Experience Renting and Different Landlords

[Account Closed]

This post is to sum up all of my experiences renting and to teach renters including landlords about renting and owning a property.

Jan 2011 Pittsfield, Massachusetts. 1/1 apartment style building.

Lessons learned: None, I got lucky.

This was my first time renting. The Landlord was great; they had a good solid lease, a well nice maintained apartment building, they were understanding with making repairs and sympathetic when a rent payment was late, in my case the landlord nicely asked if I was going to send in monthly rent payment, I had however it got lost in the mail.

May 2012 Morristown New Jersey. Studio in a three family.

Lessons learned: Beginners knowledge of Building construction for New Jersey. Landlords and renters be wary of the construction and condition of the building/property. Shared a studio with another person which was allowed by the lease. Landlord was kind as well, had a good lease and well maintained property. The only downside was there was illegal renovations that had the hot water line to the base board heating being routed outside. This is a problem as when the winter came we had to keep the heat at a minimum temperature at all time to prevent the pipe from freezing. Landlords keep note of the construction and status of your building.

Late 2012 Morristown New Jersey. 2/1 in a commercial/residential.

Lessons Learned: Lease contracts, Occupancy and Habitability laws, landlord and tenant laws for New Jersey.

I never got the opportunity to live in this unit due to occupancy/habitability regulations. One other person and I made a mistake when signing the lease. The potential landlord had a nice newly renovated building we were excited about moving into with the only issue being the front porch was under construction of which we were told it would be complete upon moving in (they had two months). Long story short, there was a delivery clause of 30 days in the lease, so if we couldn't move in on the start date the landlord could enforce the lease for thirty days and hold us liable even though we weren't living in it. NEVER sign a lease that has this clause. Due to Certificate of Occupancy and habitability laws of the porch, we couldn't move into this unit and we were only able to cancel the lease, get back our first months rent, security deposit and real estate commission fee ($6,000 total) after I informed the landlord the property is not habitable and you can’t hold us legally to the lease any longer. This was especially stressful since we had intended to move into this apartment and we had sent out intention of cancelling our other lease, almost leaving us homeless.

September 2013 Lenox Massachusetts. 2/2 in apartment style building

Lessons learned: Massachusetts Security Deposit Law and asking questions.

I really needed a unit and fast out of state so I settled quickly on this unit after seeing two others that same day especially with my new found knowledge of leases. The landlord was nice, understanding, but needed more knowledge of leases and laws. The lease had a number of clauses that were illegal with Massachusetts law and completely omitted the Security Deposit Clause, they owned this property but lived out of state in New York. They weren’t aware they needed to deposit the Security Deposit in a separate-interest bearing account and provide proof of deposit. Being too nice of a person I had them insert the clause into the lease but didn’t call them out on it, I could tell they meant well and I had the law to my advantage if things went sour. Now the "issue" was they freshly painted the apartment when they showed it to me masking the cigarette smoke smell I was not aware of. That later emanated through everything when I moved in and contaminated all of my clothes/belongings so I was slightly frustrated of not being told that.

April 2015 - October 2015 Malden Massachusetts. 2/1 in 5 unit building.

Experience from hell.

Lessons Learned: Be familiar with knowledge of landlord and tenant laws (the more detailed the better), building codes, habitability regulations, due diligence in researching an area, out-of-state investors, property management companies and managers, etc.

Again, I needed somewhere to live in a short timeframe and it had to be within public commuting distance of the city. Initially I thought the landlord was responsible, another out-of-estate investor trying to make some more income, but over the course of time I realized that was not the case. To make a long story short, the landlord nor the property agent did an inspection of the property before I moved in. I found out that the upper cabinet was ready to fall off, the microwave handle was melted and broke off, there was an ant infestation and a rodent infestation, the backdoor has been broken down once which was simply glued back together and used again, the bathroom was moldy and grout falling out which created more mold, and I didn’t find this last one out until after I left but every single fire detector was broken, which is serious because being a firefighter too many people have died from such a useful device that is required by law. I never received a security deposit receipt. And no fault to the landlord, but the area this unit was in had homeless people, drug dealers and gang members in the immediate vicinity which in literal fear for our safety after someone was shot in the face down the road, we moved out.

What I regret is not exercising the pro-tenant laws Massachusetts has in place, holding the landlord and property management liable of the commission fee they charged me since they did not do a proper inspection of the unit between tenants. I regret not withholding rent since the unit was technically uninhabitable due to the fire detectors and the door that was broken down was compromised, and the fact that if the cabinet hanging off the wall ever fell I would be dead. I regret not immediately demanding my security deposit back upon not receiving a receipt within 30 days. Whole ordeal cost me over $2500.

I also regret, of no ones fault but my own, not researching the area more which I would have avoided the stress of my own safety and the half dozen or so calls I made to police, which resulted in arrests.