And you probably have a better chance of losing more stuff. I think you know you’re not getting that money back. I’d say cut your losses now.
Yeah, what’s more likely, after all? Them stealing from you again or them paying you back? Clearly, the answer would be paying you back.
And that the two of them would rather lose their stuff than secure it and bring up the “you don’t trust us?!” issue.
They are going to steal from you every day from now untill they leave. Kick them out now with just the clothes on their backs, sell the rest of their shit.
Change the fucking lock to the front door.
Well, I don’t own the place, so I don’t have the power to change the locks, and technically I don’t think I even have the power to kick them out, at least not like that. I’m headed over to the landlord’s office today and I’m going to ask them what I can/can’t do, and what they can do for me. I’d be more than happy to just take their stuff and sell it, but that’s illegal, even if they owe me money, AFAIK.
PUT A LOCK ON YOUR DOOR. PUT YOUR STUFF IN A SAFE. Gather up the shit you own that’s worth money and lock it in the trunk of your car. Plan on moving out at the earliest opportunity. None of this requires you to visit your landlord.
Why on earth you would agree to live with losers and theives is a mystery, but as long as you don’t do anything to protect yourself you will have to accept a large chunk of the blame for any future losses.
I’ve been there. Ok, not there. But I’ve had conflict with roommates before. Sometimes ugly, sometimes it worked out. But I would bet you double or nothing on the entire sum that you are never going to see that money again. No need to let them take more advantage of you while you wait for them to maybe fulfill their obligations. If you can’t put a lock on your door, and you can’t kick them out, then you need to move out as soon as possible, for your own peace of mind. Or at least, get a safe. Stress like this will start to affect your entire life. I mean, you know what you were going to do with that $400. Now you have to worry about that, too. It adds up. It sucks. You don’t have the money. I know. I have been there. But it can only get worse.
As long as they have access, they will not stop stealing your stuff. Ever.
ETA: About confrontations. I don’t like them either; I get really mad and then have trouble facing bad situations. But there are options you can take here that protect yourself and don’t involve confrontation with deadbeats. Confrontation might be best, I don’t know, but if you’re not willing to go that route, you can still do passive things to protect yourself, like I mentioned above. (Moving out, getting a safe, etc.)
And therein lies your problem. You are a decent person, and cannot understand why people act shitty sometimes. Take off the blinders and face facts. I’m afraid you will never see your money. Get out now, and take this as a very expensive lesson learned.
Bullshit. Change the locks, then call up your landlord and hand him the new key. If it ain’t perfectly legal (and it is where I live), what landlord is going to object? Especially when you tell him it was necessary to remove people that were going to inflict damage to his property?
People have stolen hundreds of dollars of cash and items from you and you still won’t kick them out, hoping they’re going to pay you back? You’re dumber than Ned Flanders.
Right…a safe, cause I have all this extra money lying around for one of those. I will get a padlock for my room, though. I can’t just move out, I have a lease. And unlike these dickwads, I’m not going to screw over my roommates by forcing them to now find two more people to fill in the rooms.
Oh, and I guess I’ll make sure to ask potential roommates from now on if their losers or thieves. Cause while they may steal stuff and not pay rent, they’re clearly going to be honest about it if I ask them. :rolleyes:
And the landlord told me that if I have no success in getting them out, he will come in and force them out. Since they’re essentially sub-letting and don’t have their names on the lease, he doesn’t need a reason to kick them out other than the fact that they’re not on the lease, as long as those of us that are on the lease say we want them out.
I think that’s backwards. Your landlord should come in and kick them out now, not wait and see if you’re able to do it.
I understand you don’t want to screw over your roommates, but your roommates are screwing you over by letting these lowlifes tramp through the apartment and rifle through your stuff.
I would ask the landlord to either kick them out or release you from the lease.
Call in the landlord and get their asses out now.
And for the next roommates, if your name is on any shared bill, get a deposit (or payment in advance, maybe with post-dated cheques, if it’s a fixed cost like a cable bill) from everyone else as a condition of their moving in.
This is good practice even if they’re not sketchy thieves, because usually the last bill comes after the move-out date, and the bill-payer is stuck having to track everyone down for their share.
Hate to say this, but you’re an idiot. As pointed out above, you can get a safe or replace the doorknob lock on your door for $15-$50. Get it? FIFTEEN BUCKS and you can be the only person with a key to your room. Padlock? What, so they just need to unscrew the clasp? And go check out the cute little cash an jewellery safes that cost under $50.
You don’t need to ask them if they’re thieves, you just have to check their references. You did ask for references before agreeing to let this last batch move in, right? Right?
It’s like you’re bitching at people for offering good suggestions.
I get that you’re lashing out (I’m guessing because you know you’ve done a poor job of protecting yourself), but I’ll try to give you some good advice anyway. There are some very concrete ways of finding out if potential new roommates are likely to be losers or not - one of the best indicators is if they are steady workers or not (it’s not infallible, but real losers aren’t employed - their loser habits get in the way of working). Older roommates are probably more stable, too - less fun, but you’ve probably had all the fun you need for awhile. Kids that are fresh from their parents’ house don’t have the same idea of how the world works as older people.
