New Lease with questionable demands and issues.

[Brandy Stanart]

We are heading into our third lease term with a questionable landlord who lives out of state. I will be honest and admit there have been issues with the landlord from the very beginning. It took 3 months to see the house as he was evicting tenants for non payment and housing 13 dogs with out persmission. As you might expect our first inspection of the house was a bit of a nightmare. The walls needed repainting and the carpet wreaked of urine. We were told that they were attempting to clean it and would replace if not able to remove stains and urine smell. During walk thru, landlord told us that the walls would be repainted etc. However on move in day the carpet was not cleaned and walls were literally spot painted in different color paint!

We have tried to work with land lord as he has fed us many horror stories over last tenant but things have gotten out of hand. He has a handy man who is supposed to handle the maintenance but he has failed to complete most of the jobs. For example a patch in one of our daughters rooms peeled off the wall two days within moving in on first year lease. The handy man did not come in to repair until signing of second lease but has yet to finish it. The carpet has been an issue from the very beginning and we told the land lord we would not renew if it was not replaced this term which was un in February. In November prior he told us that he would have estimates done and intended to have it replaced that month. We had two companies come in but no replacement. In December more companies came it and we were told we would have to move everything off the floors or for a 1 day install when he chose to have them come in. We were unable to even put up a tree because he kept up in the dark the whole month about when he intended to have people come in. January rolled around and he chose another company and there was some issues with choosing carpet etc.

Long story short it was replace February 6th and the following week he delivered a new lease which had several new clauses. One of the issues was the fact that he was increasing rent due to "expense" yet we have plenty of issues still in need or repair. When we questioned him, we were told out house should rent for $1400-1500 a month and he was taking a loss on it by charging us $1172. We have checked our area and he is not correct but I guess that really does not make much difference at this point. He also included in the lease that our carpet must be clean every 8th months by a professional cleaner. We feel this is a bit much in relation to the rest of the house. The landlord has made it quite clear from teh get go that he does not care what we do to improve them home but refuses to compensate us for it. However he has encouraged us to do so on occasion when we let him know about things falling into repair. He has a $25 a month clause already that anything falling under that in need of repair falls to us. We are frusterated and honestly only stay in this home because it is the only one with in our daughters district with a garage the size we need. We have found several homes some twice the size of the house we live in now which is 1900 sq ft. for less than what we pay now. They all have garages but they are not large enough and we are one of those families that actually use the garage and with two full size SUVs/Trucks they don't fit into todays smaller garages!

We are still looking and the lease has yet to be signed as he just made us aware of the rate increase and by law he was supposed to give us 60 day notice yet the lease is already set for February with that new rate. If we sign it under that change and do no pay the amount we could be under more complications. We have discussed the professional cleaning aspect as well and he agree verbally that when the time comes to clean if we are unable to pay for it he "might" go in half for it but we are used to his verbal agreements falling thru. He refuses to take it our of the lease or make a written concession. What are your thoughts?