What the heck do we do?

[Cathy Henderson]

So, just to be as detailed as possible, we found a 5 bedroom, 2 bathroom house for rent. $1,300 a month and $1,300 deposit. When we contacted the lady who was renting the house, all seemed great. She seemed very nice and arranged to show us the house. She explained at the time that none of the utilities were on and she still had quite a few of her belongings in the house. The house had been vacant for roughly 6 months.

We came and looked at the house and loved it. It is an older home, but it had the space we wanted and needed. Huge basement, huge laundry room, two living room areas, kitchen, and dining room. The 5 bedrooms are all on the small side, but nothing too detrimental by any means. Some of the windows in the house were newer, others were much older. Also not detrimental. Overall, we thought it was a good fit and agreed to move forward.

The landlady said she would be moving her belongings out and cleaning up the house to get it ready for us. We found the home a month before we actually moved in. We provided a statement to the landlord we had at the time letting him know that we would be moving. We worked on packing, putting our stuff in storage, and waiting for the landlady to move out her things before our move in date at the 1st of the next month.

All seemed great. She kept in touch, told us one weekend that she had mostly everything out of the house and the house cleaned up. She told us that what little bit remained, she would have out the next weekend, which would have been the weekend before we moved in. She said she still had some things down in the basement, and asked if we would be okay with her keeping those things there for a couple of weeks while we were here so she could sort through those belongings more carefully.

It's a big basement, so we didn't mind a bit. A couple of weeks seemed like no big deal to us. There was plenty of space down there to store our extra items, too. What could a couple of weeks of not using part of the basement hurt? We agreed and continued forward with an anticipated move in date of the 1st of April.

Since we had already informed our current landlord that we would be out, he moved forward with securing tenants that would replace us after moving out. A couple of days before the 1st, we contacted her and she said she still hadn't gotten the last of her things out, but that it was only a couple of items (two large cabinets, an end table, and a chaise lounge). She said those things could go down in the basement and she would work on getting them out.

We weren't too pleased that those things hadn't been out as promised, but we figured that if they were moved down into the basement, it would be no big deal to wait a couple more weeks. Those things wouldn't be in our way. We picked up the keys from her, unlocked the door to our new rental, and lo and behold, it was more than just "a few things" that were left behind. She had barely moved anything out at all from when we first came to look at the house.

By that point, it was too late to find anything else on such short notice. We were extremely unhappy with the situation and voiced this to her. She apologized profusely and said she would be sure to correct it all by having someone come in that very first weekend to remove everything since she'd messed up so badly. She asked us if we could "do her a favor" by moving all of her belongings into the living room so they would be easier to remove.

We were very put off by this because we felt it was not our responsibility to move her things. The house was also in desperate need of cleaning since she had not done that, either. We started looking right away for another rental option, but one that suited our needs was hard to find, so we found ourselves stuck in our situation. We went out, purchased several cleaning supplies, rubber gloves, and got to work.

We moved heavy furniture down the stairs and into the living room area. We also grabbed piles upon piles of dirty laundry and trash that we found in the laundry room area and moved them into the front room. There were old dishes in the dishwasher (not clean) and old food in the cabinets. It was a very disappointing situation.

It took her a few days, but she finally came over and she was unhappy about the fact that she felt "rushed" to move her things out. I will reiterate that she had month to get the place ready for us, and promised that she would. No joke, this woman shows up with a giant UHaul and proceeds to throw her things out the front door and onto the lawn. She scared my kids with the way she was behaving. She threw a fit about not having anyone to help her move her things.

Despite our upset, we offered to help her and she yelled at us and said, "No. I've got it." So we stood back quietly and awkwardly while she hauled the content of the living room out onto the lawn and then into the back of her truck. She did NOT make any attempts to come back and remove a couple of other items that were too heavy for us to move. She also never made an attempt to come back to remove her things from the basement or even the garage, though there wasn't much in the garage.

We made due since we figured we still had plenty of space in the basement for our things. We arranged our things throughout the house and decided we would continue to look for another rental option since it was apparent there was something very wrong with the one we were in. The day after all of this, we decided we needed to turn the heater on because we had a cold front come in. The night time temps had dipped to the low to mid-40s. We found out this way that our heater did not work.

I called her and let her know and she immediately had someone come out to do a temp fix, promising that a permanent fix would be addressed within a week. The permanent fix never happened, but the temp fix was enough for now since we only needed the heat for a few nights. The same day we found out the heater didn't work, we lost complete and total water pressure in the house and all hot water.

All we had was cold water and a dribble of water coming from the faucets downstairs. The in the upstairs bathroom didn't work at all. We also informed her of this issue. Finally, the water completely stopped working after two more days. Again, she addressed the issue. She got a plumber out and after a week of no water, we were back up and running. So, great! At least she takes care of repairs, right?

Wrong. We discovered we were very, very wrong. The light in the dining room quit working after being here a couple of weeks. Since we are not electricians, we had no clue what caused the light to stop working. We replaced the bulb, and still the light did not work. Then we noticed that the lights in the house flickered horribly and lights would burn out within weeks of replacing a light bulb. We heard zaps of electricity through the house whenever the washing machine or dryer would turn out. You'd hear the same sound when the HVAC kicked on or when the fridge kicked on.

It was scary, to say the least. Then we noticed that there were sparks coming out of the plugin for our dryer. We addressed this with her multiple times and addressed fear that something was wrong with the electrical work. She said she'd have someone come fix the light and that she'd call an electrician to check out the wiring. Here we are, and it is almost the 1st of July and none of these things have been taken care of, and it's very frustrating!