I think I recall you’re a working student - try to avoid getting other students for roommates. And try to get fewer roommates - get a smaller, cheaper place that you can share with only one roommate. Fewer roommates means fewer personality conflicts and fewer suspects when things go wrong. You could even rent just a single room somewhere, where you might have to share a bathroom and kitchen, but you’d have your own locked room.
There are ways of preventing your good stuff from getting stolen while you’re forced to stay in your current situation, too. Money you have in the house and your wallet - never let them out of your sight, and sleep with them under your pillow. Like Jodi said, put all your valuables in the trunk of your car, or take them to your parents’ house until you get this all cleared up. Instead of lashing out at us and playing the victim, think of ways to stop being victimized.
Actually, I’m bitching at people for assuming I can see into the future. Yes, they did have references. They both filled out an application for the landlords, which included info on their previous living arrangements and landlords, a background and credit check, and references. My landlord said they were all good, so I figured they knew what they were talking about. Clearly they were wrong. It’s not like I just invited the first people who knocked on my door to come live with me.
And I actually don’t even have an extra $50 to buy a safe…yes, I would have had I not been an idiot in the first place and left money lying out in the open, but I don’t go into situations automatically assuming the worst, so I didn’t think I ever needed to buy a safe to protect my things from my own roommates.
I admit to being an idiot and keeping my money out and for not kicking them out sooner, but that’s it. There’s no way I could have known beforehand that this was going to happen. They looked fine when we interviewed them, everything on them checked out OK, so there wasn’t any way for me to know they would become deadbeat assholes.
bouv, you started this thread on the 7th. It’s been 10 days and despite new reports of stuff stolen, the whole of your plan of action seems to consist of putting a lock on your door that your roommates could overcome with a screwdriver. That’s why the rest of us are baffled.
Scoop up everything that is yours and put it elsewhere. At minimum, put all your DVDs, CDs, and electronics (even the TV) in your car. Cover them with a blanket if they have to be on the back seat. You can do this for free.
Find someone you trust and ask to borrow $30 so you can swap out your doorknob with a locking one or a straight up deadbolt.
You can be proactive for very little outlay.
Your landlord said they were good? You didn’t follow up on that yourself? He probably called to make sure the previous landlord’s got their rent on time and if they broke stuff. That’s assuming he did actually call and verify the references and didn’t just say “Hey, that looks good to me!”
Before going into a lease with total strangers, I check references myself and at least one has to be a past roommate.
It’s obvious that you’re just mad and lashing out, but really, none of the advice you’ve gotten here is crazy. You are the victim of a crime, and you have my sympathy. I have never had my trust violated like that, and I don’t know what’s going through your mind right now. I’m not saying you could have done anything different in the past, but the only way to get anything positive out of this is to change things for the better in the future. You can’t see into the future, but you can learn from mistakes.
We realize you don’t have lots of money, otherwise you wouldn’t have roommates at all, most likely. The issue is, you can either 1) invest in items that will protect your shit in this awful situation, 2) get out of this awful situation, or 3) get more stuff stolen from you. I bet you don’t have another $400 laying around for some asswipe to steal, either.
What my point is, and it seems to be echoed around here, ALL of these options are expensive. THEY ALL SUCK. We know. But that’s all you can do. THERE ARE NO inexpensive options here, for the long term. Putting stuff in your car is a good idea, until they catch onto it. So is storing stuff at your parents’. But there are some expensive things that you’ll have around, anyway. It’s not fair, it’s not right, and it’s not just, but it’s life. Sorry, dude.
Well, it’s done. Well, as done as it can be as of midnight on a Thursday. I tried to have a reasonable conversation, but it quickly digressed into a shouting match, as predicted. I just asked if they had any of the money they owed. I didn’t ask for all of it, I didn’t make any ultimatums, I just asked for some of the money. First the girl got mad because I was looking at her, when her BF is the one who “owes more money,” ( :rolleyes: .) Because in her mind, she paid for her share last month, but he didn’t (never mind the fact that neither has paid for this month or for any utilities.) Then she started in with the “you’ll get your money eventually” routine, and said every day I ask her is a day more I have to wait (is that how it works now, I get money by not asking for it?) I’m still calm at this point, and say I have been more than reasonable, but that if they don’t pay soon, they can’t keep living here. She, of course, keeps yelling saying she has every right to live here and I can’t kick her out.
This is when I lost it.
I said that no, she has NO fucking right to be here, because she hasn’t paid. More yelling and obscenities ensued from both parties, she resorted to essentially name-calling (apparently, kicking someone out of your apartment because they don’t pay is immature…really, I would have thought that not paying is more immature.) She went on to say I have no right to evict her, and I can’t kick her out just because I don’t like her. Really? Well, I can sure as FUCK kick you out for not paying rent!
Despite being 25 years old, this is actually the first real verbal fight I’ve been in. I’m actually a bit ashamed to say it felt kind of good when I was doing it, and now I can see why some people do it more often. Adrenaline, being able to vent anger, saying what you want in the heat of the moment…yeah, it has it’s appeal. Of course, I feel like shit now, but not out of guilt, because those fuckers deserve whatever happens to them at this point.
Tomorrow is going to be a fun day after I call the landlord…