My landlord is a douche. See below.
My rental situation has taken a very dramatic turn for the worst. An apartment that I was assured was 'A Sure Thing' turned out not to be so and at this point I have until Thursday evening to vacate the house I've lived in for fifteen years now. I called up the landlord to ask him for some kind of an extension due to the difficulties of finding a place not only in Seattle, but anywhere in the area and refered him to an article in the
Seattle Post Intelligencer today confirming what I've known in the three months I've been agreesively hunting for a new home. His reaction was this: If I am there on Friday morning he will have all my personal belongings removed to the street. Period. What a fucking god damned prick. I am also going to lose my two cats who have been with me for almost ten years now.
Over the past fifteen years his father, a drunken alcoholic suffering from dementia caused tenants to suffer from his neglect of the house and inflicting not only his unwelcome and unannounced visits upon the household, but also those of his 'boyfriend', someone I can only describe as a harley-davidson biker type who acted and looked like he had fallen off his motorcycle one to many times.
At this point I really don't know what I'm going to do about this, the rentals this weekend on Craigslist look particularly bleak.
So if any of you out there have any ideas of what I can do at this point, any lawyers you can refer to to who might be able to help me with this situation I would very much appreciate it because at this point, without a very great deal of good luck I will be homeless on next Friday.
I will be glad to be rid of this household nonetheless. Over the years the basement tenants have had a successful drug dealing business, apparently with the full knowledge of the landlord's daughter who, according to the dealer, slept with him as an agreement to keep her mouth shut about his illegal business. When the landlord came over last summer to do some construction, I was down in the basement with him and one of his fellow construction workers and encountered the very distinctive smell of pot. His buddy asked him what he was going to do about it. His reaction? Nothing. nothing at all. In addition to that, over the years both he and his son have showed up at the house on a monthly or more frequent basis not giving the 24 hour notice to all tenants that seems to be required by law.
Over the years I've compiled a laundry list of this and other issues with this guy and his father and I would deeply enjoy putting them on the business end of a lawyer who could make life more difficult for them if not shut them down entirely as landlords. Again, anything that any of you could do would be most appreciated.
Just a p.s.
I've always paid my rent on time, I've managed the place for several years, the issue is that I believe this is a punitive and retaliatory action for standing up for my rights as a tenant in Seattle that a 60 day notice of rent increase is required. In response he is putting me out on the street in a very poor rental market.
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Find the non-emergency number for your local police station and ask them if your landlord is even allowed to do what he's threatening. See if they can refer you to a landlord-tenant help line. Get on the record if you wish as a harrassed
Keep making your records, documenting everything the landlord says to you. Post it here if that would be helpful. Focus on making your records and your account of things as "proveable" as possible -- record phone calls & conversations if that's legal (again, check the laws in Seattle -- but in some states it is legal to record a conversation if you are one of the parties having the conversation, as opposed to a third-party eavesdropper).
Particularly if you can demonstrate your history of being current on rent, this landlord likely has a long way to go in court before he could legally lock you out or touch your possessions. Good luck and please keep us posted.
posted by allterrainbrain at 10:19 PM on August 25, 2006