We knew an electrician that came in and just kind of inspected for us while he was hanging out one evening and he let us know that there was definitely a big problem. He explained that the fridge, stove, washer, dryer, and HVAC were all on the same circuit breaker. As a result, it burned up the motor in our dryer. Now, although the burned up dryer is extremely frustrating, that is the least of our concerns. We are concerned that this house is going to suffer an electrical fire at any point in time.

We have addressed these things with her multiple times and she promises to take care of them, but then we do not hear anything back from her until it is time to collect the rent. Along the way, some other issues became very apparent. We had a flood that pushed through the garage and into the downstairs living area, damaging the carpet. She came over directly afterward and said she would take care of it.

Her way of taking care of it was dropping off a shop vac. My husband had to use the shop vac to try to suck the water out of the carpet. After a few days, there was a horrendous smell through the house. We told her there was no choice but to pull the carpet and replace it since the shop vac was not enough to address the damages. It was a small shop vac. She said, "Okay. Let me know after you've removed it and I'll see about finding you guys some replacement carpet."

Again, we were angry and frustrated. We didn't see how it was our responsibility to remove the carpeting out of the living room. However, we still hadn't had luck finding another rental option. We pulled the carpet up and out of the room and moved it to the curb for trash. That was a month and a half ago and she still has not made any move to replace the carpeting. We found out that the basement ALSO floods. The only area of the basement that stays dry is the corner where her things are stored. Our belongings were damaged.

Had we known of this issue, we would not have stored our items down there only to have them ruined by water. It is, of course, our own fault that we had not purchased renter's insurance yet, so I'm not holding her accountable for replacing the items. I understand she is not liable for the damages to them. It just would have been nice to know that this was a problem. I feel it was information that she did not tell us despite verbally saying that she "knew this would happen."

There is also a lift pump installed in the back yard. She said that the people that planned to buy the house before them didn't want to be on well water so they had a lift pump installed to hook the house up to city water. Okay. No problem, right? Again, wrong. We have sewage pooling in our backyard. It looks like a creek of sewage that runs from the lift pump all the way down to the tree line. We have to make sure our kids go nowhere near the area because it is obviously a hazard, and the smell is atrocious.

We made mention of the problem with that, too, and she finally said that she had hoped that her boyfriend would be able to keep the house, which is why she rented it. I was stunned to find out her name is nowhere on the house. It's her boyfriend's house. We haven't even dealt with him! She said that a lift pump replacement would cost several thousand and that's just not something she could afford and she thought it best we try to find something else. Well, we've been working on that.

Now, up to this point, we have paid her the full month's worth of rent DESPITE all of these issues. I told her last month that we would continue to look for something, but she was at least going to have to address some of the issues she could afford so we could at least live here SAFELY. She agreed. I texted and emailed her and no response until today when she asked me if I would have July's rent in full.

To add, when she mentioned this house belonging to her boyfriend, we decided to run some searches. She had claimed that her boyfriend owned the house for the last 15 years. We found out that was not true. They purchased it in 2009. She has been in trouble with the law over the course of the last 20 years for fraud, aliases, bad check writing, stealing, forgery, and a rash of other activity. It made me uncomfortable to find out we have been giving this women $1,300 a month in cash (she hand writes us out a receipt) for something she doesn't even own. I wish I had known all of this prior.

We finally found another house and it is ready for move in on the 15th of July. I informed her of this. She asked me if I will still be paying for the full month of July. Now, obviously I wouldn't have to pay a full month if we are out on the 15th. And I'm not willing to give her a full month and ask her for half of it back because there is no guarantee she will give it back. I do not trust this woman at all. However, she says if we do not provide a full month on the 1st, she will start a 3-day eviction process on us.

What the heck are our rights here? I wish I could simply just be out on the 1st and not give her anything at all after the absolute nightmare she has put us through, but I know that's wrong. Plus, the house won't be ready on the 1st anyway. Not until the 15th. I'm just absolutely sick to death of everything we have dealt with. The fear of the electrical issues, the sewage in the backyard causing a health hazard, the lack of carpeting in the downstairs living room, the leaky basement that has now left a musty smell down there, her still storing her things here so that we are not using the house to its fullest...It's all very new to me. I've never dealt with a landlord like this.

There is absolutely no lease. When we moved in, she agreed to bring us a lease to sign and she never did. We asked and asked and she never brought one over. Now, I have it in texts that the rent is due by the 1st of the month, which she has received the 1st of every month. But every single month, she texts a few days before and harasses us about paying her early. Last month, there as a family funeral two days before the 1st and she texted and harassed while the funeral was going on saying she wanted to pick up the rent that day. Despite telling her what was going on, she continued to text and harass.

This whole thing has gotten severely out of hand and we have no idea what to do. I realize that it might not seem like a big deal since it looks as though we will be out on the 15th anyway, but she is scaring us with the way she is harassing us. Is there anything we can legally do about this situation? She's threatening to blast our names all over the internet if we do not give her a full $1,300 on the first despite informing her about moving out on the 15th. What makes that not so good is that I don't want her actions to ruin our chances of getting into this other house. I'm so weary of this. Someone please provide me with some information.

If you need more info to provide some insight, we are residents of Missouri. Thanks so much and I'm so sorry about the long post.

[Lynn McGeein]

Most states have tenant help lines.  Contact the city and ask.  They'll help you figure the correct direction you need to take and possibly send out inspectors to verify the house is unfit, but you need to follow correct procedures, which usually means something  like filing formal complaint and paying your rent to the city to hold until resolution.  I believe even without a written lease that you've established leaseholder rights, but you need to contact someone soon before it affects your future as you will harm your chances if you need to list her as past landlord.  Also, if there is no lease and nothing about her not being responsible for your belongings, you could have a potential suit against her for not disclosing flooding issues and  possible damage.  Not a lawyer, but another question for the city or tenant help line.