Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with housing and roommates

First/last month's rent scam?

mudpuppie — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 16:36:40 -0800

Yet another roommate/deposit recovery question.... The scene:
San Francisco. Rent-controlled apartment.

The characters:
Main tenant -- we'll call her Mary -- who has lived in the apartment for 14 years
Roommate 1, who has lived in apartment for 18 months (and who happens to be my girlfriend); we'll call her GF
Roommate 2, who has lived in apartment for about a year; we'll call her #2

The story:
Mary has lived at this address for 14 years and is, for all intents and purposes, the tenant of record. She has all the interactions with the landlord, pays the bills, etc. The GF and #2 rent rooms from her, not from the landlord. The GF and #2 are not on the lease. In fact, they have no lease.

When she first moved in years ago, Mary presumably paid the full deposit and first/last month's rent based on the 1994 rent.

When roommates come in and out, they pay a deposit and first/last month to Mary. What Mary does with the money, we don't know. Obviously, she should bank the deposit for when the roommates leave, but it's unclear whether she does.

Last month, #2 announced that she was moving in with her boyfriend. She's gone. Mary has not yet rented that room.

A couple weeks ago, the GF was offered an apartment in another city that considerably shortens her commute. She accepted it and told Mary that she would be moving out next month.

Mary is pissed that she now has to find two new tenants.

In the 18 months that the GF has lived there, rent has gone up. Mary is now telling the GF that she must pay the difference between the actual last month's rent, and the "last month's rent" she paid when she moved in. Her reasoning is that she's suddenly without roommates and will incur extra expenses. (My response to that, which is pretty much irrelevant, is "tough shit, Mary.")

I've never heard of this before, and it sounds pretty shady to me. I've lived in places with multiple rent increases, and I've never been asked to pay the difference. Is this normal practice? Is it allowable, even? If not, any tips on how say No, and still get the deposit back?

how to deal with a deadbeat roommate and angry landlord?

Anonymous — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 22:27:14 -0800

[nyc] my roommate is a few thousand bucks behind on rent, our lease is up at the end of august, and my other roommate and i are both very worried he's not going to give our landlord everything he's owed before then. are there any ways for the two of us who are square with the landlord financially to avoid getting massively screwed by this (in the legal system + credit records) other than us ponying up his share? and yes, i know you are not my lawyer! thanks in advance for any suggestions and advice you guys can offer.

How do I find a place to stay?

mebibyte — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 22:20:07 -0800

Tried to stay with someone in a college dorm - their roommates said OK, I booked non-refundable plane tickets, I'm here now, and their roommates are backing out. Help! I've wanted to meet someone for a long time now, and we arranged to meet at her university during spring break and for a week after.

When planning the trip in January, her roommates said OK. Right before buying the tickets, I confirmed with them again just to be sure.

During spring break, we stayed in a motel off-campus, but now I'm here on-campus and her roommates are getting cold feet. While I totally understand them being uncomfortable with a stranger, the problem here is that they said it was OK for me to stay and, also, they bring strangers in on a regular basis themselves.

I have a few options here from what I can tell -

1. Stay here anyway and probably have to go through arbitration with the RA or something
2. Book a room off-campus
3. Find some magic way of getting her roommates to like me :)

Any suggestions here? Am I in the right by insisting on staying here, or asking my friend's roommates to pay for my stay elsewhere? Is it likely that my friend will get in trouble for this?

BTW, the dorms allow guests, roommate selection is random (ie. my friend doesn't know her roommates at all, outside of living with them), and they don't get along very well anyway (which may have contributed to the roommates suddenly deciding to be, well, mean).

What to look for in a house share situation

needs more cowbell — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 10:22:53 -0800

Young (24) single female looking to sublet a room or share a house with strangers in a large US city. What things should I look for/insist on to maximize my chances of having a pleasant, safe, experience? (I've left the city unnamed because I don't know yet; right now I'm considering the Bay area but I may end up going someplace totally different.)

I've seen lots of nightmare roommate/housemate/rental situations on AskMe. I'm hoping to avoid falling into one of those situations. I'm not entirely naive (if anything, I'm overcautious and slightly terrified about the idea in general) but I'm sure there are things I wouldn't think of on my own. [Example: Previously, I rented a room in a house and the landlord--older man who did not live there--came over to watch TV and drink beer in the living room. I didn't expect that, but the signs were probably there, since he lived next door and still had much of his own furniture/stuff in the house's common areas when I signed the lease. Since the rooms were rented out individually by the landlord, there was nothing in the lease to prevent him from hanging out in the common areas like that. Now I know to be careful about that, but I'd like to avoid having to learn about everything like that by direct experience.]

