will be moving sometime in the future due to crazy landlady. Postal Annex and UPS Store are two private mail box companies that are franchises. I recommend either and have used both.
If you call the post office, you can usually get the number and a good time to call the carrier, usually before they do their route.
Talk to the carrier and tell him that you think there is a bit of dementia or whatever going on, and no matter what this person tells him or leaves notes saying, until the USPS gets a change of address form filled out by you, this is where your mail gets delivered.
A quick call to the postal inspector can do wonders also. They will call the landlady and inform her that her actions are unacceptable, and she will knock it off.
Friend needs to speak with the postmaster of the local office. If the landlady and friend share a mailbox, that needs to be corrected, and I believe registering a second mailbox with the post office is what’s needed. Friend’s address would simply turn into “B” or “Rear” or simply delineated from the other mailbox by putting last names on each for the mail carrier to match. Friend’s mailbox would be by her separate entrance, where landlady is clearly tampering with mail if she puts her mitts on it.
How old is the landlady? I agree with other posters that her behavior sounds like dementia. If this is the case, especially given her living arrangement as a lodger living in the same house, your friend should be prepared for a lot more of this kind of thing, and for it to get worse, ie, accusations, suspicions, trust issues, etc. , unfortunately. Hopefully there is a family member of the landlady your friend can contact to look out for her.
Of course, if it’s not dementia, then the land lady is just nuts and I wouldn’t want her as a landlady, let alone continue living in the same house as someone who would do such a weird-ass thing. Twice.
Landlady is 75.
She still holds down a day job, by the way.
To be clear, this is a separate apartment under the same roof. Shared areas include the driveway and walkway. My friend has her own porch.
As a side note, the landlady’s adult daughter lives with her.
After my post, my friend called the landlady’s son, a local attorney, to discuss the event.
The son apologized profusely, and explained that his mother had been trying to tell the postal carrier that the people across the road (who have the mailbox next to hers) no longer live there.
After the first time that my friend raised a stink with the post office regarding her mail delivery having been discontinued, the carrier was worried enough by the ‘no longer lives here’ thing that she went and engaged the landlord in conversation rather than trusting the note.
Postal carriers are experienced at discussing people moving out with roommates and the like. I am having a lot of trouble imagining that an alert carrier would get the wrong message in this scenario.
My friend will be double-checking with the postal carrier to see if there is any possible way that story is true. If the note had “Friends Name” on it, that’s a clue the son was trying to cover up for his mom.
I’m leaning towards dementia.
If you were going to be evil and crappy towards someone that rents from you, twice committing a felony against them that will be witnessed by an agent of the federal government is a poor choice.
I’m hoping that her landlord’s day job doesn’t involve heavy machinery or healthcare…
I just went from annoyed at the situation to horrified for the nice old lady.
Losing your mind would really, really stink.
I lived in an illegal basement apartment for a few years out of college. As long as the landlord lived upstairs, I received my mail at the house and he dropped it off downstairs. When he moved and rented out the house, he told me that I would need to get a post office box, which I did and worked fine for me. Today, I’d probably get a private mailbox instead, just because I could receive UPS and Fedex packages there.
Location of mailbox store may be of a concern, in case there are tax implications (county / city / state taxes etc.).
But the landlady risks getting into legal trouble by doing this, actually - though not directly tampering with the mail, I’d bet it violates some laws anyway.
I assumed it was included to imply this landlady had some sort of moral objection to the tenant having overnight guests. Or, is the water supply not separately metered, and therefore, landlady was concerned about increased costs to run the MIL suite? I’m confused…
Moral objection to the friend’s (assumed) premarital relations is a theory. No real good evidence backing it.
The water and water heater’s natural gas consumption are not metered, nor are the amounts of electricity being consumed when the washer and dryer are used.
That being the case, the caller brings his own clothes in an overnight bag and uses his own appliances to wash his own wardrobe.
Landlord has no way of knowing that, and is remarked upon solely to indicate that the bills are unlikely to have spiked as a result.
The last tenant allegedly moved out due to getting married mid-lease. One wonders if her motives in leaving may not have included factors in addition to romance.