Tag: timely maintenance

'Patricia was super sweet when I first met her, which made her transgressions seem so confusing and frustrating. Our rent was for the entire house, except for the small side room that is accessible from the outside. That room was reserved for her air bnb guest. The door that separated them from our home is a sliding wooden door. Not sound proofed at all. Sound traveled so much in our own section of the home that we could actually hear our cats walk upstairs. Some of the air bnb guest were very noisy but we knew it wasn’t really their fault. At one point she moved her son into the air bnb room. We eventually got a text one day asking us to wear thick socks indoors because he found it to be too noisy. We were both small and we were out of the house most days working. It seemed kind of ridiculous to blame us for how thin the floors and walls were, to the point of expecting us to wear thick socks when we can literally hear her son pee from our room upstairs. Another headache was the cooling and heating of the place. Utilities were included in our rent (our rent was high for that area by the way). I figured our high rent was due to utilities being included. Because the insulation was so terrible, the upstairs would get boiling hot and freezing cold during summer and winter. We had to use the cooling and heating system often. I didn’t feel like I was using it at unreasonable times. The heat upstairs would be about 10 degrees hotter than it was outside. On several occasions, I would turn on the cooling system, and about 5 minutes later Patricia would text me asking if it was necessary for me to turn it on or if it was set no lower than 78. Patricia lives in the castle next door and has time to keep an eye on our vents. She often would complain to us about the utilities being too high. If we pay rent and it stipulates that utilities are included I feel like making us uncomfortable/guilty for using the utilities is totally over stepping a boundary. I was also pretty sure she came in our home to check the temperature settings on our system when we were not home without notifying us. The worst came when it was a month to move out. I had gotten a new car and planned on selling my old one. It was parked in MY driveway. She texted me “offering” to tow my car away for scrap. I told her that it is my car and it is absolutely not in her right to tow it. That is again absolutely overstepping boundaries. She then said she needed it moved so she could build a shed there. The driveway was our driveway, as part of our rental agreement. She justified it as the car being “abandoned” and in the lease we are not supposed to abandon items outside for a prolonged period. I had only stopped using it for a couple months, isn’t the driveway where people store their cars? Do multi car families use all their cars on a regular basis? By that point I only had about 4 weeks left before moving out and I was so fed up with her that I called the scrap yard myself. She is a nice and interesting person outside of being her tenant. As a landlord she does care about her property, and maintains it well. On the flip side, she continually overstepped boundaries. Was too protective of her property to the point where I did not feel like it was my home. I paid rent but it felt like I was a guest in her home instead. She gives off the vibe of peace and love with the artist lady act but as a landlord she is passive aggressive, doesn’t respect boundaries and is very exploitive. It was exhausting."