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- Mar 26, 2009
During COVID, I bought a house in a rural area. Fast forward to 2023, I meet a chick who lives in an apartment Downtown 2 miles away from where I work. At first I'm staying over every other night, but as the relationship progresses I start staying weekends too.
Now coinciding with this, a businessman buys the building from the elderly lady who had it for 25 years. During COVID two tenants stopped paying rent so after they were finally evicted she left them vacant. So after businessman takes over, he starts bringing in crews to remodel those apartments up to modern standards. After putting up with non-stop noise, roll-off dumpsters crowding the parking lot, rusty nails in my tires (twice), they finish after 10 months and businessman moves his 20 year old daughter who is attending college nearby.
Both his family and my gfs fam grew up with mutual friends running in the same circles, so at first their landlord-tenant relationship was cordial, but as he started seeing more and more of me I could see him getting suspicious.
So this Sunday we're eating lunch and she gets a text, saying that This Year my costs have been driven up due to inflation, but also utilities with a second person in the apartment. Effective Sept 1st, your new rent will be 1100 per month
Now keep in mind, she has lived there since 2015, rent was originally 650, then in 2019 it was increased to 700 which it has been for the past 5 years. Utilities are inclusive as well.
Adding more complexity to this, the original landlord did verbal leases, so there's no paperwork, when businessman took over he didn't have her sign a lease either. I've always thought that means we have the upper hand and if worst comes to worst a lengthy court battle was a possibility which he would naturally want to avoid, especially since she always pays her rent on time and is an ideal tenant.
But other people are saying causes there's no lease that means she is month to month and he can serve up an eviction notice at any time.
I've been brainstorming strategies to get ahead of this...the utilities thing really bothered me cause being a homeowner I am very conscientous about not wasting anything and have dozens of different things I do to keep them low. Not only that, I work 50-60 hours a week so it's not like I'm lounging around all day in the apartment.
I called up the City to get an estimate of the utilities, and our electric is costing $135 while the daughter is somehow using up $180 despite living alone. But the kicker is, to squash any doubt I wanted to get previous years records to use as a frame of reference but due to privacy they can only supply current charges. So that's back to square one.
Besides that all I got is little stuff, like there not being a fire alarm installed, and with the building being pre-1978 there should've been disclosure forms about the possibility of lead paint.
Have any of y'all been in this situation? My gf is ready to take the L and just pay the 1100, but that's kind of ridiculous for a 1br unit that hasn't been renovated since the 90s...
Now coinciding with this, a businessman buys the building from the elderly lady who had it for 25 years. During COVID two tenants stopped paying rent so after they were finally evicted she left them vacant. So after businessman takes over, he starts bringing in crews to remodel those apartments up to modern standards. After putting up with non-stop noise, roll-off dumpsters crowding the parking lot, rusty nails in my tires (twice), they finish after 10 months and businessman moves his 20 year old daughter who is attending college nearby.
Both his family and my gfs fam grew up with mutual friends running in the same circles, so at first their landlord-tenant relationship was cordial, but as he started seeing more and more of me I could see him getting suspicious.
So this Sunday we're eating lunch and she gets a text, saying that This Year my costs have been driven up due to inflation, but also utilities with a second person in the apartment. Effective Sept 1st, your new rent will be 1100 per month
Now keep in mind, she has lived there since 2015, rent was originally 650, then in 2019 it was increased to 700 which it has been for the past 5 years. Utilities are inclusive as well.
Adding more complexity to this, the original landlord did verbal leases, so there's no paperwork, when businessman took over he didn't have her sign a lease either. I've always thought that means we have the upper hand and if worst comes to worst a lengthy court battle was a possibility which he would naturally want to avoid, especially since she always pays her rent on time and is an ideal tenant.
But other people are saying causes there's no lease that means she is month to month and he can serve up an eviction notice at any time.
I've been brainstorming strategies to get ahead of this...the utilities thing really bothered me cause being a homeowner I am very conscientous about not wasting anything and have dozens of different things I do to keep them low. Not only that, I work 50-60 hours a week so it's not like I'm lounging around all day in the apartment.
I called up the City to get an estimate of the utilities, and our electric is costing $135 while the daughter is somehow using up $180 despite living alone. But the kicker is, to squash any doubt I wanted to get previous years records to use as a frame of reference but due to privacy they can only supply current charges. So that's back to square one.
Besides that all I got is little stuff, like there not being a fire alarm installed, and with the building being pre-1978 there should've been disclosure forms about the possibility of lead paint.
Have any of y'all been in this situation? My gf is ready to take the L and just pay the 1100, but that's kind of ridiculous for a 1br unit that hasn't been renovated since the 90s...
