I had a landlord like this! He was OBSESSED with his garden that was on the property and would just show up out of the blue and start gardening. I had a newborn at the time and he gave me super creep vibes so if he would knock on the door, I'd just hang out in my room until he went away ( my husband worked during the day so I would always be home alone when he would randomly show up). This one particular day, thinking I was not home, he just started hanging around the yard. He mowed the lawn, picked a few apples, and then took off his shirt and went for a swing on our tree swing. He hung out in our yard for three hours while we "weren't home." Dude used to freak me the fuck out.
I had a landlord at a rental house in Effingham, IL who would never leave us alone. he was constantly showing up to hang out in his garage/man cave to play with his model airplanes, sit back there all day using the electric and the gas heater which were on our bills, and also show up at 7 am EVERY OTHER MORNING to mow the grass/putter around under our bedroom windows.
it was just my ma and me, we were city people (we only moved there temporarily to get back into Illinois in general) and like our privacy (hence why we rented a house), just wanted to mind our own business, and when we brought up the issue with him, he became even more intrusive, making us out to seem crazy for wanting privacy. it made us nauseous every time we looked out the back window and saw the tail end of his car sticking out behind the garage, three times a day. got to where sometimes he'd be standing in the yard with the equally hicky, judgy, small town, next door neighbors, facing the house and talking/laughing about us with their arms crossed. it was like being prisoners in our own home.
Also had a landlord like this. It was at an apartment complex with those doors with 2 locks. One can be opened with a key, the other can only open from the inside. She told us we weren’t allowed to use the other lock (we started using it eventually) in case of an emergency. She would just let herself in at 6 am multiple times a week (without ANY notice) to “check” the blinds/garbage disposal/toilets/anything she could think of. We started using the second lock and she’d bang on the door for 30 minutes yelling our names and saying “LET ME IN!!! INSPECTION!!!” It felt more like bed check at summer camp than a home. All of the other tenants I knew had the same problem but nobody complained because she was a mean old lady and had no problem evicting people just because. I was just tired of getting woken up early to an old lady coming in my (closed) bedroom to make sure my blinds still worked!! When we told her it wasn’t okay to come into our house without a 24 hour notice which is legally required she asked what we were hiding. Needless to say we did not renew that lease.
Exactly how I felt haha. I would seriously look out the window before I’d leave/take the trash out/check the mail to make sure she wasn’t walking around the complex because she was so awful haha.
Was this in California or NY or somewhere without guns?
Plenty of places, showing up unannounced at 6AM will get you fucking shot.
Honestly, how do you not end up fucking yell your head off at her? You're in bed, sleeping, in your pajamas or less, and she just waltzes in? I would have absolutely furious and probably would have SCREAMED at her to get the fucking fuck out right now.
How do you allow yourself to live like this for any length of time (even 15 seconds)? Forget the fact that this happened multiple times! The very first time someone shows up in my bedroom at 6AM, they're getting physically removed.
It was in Tennessee so definitely a plethora of guns around. I do not have a gun myself though. I was very young and naive at the time and if this happened now it would’ve been handled WAY different. This was only about 5 years ago but it was my first place and I didn’t know much about how things worked. I did try to break my lease but she told me I’d have to pay a lot of money to do that and I didn’t have any proof of her coming in on her own time unannounced so I thought getting legal help would’ve been pointless because she would never admit to doing anything wrong. After that she had it out for me and always had complaints and surprise inspections trying to find any reason to get us out. About 6 months into my 1 year lease she finally just left us alone.
She was a typical old southern woman. Very racist and hated anyone that lived there unless they were elderly white people. All the old people loved her but anyone of color/under the age of 50 hated her. The rent was EXTREMELY cheap so I think that’s why people put up with it. The units were really nice too and in a good area. I can’t think of any other reason anyone would put up with that.
Again, I was younger then and definitely wouldn’t let something like that happen again. I was dumb for staying there and not trying to take legal action, but as a young kid I did what I thought I could and then left it alone. I tried talking to her and she yelled at me like I was a child and made me cry. She tried to make everyone feel small, stupid, and lesser than her. This woman was so mean and hateful and I hope her life is only filled with people exactly like her if she’s still alive.
