I live in an apartment. It is not in a house or basement. It is one in a professionally managed building.
I have served my notice and will be vacating the apartment on 30 June 2010.
It has not even been a week and the building manager has started bringing in potential renters into my apartment for showing. He said that they do not have an empty unit that they can use.
I don’t like strangers walking around my apartment, especially when I am in the house.
Is the landlord within his rights to do what he is doing? Should they not have a model apartment for the purpose of showing to potential customers. If not, shouldn’t they wait until I have vacated the unit?
Do I have an option or am I expected to just suck up and accept strangers walking around my house?
Can I at least restrict the time when they bring in people? I am single and therefore would not mind if they brought in people when I am away at work during the working days of the week. These guys are bringing in people on weekends.
May or may not apply in your case, but it was a condition of my lease that given 24 hours notice I had to allow the landlord to show the apartment in the event that I was leaving.
In every apartment I have rented, through either a single landlord or through a company, it was fully expected that after I gave notice, the landlord would show the next set of potential renters the place. I mean…isn’t that how you found it? You looked at a few apartments, some of which still had people living in them because they weren’t moving out for a couple weeks?
As cgg419 said, most states/locales have laws that say a landlord needs 24-48 hours notice before they can just “stop in,” so as long as you’ve gotten that notice, you need to suck it up. That being said, if you aren’t given any notice that people are coming by, that’s probably going against the lease and/or local laws. And a blanket “I may or may not bring someone once a day for the next 15 fays” type of statement isn’t valid, either.
As for having a “demo” unit or waiting till you’re gone, that’s lost income. It’s a business, and in the immortal words of Donald Trump, “The business of business is business.”
I just read the Landlord and Tenant act applicable and it seems that the landlord does have the right to enter the rental unit to show to prospective tenants provided the tenant has been informed 24 hours in advance.
So, I guess my question then remains only this - Can I refuse entry during weekends and ask the landlord to bring in customers only when I am away?
Sure, I just guess I’d prefer to be around when my apartment is being shown to make sure they’re not looking through all my closets and whatnot. It seems that if you’re there they’re much more likely to be less in-depth during their showing since it makes things a bit more awkward.
If you don’t mind, I’d wager the landlord would happily show it when you’re not there. He should be giving you notice, and you are certainly able to restrict the hours it’s available to show, so you can arrange to be there or not, as you prefer.
the only “versions” of ordinances, laws, or lease clauses I’ve ever seen dealing with entry deal with either of these two things:
a) notice requirements that require 24-48 hours notice to be given
b) requirements that entrance me made only during “reasonable” hours (except for emergencies, obv. showing a prospective tenant is not an emergency)
neither of those give a tenant the right to restrict the hours it’s available for show (apart from unreasonable hours, i.e. late at night or early in the morning).
Do you have your next flat lined up? As long as you don’t need a refernece, and don’t expect your sercurity back, next time he shows up inqure, “Were you able to find the mice in my flat?”
Start complaining right now about mice and roaches. I guarantee you, he won’t be showing your flat, when you start asking about mice and roaches in front of people.
Of course you will find suddenly you’re security deposit isn’t going to be refunded and such, if you play nasty. But…it’s a thought
Security deposit is refundable? Back when I had apartments, I’d never seen that - either with me, my friends, people I know etc.
Of course, after being shafted the first 2 times - keeping the apartment very nice, cleaning up well before the landlord came…I just kissed it goodbye and left it a stye
Of course the security deposit is refundable, that’s what makes it a deposit, not a fee. In the event that a tenant trashes the place, that money goes towards fixing it back up. But if you leave it the way you found it, you’re supposed to get that back. Sorry to hear you got dicked over.
Prospective tenants have every right to look into all closets. Plus any built-in cabinets in the kitchen, bathroom or elsewhere. In the US, major appliances usually come with the apartment; so the inside of the refrigerator & the oven are also part of the package.
Usually, the furniture belongs to the tenant; so potential tenants should not investigate the chest of drawers. Or open the jewelry box on top of it. Or see what’s stashed in the night stand.
Maybe - but do you really want to take that chance? It would be an enormous hassle at a bare minimum, and most likely you won’t wind up getting any recourse.
We’ve always made it clear to our landlords that we do not gladly suffer the presence of strangers in our home when we’re not there.
The apartment I looked a about 10 years ago was during the week, and I’m pretty sure the tenant didn’t get notice. I bet she would have put the weed away rather than leaving it on a plate with her bong on the coffee table…
In Chicago, 24 hours notice is absolutely mandatory, and tenants who tolerate otherwise are idiots who don’t know their rights. OTOH, once they give notice they need to be fully prepared to allow people in with notice. I’m feeling very glad my building has a lot of vacancies right now, plus the fact they have to replace my carpet after I go (8 years and 4 cats - I tried but it’s gross - hardwood floors here I come!), the manager has no interest in showing my place to prospective tenants until it’s cleaned out and looking nice again.
What everyone else said - they have the right to show, you have the right to proper notice. They have the obligation to keep an eye on people while they’re in your place, and you have the obligation to keep it in proper showing condition. All that aside, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to put any nice stuff you have away while the place is being shown. I learned that about open houses when we were selling our house - people case the joint under the guise of looking for a house or apartment, and come back later and rob you (this actually happened to my close friend).
Oh, my personal experience has been that landlords will usually work with you if you’re reasonable.
Many years ago when I lived in an apartment, the management decided to ignore any type of notification. So I “fought back” by answering the door in yellow jockey shorts. I also gave prospective renters my phone number so I could give them the “inside scoop”. Two such occurrences and the landlord become much more accommodating.
I’ve had a landlord do this too. I called and they seem shocked, shocked I say, that I ask that they not bring people to my apartment at 8pm at night with no more notice than a call when they were in the car on their way over (from an office a block away), or to show up while I was sleeping on a Saturday morning, again with not more than 5 minutes’ notice.
I called and said I expected at least 24 hours notice before all showings. They said they’d give notice. They didn’t.
I turned away the next person saying I hadn’t received 24 hour notice (managed to get their call this time). They then showed up again a few days later, this time without calling at all. I was home on a lunchbreak; I got the vibe they were trying to do the showing when I wasn’t home, without telling me.
Finally, I sent them a written letter with the relevant part of the Iowa code; it actually says “reasonable notice” in my state, but I explained that I felt at least 24 hours notice was reasonable, and that 5 minutes (or nothing) was clearly unreasonable.
They stopped showing the apartment at all; apparently it didn’t fit with their business model to give proper notice, so it was simply easier not to do it at all. Fine by me.
