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Landlord Jim
Apr. 17th, 2005 04:27 pmThis is the story of the other landlord. I shall call him Jim.
I called a number of people while hunting through newspaper and online listings. Most of the properties were unsuitable for one reason or another, and I had to make a new set of call yesterday morning so as to have actual places to visit while my parents were visiting (and had their car with them -- the car is the important bit).
Jim had two apartments available -- one empty, and one whose current inhabitant is leaving this summer. I spoke to him via telephone and he painted a fairly attractive picture of the houses, mentioning that they were quiet, in a nice neighborhood, and one had a new deck out back. There was something ever-so-slightly off about his spiel, implications of a... um, property-conscious person, or maybe a slight snobbishness, but I figured that probably meant his houses were in better shape than some others. Which would be a good thing, and I'm a quiet, inoffensive tenant, so I figured I wouldn't ring any of his alarm bells.
Well, Jim suggested that we drive by the houses to see if we liked the look of them, and then call him back for an actual appointment. We did, at which point I discovered that he was down in Virginia, and (according to his wife) out mowing his lawn.
Absentee landlord. Hmm.
A neighbor came over with keys, and introduced herself as one of the people who kept a loose eye on the buildings when Jim was in Virginia. She showed us around the first apartment, in which I found a sheet of rules for living in any of Jim's houses. They included:
- Don't hang anything on the walls
- Don't rearrange the furniture
- Don't bring any new furniture without asking permission
- Don't open the windows until the temperature reaches 70 degrees
etc.
To go along with the last one, he had the thermostat locked inside a little cage so you couldn't adjust the heat without calling someone for a key. The neighbor didn't have a key to the thermostat, and the vents were spewing hot air... on a sunny, 70 degree day.
Not just an absentee landlord, then -- Jim was a full-fledged control freak.
I could probably have dealt with this for a year, figuring that nobody would much notice if I opened the windows in colder weather, but I wasn't looking for a one-year lease. I was looking for a home.
What kind of home is it if you can't rearrange the furniture?
This is why I'm not renting an apartment from Jim.
I called a number of people while hunting through newspaper and online listings. Most of the properties were unsuitable for one reason or another, and I had to make a new set of call yesterday morning so as to have actual places to visit while my parents were visiting (and had their car with them -- the car is the important bit).
Jim had two apartments available -- one empty, and one whose current inhabitant is leaving this summer. I spoke to him via telephone and he painted a fairly attractive picture of the houses, mentioning that they were quiet, in a nice neighborhood, and one had a new deck out back. There was something ever-so-slightly off about his spiel, implications of a... um, property-conscious person, or maybe a slight snobbishness, but I figured that probably meant his houses were in better shape than some others. Which would be a good thing, and I'm a quiet, inoffensive tenant, so I figured I wouldn't ring any of his alarm bells.
Well, Jim suggested that we drive by the houses to see if we liked the look of them, and then call him back for an actual appointment. We did, at which point I discovered that he was down in Virginia, and (according to his wife) out mowing his lawn.
Absentee landlord. Hmm.
A neighbor came over with keys, and introduced herself as one of the people who kept a loose eye on the buildings when Jim was in Virginia. She showed us around the first apartment, in which I found a sheet of rules for living in any of Jim's houses. They included:
- Don't hang anything on the walls
- Don't rearrange the furniture
- Don't bring any new furniture without asking permission
- Don't open the windows until the temperature reaches 70 degrees
etc.
To go along with the last one, he had the thermostat locked inside a little cage so you couldn't adjust the heat without calling someone for a key. The neighbor didn't have a key to the thermostat, and the vents were spewing hot air... on a sunny, 70 degree day.
Not just an absentee landlord, then -- Jim was a full-fledged control freak.
I could probably have dealt with this for a year, figuring that nobody would much notice if I opened the windows in colder weather, but I wasn't looking for a one-year lease. I was looking for a home.
What kind of home is it if you can't rearrange the furniture?
This is why I'm not renting an apartment from Jim.