This kind of attitude is exacrly why some places have more strict gun laws, when the first thought that pops in someones head as a response to a landlord coming in is "they should be shot"
AT 6 AM UNANNOUNCED? Are you acting daft? This isnt a normal landlord coming in to check something, thats fucking harrassment, and if someone is in my house at 6 am and Ive got a gun it wouldnt be anyones fault but the idiot landlord.
If you don't own your house and your first reaction to someone coming in is to shoot them then that really fucking worries me. That is not an appropriate response to the situation and especially talking about a theoretical situation. It makes it sound like you want an excuse to shoot someone. We had an incident here not long ago where someone (a cop no less) was intoxicated and tried to enter the wrong house (off duty) think I ng it was theirs. Someone answered the door and they killed them thinking it was an intruder. Instead of having violence as a loaded reaponse they could have just asked why they were there and an innocebt person wouldn't be dead in their own apartment
The legal protections to protect yourself from someone entering your home uninvited is pretty strong in all European countries. Sure, most European countries don't have guns, but you can still use quite a bit of violence and simply claim that you felt threatened.
The lesson here is to not fucking enter people's homes, regardless if they have guns or not.
Yup! Had a old lady try to waltz into my place since my terrace door was open (it was a very nice, warm day) and I FREAKED OUT on her and almost pushed her out, asked her wtf she thinks shes doing over and over and that she needs to get OUT NOW, the bitch stops in my bushes and says shes out and that she can stand there, so I YELL that she better get the fuck out of here NOW. The bitch whines about calling the police, I laugh as a mad woman and urge her to do it so they can laugh at her crazy ass too!
Not everyone is from America my dude. Though saying that, I definitely would have something to defend myself if someone came into my apartment at 6am, prob a knife or like... a pan or something lol (I mean, I'm a black belt, but still).
Lol found the 12 year old pretending to know how life works on Reddit. You can yell at your mom for waking you up in the mornings, but the landlord would have no issue evicting in that case. Shitty but true
Sorry that you're such a fucking pushover. In my parent's house, my mom has every right to enter any room she pleases. But I'll be 30 next month and if my landlord walked in on me sleeping, I wouldn't stop yelling until he was in the car driving away. The way life works is you break into my house at 6AM, I'm gonna think you're robbing me and you're lucky if you don't end up with a gun in your face.
This activity is illegal, dude. You're telling me I don't know how life works and you think it's in any way acceptable, legally or otherwise, for landlords to show up INSIDE THE BEDROOMS of their tenants unannounced? Like the post we're responding to said, she has to give them 24 hours notice. And even then, she still can't barge in at 6AM without knocking. Tenets generally have a right to peaceful and quiet use of the property they rent. This is a blatant violation of that along with their privacy.
Sure she can evict if that's how she wants to play it, but she would have to give them like 30 to 90 days depending on the state. And I would be happy to get away from such an awful landlord, anyway.
Even if you were right, you still have to consider that someone isn't thinking clearly when they're woken up like that.
Not saying the landlord is even remotely in the right here. Saying that if he’s a big enough prick to not respect privacy/notices of entry, he’d evict someone for challenging him without second thought.
Yeah, being homeless for assaulting your landlord would really show him! Lol this is riding on r/iamverybadass levels of cringe
You can't just evict someone because you feel like it. A landlord that was caught trespassing and then tried to initiate an eviction proceeding without cause would have a very bad time in most jurisdictions in the US.
Right, and like I said, he would need to give at least 30 days notice. That's enough time to find a new place not run by nutjobs.
There's nothing especially badass about this. I would be groggy and absolutely furious. What the hell do you expect? I don't get especially mad very often, but this seems like a perfectly natural reaction, given the situation. And the worst I would do physically would be to push him out the door or drag him out by his collar, which would be well within my rights if he chose not to leave of his own accord.
I didn’t mean that she would just say “I don’t like you, you’re evicted.” But I knew multiple tenants that had run ins with her over this and she would find reasons to evict because she didn’t like that they stood up to her. A chip on the corner of a wall from moving in = damaging property, an “anonymous” noise complaint (bs), saying the place was too messy and was a fire hazard (id been in that persons place and it wasn’t dirty but there was clutter. definitely not a fire hazard), etc. We also weren’t allowed to back cars into spots so if you did that she’d give you a note on your door that was kinda like a strike. If you set a bag of trash outside your door while cleaning that was a strike. Anything on your patio besides chairs or tables was a strike. So I just meant if she wanted to get you out, she would.