Ideally I'd like to live in a housemate situation where people talk to each other and hang out in common areas rather than renting a room and not assimilating into the group. At minimum it's important to me that roommates don't steal my stuff, don't do hard drugs or have really unsavory guests, and don't flake out on their bills regularly.

What things are red flags? What things should I make sure to have (like lease specs) or ask about? I realize there are no guarantees in this sort of situation, but I'm sure there are rules of thumb. I'm worried that being too uptight and distrustful will make it hard to get along with roommates, but I also don't want to be overly trusting and then get really, really screwed. I'm open to any sort of advice about this.

Am I obligated to find a replacement roommate?

|n$eCur3 — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 16:44:59 -0800

Do I have the common courtesy obligation (ie, this is NOT a legal question) to find a replacement roommate on a month to month lease? What if my current roommates are being picky in terms of who they are willing to live with? At what point am I free of courteous obligations to find someone? I found appox 4 people who were interested. One of the people was really quiet and shy which is a clash of personality when compared with my current roommates. Another liked to smoke pot, which bothers my roommates and a third was generally disliked in my estimation for no reality-based reason (they were getting weird vibes from this individual). The fourth was perfect, but we offered and he decided to go with another place.

So I would like to keep these roommates as friends because they are cool. What is a fair way to determine who is financially responsible to pay for my room starting Jan 1 without getting lawyers involved?

I should state that the three people that we turned down were very much interested in the place. And while I probably would not have wanted to go out of my way to live with any one of them, I do believe that they were all capable people.

"why do I always end up being the one who..."

Oobidaius — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 13:04:48 -0800

What are some good ways to avoid strife and keep things fair in a shared living arrangement? Somewhat exhaustive explanation inside. Some background: three of my friends and myself will be moving into a four-bedroom house this week. We are all going to be paying the same amount in rent, since the rooms are all more or less the same, but I think there's some other areas in which the financial burden is less clear-cut.

We've all been on vacation the past two weeks so we haven't had a chance to sit down and establish some rules, but I was wondering what sorts of things have helped minimize discord in similar arrangements any of you have been in? Specifically, how can we make sure that we are all contributing equally (or contributing commensurate to our usage of) with regard to things like food, toilet paper, utensils, etc? That is, to the best of my knowledge, none of us really own the sorts of things that in a house, you take for granted as being there (like cutting boards, or vacuums, or whatever). Since these are things we're all going to be using, what is the best way to split the cost without making it impossible to figure out who gets what when our lease expires (we only have the house for a year since it is getting developed, so there's no question that we'll have to divvy up some of the stuff at the end of the year)?

Slightly more potentially sticky is the question of transportation. Since we'll all have more or less the same schedule, we'll probably want to carpool since it wouldn't make sense for everyone to go separately. But, only three of us have cars (that is, the three of them since I'm the one that doesn't). If you've ever been the person with the car, what sorts of things did your ride-bumming, car-borrowing friend do that made you feel less exploited about the arrangment? Obviously, chipping in for gas money, but what about insurance, etc? Public transportation isn't really much of an option where we are, so I'll probably need to borrow a car to do very basic errands as well.

Ultimately, I want to make sure that we have a system in place to preempt any misunderstandings caused by misjudging the liberties our respective friendships might allow. You might trust someone with your deepest darkest secrets, but that doesn't mean you won't get annoyed if they consistently don't do their fair share of grocery shopping/cleaning/whatever.

I realize this is a big question that can be answered with regard to a variety of aspects, but I'm looking for any sorts of guidelines that you have succesfully used to keep things fair in an arrangement like this. Thanks in advance.

Help me find co-op housing in Chicago

sk381 — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 18:17:23 -0800

Looking for co-op housing in Chicago. Does any one have any suggestions? Even better if the co-op is run by graduate students but it is not a necessity. Searching online hasn't shown too many options, so I was hoping someone here could help me out.

To mate or not to roomate

|n$eCur3 — Tue, 27 Sep 2005 02:25:16 -0800

I’m single, 25, and have always had at least one other housemate. Assuming that money is not a factor, what do I need to do/know before I decide to live alone? In my experience, housemates have always provided instant entertainment, an ambient social life and now, a good transitional support group for the grind of post college life (all uniquely healthy, necessary and rewarding things in my life).

On the other hand, some things are not avoidable: they want orgies when I want quiet, I want to take a shower when they want to sleep, and the usual cleanliness type politics.

In my mind, living alone just means that there will be more inertia to overcome to become actively social, which in my case is not easy because of introverted tendencies. I guess that I just fear becoming isolated.

How quiet is alone? Do you hate living alone, or wish that you could? Will I miss the ubiquitous friendship that is housematehood?