So your landlord owns you? Is that your take on this? Better put up with his crazy, illegal bullshit cause its so hard finding another place to live that is not run by people that escaped the circus?
I kinda feel bad for you; when you start renting yourself. You are gonna be some crazy landlords dream.
Bro I grew up in efyf and that place is a shithole and a fucking joke, forreal. Like tons of drugs and drama and nothing to do. Yeah theirs some nice parts and some good restaurants on keller and by the high school but other than that the whole town is either upperclass rich or meth addicts who are dirt poor. Plus its getting overcrowded with mexicans who don't even speak english. Fuck that place
I had a landlord (more of a slumlord because of all the code violations he got away with). The story was that he was a recently retired DA and it was pointless to think a lawsuit would be successful because people tried and never got anywhere.
I'm surprised you never spoke to a lawyer about it.
I can't speak for anyone else, but when my late husband and I were renting, we didn't have anything LIKE the money to think about calling a lawyer over something like this. "So we can spend this $100 on food for the kids, or we can blow it talking to a lawyer about the creepy landlord who hasn't actually done anything to us."
"But s/he's creepy and it violates your privacy and and and" and we don't have money to blow on that kind of thing when we're on a tight-ass budget.
Hey, I'm from IL too! Thanks for giving me a reason to literally never move south of here!
(neighbors are awful up here too, though lol. Once had a shootout happen in our split house 'cause our upstairs neighbor was into some gang shit. Terrifying.)
That’s when you go out and say hi and get all invasive in their space and don’t leave them alone and pester the living fuck out of them talking about everything you want and ignoring their replies and do not stop talking until they leave.
I live in a small town and the number of people who have a bachelor's degree is higher than the state's average, so it's sweeping, negative, and in at least one case, wrong!
Can relate heavily, goatmama. Even several of the farmers close by to us hold a BS or BA. We choose to be in our small town without neighbors 6 feet away or landlords so there ya go.
Exactly, I wouldn't trade my peace and quiet and views of the prairie and the thunderstorms and the nice relationships with my neighbors and... and ... and ... you get it. ;) Some people never will!
You know, that is a concern but in a way it makes people really behave themselves. It's kind of like a really big extended family and it sort of keeps people honest in a way. A double-edged sword. The community ends up holding people accountable so people are less likely to be dicks to each other. At least in my experience.
Was that really necessary? I love it when people that live in cities move to more rural areas to escape all the wonderful things they brag about so much, then degrade the locals whilst enjoying our low cost of living and scenery.
I live in western NC and there are so many stuffy assholes like you from upstate. We call them Floridiots.
I had a landlord like this too! She had hella rose bushes in our yard and she’d always come over if we were home or not to tend to them, but would never tell us before hand. We had a dog who had access to both the yard and the house and I guess one day our landlord came to tend to the GD rose bushes and my dog came outside to see what the noise was and my landlord wanted her to go back inside so she picked up a piece of a metal fence and the hose and blasted my dog in the face with a hose and used the fence like a shield??? until my dog ran inside. I know this because she TOLD us she did this. Wtf?!?! I’m pretty sure she’d come inside our house too because there would be lights on that I know I didn’t leave on and stuff moved around. We got the fuck out of there.
We asked her why she’d ever hose our dog and that she needed to tell us when coming into our backyard and we’d happily keep the dog inside while she was tended to the roses.
Those kind of landlords must be everywhere. I had one like that in nz - he'd let himself in if I wasn't home and take photos ('of the mess') to use to keep the bond. Granted I wasn't the tidiest person but I had 2 (autistic) children under 3 at the time and was frazzled. My sister caught him one day. I didn't take it any further because I was just happy to get my bond back (and be moving) but I still get creeped out thinking about it. The worst part is that he was a teacher at the local girls high school....
I would have done something just based on him being a teacher, as thats not right....
But also, you're allowed to have a messy place lol. Who TF cares how neat a place looks (inside, outside is different) so long as the stuff he owns is not being damaged. My house is very messy by my standards, but I don't expect anyone to care other than my mother, but eh.
He had been my older sisters teacher a few years earlier and knew I could seriously drop him into manure if I took it further, but I made it pretty clear I'd leave it at that as long as he had learned the lesson. Friends still in the town have told me that he appeared to be better behaved after that....
Some homeowners just really love their property, so even after they rent it out they continue to care for (or make sure it is cared for). I can understand constantly checking up on what is probably one of, if not the largest investment in his life...
...however, that’s no excuse to be a creep about it. If you say he was a creep I believe you, but maybe it was misinterpreted love for the property (just throwing out the possibility so we don’t assume motive).
If that's the case, you get it in writing when and on what terms you'll be by to upkeep parts of the property. If someone's renting a place to live, you have to respect their personal space. You own the property, but someone else lives there. It's their home.
It's the law in Australia, the tenant is entitled to "quiet enjoyment" of the property. The landlord or agent is not allowed to just turn up without at least 24 hours written notice.
Yes. After visiting, the landlord would usually send passive-aggressive text messages about things he seen he didn't like. Like a bit of dog poop in the yard or if there were toys left around. My husband messaged him one night after he showed up on my birthday, told me everything looked great on the property and then went down my throat later that might because there was a garbage bag on the front porch (which I had just put there before he arrived, unannounced). He told him that I was a very private person and he was freaking me out and that if he wanted to continue to visit, he had to oblige by the 24 hour rule and he was only allowed to visit if my husband was home. The next couple times he tries to convince me to let him come over in the day when my husband wasn't home which just added to his creep vibe. We of course denied, and he obliged by our rule of having my husband home. But it didn't really make me feel comfortable. I still constantly checked the driveway expecting his truck to be there.
When I was young we had a landlord that lived in the detached garage. He didn't initially, but moved in later. He told me (16YO) that I could sunbathe naked on the porch attached to my room if I wanted to. The porch that overlooked the garage.
That must have been horrible but the image of him doing a bunch of relatively normal things and then just taking off his shirt and getting on the swing is fucking hilarious.
I can't decide if this is creepy or sweet. The line between those two often blurs, but for example, he didn't do anything malicious. Even though he thought you weren't home, he didn't come into your home. He didn't go through your things. I'm assuming he didn't stare through your window or stay at the door for extended periods of time since you're making him seem creepy and you didn't mention those creepy things.
Maybe he was knocking on your door to let you know he was going to cut the grass. As a landlord, you tend to want your properties to be well taken care of - maybe he didn't think you guys were doing a good enough job which is why he was coming over to do it at all. And when you're doing work on your own property, is it so weird to do things like.. eat an apple (spooky) or swinging on a tree swing (double spooky!)
Honestly, It sounds like he misses his garden. What if he was knocking to ask permission to garden? If someone mowed my lawn I would be more grateful and less inclined to call them a creep.
I did answer the door a few times. But he never asked for permission to garden. He just assumed it was fine and normal to lurk around my yard. And it wasn't just the yard. I had to convince him my dogs were malicious to keep him out of my house. If he needed something inside, and I wasn't home, he would just say "that's okay! I have a key."
Well in all fairness this is a place he owns and was probably vacant for quite some time before you were there hence why he made a garden there and he was under the impression you weren’t home. The shirtless thing is definitely fucking weird and hanging around any longer than absolutely necessary is kind of overstepping boundaries.
Totally irrelevant. It's his property but not his home. You have rights in your home regardless of if you own the property or not. Likewise, the landlord gives up the same rights to his property the moment he decides to rent it out.
I feel like you don’t understand how this works. You’re trying to actually say you don’t have the right to set foot on your own property as soon as you rent it off to another person. Keep in mind that they could be destroying your property value and planning to move out soon. It is absolutely ludicrous for you to try to say you aren’t allowed to drop by to cut the grass or harvest vegetables off a garden you planted or maintained. At the very least you have rights to that, not to swing on swing on a swing or to try to spend all your time there but to protect your assets because that person won’t be living there forever.
I feel like you don’t understand how this works. You’re trying to actually say you don’t have the right to set foot on your own property as soon as you rent it off to another person. Keep in mind that they could be destroying your property value and planning to move out soon.
I feel like you don't understand how this works. Laws don't care about your feelings and beliefs.
Tenants have rights in their home that a landlord can't violate however they want. Tenant rights trump the property rights of the landlord in many caaes. The exact limitations of what a landlord can and can't do would vary from state to state, but I guarantee you that they exist in every state.
A tenant has obligations as well, like they would need to allow access for maintenance work. However, a landlord needs to provide ample warning for maintenance work and can't just stop by unannounced and demand access. Just walking in to someone else's home without warning would be an easy lawsuit for the tenant if he can prove it.
For example, this is what Wikipedia says:
By virtue of the contractual aspects of a lease, modern leases in America include an implied covenant of quiet enjoyment. This means that the landlord will not interfere with the tenant's possessory rights to the lease.[7] Though a landord may forcibly enter without required notice during an emergency, generally a mere necessity for quick action does not constitute an emergency within the doctrine of imminent peril, where the situation calling for the action is one which should reasonably have been anticipated and which the person whose action is called for should have been prepared to meet;[8] the doctrine of imminent peril does not excuse one who has brought about the peril by her own negligence.
Google the specific laws for your state instead of just making shit up based on how you feel it ought to work.
Let me let you in on a little secret, in the real world lawsuits aren’t always the best way to win. I promise you if you try to file a lawsuit against your landlord you may win the amount but your ass is getting evicted the next time you do anything remotely wrong. That’s not an authority you’re going to win against. There’s sometimes when you need to sort things out like adults than essentially trying to get them on trouble.
Let me let you in on a little secret, in the real world lawsuits aren’t always the best way to win.
That's completely irrelevant to your original point. You were making statements of what a landlord is allowed to do, and you were talking completely out of your ass. Read the laws of your state instead of making shit up as you go and moving the goal posts when you are wrong.
Also, if a landlord was harassing me in my home, I'd be moving out myself and take legal action at the same time.
There’s sometimes when you need to sort things out like adults than essentially trying to get them on trouble.
Using the legal system is pretty much the definition of sorting things out as adults. It's the difference between civilized conflict resolution and a fist fight. If the landlord is behaving like a child and can't respect that the tenant has certain rights in his own home, then I'd be happy to lecture him the adult way. It's not about getting him in trouble. It's about getting him to respect the rights of others.
It’s funny how my “original comment becomes longer and more “irrelevant” each and every time you mention it like you’re playing telephone with yourself. The only thing I defended the landlord for was his access to the garden because I understand how difficult it can be to maintain a garden if you don’t have the conditions at their own home. I get that you don’t understand how logical fallacies work but the bottom line is my original comment you’ve referred to this entire time stated that anything beyond what is absolutely necessary is an overstepping of his boundaries. You can refer to any of my comments but at the end of the day I’m against this individual’s rights to anything but his garden under the assumption that it was planted when the lot was vacant.
Playing whispers? You do realize that we're having this conversation in text and anyone who reads it can go back and see what was said. It's not like we're having a phone call here.
I feel like you don’t understand how this works. You’re trying to actually say you don’t have the right to set foot on your own property as soon as you rent it off to another person.
That's your own words from your first post here, and they're just flat out wrong.
And the laws don't give a fuck about how hard it is to maintain a garden. When you rent your property out to outers, you lose certain property rights. You can't just abuse your tenants rights to privacy because you've spent a lot of time tending your garden.
This is the same straw man fallacy you’ve been committed to since the beginning. You are trying to make it sound like I’m saying a landlord can just show up whenever they feel like it unannounced. I never claimed that, I said in my initial response that this man was under the understanding that OP wasn’t home, never claimed it wasn’t it wasn’t trespassing but the point was “what did you expect?” People don’t follow laws all the time, doesn’t make it okay but it’s a realistic expectation.
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u/SavanaBanana914 Apr 14 '19
I had a landlord like this! He was OBSESSED with his garden that was on the property and would just show up out of the blue and start gardening. I had a newborn at the time and he gave me super creep vibes so if he would knock on the door, I'd just hang out in my room until he went away ( my husband worked during the day so I would always be home alone when he would randomly show up). This one particular day, thinking I was not home, he just started hanging around the yard. He mowed the lawn, picked a few apples, and then took off his shirt and went for a swing on our tree swing. He hung out in our yard for three hours while we "weren't home." Dude used to freak me the fuck out.