Drama!
One housemate took a mattress from the garage that belongs to the landlord. Now the landlord says no bicycles in the garage. Or boxes, or anything. Great.
Housemate claims that the other housemates said it was OK and is defensive, claiming landlord is trying to create drama to have control. Hello? Justifying a wrong action with the overreaction?
I really really don’t like my bikes being outside. It’s not a good way to store bicycles.
The landlord is also saying threatening things to the housemate about the “repercussions” of “having an illegal business in the home.” I think I’d better brush up on the legality of home-based businesses just for my own preservation. I don’t do work from home; even unpaid writing assignments that I do for publication get written somewhere else. But if having clients over is something that can get us evicted (seems unlikely; this is San Francisco… of course, the landlord will not stop talking about how much he’d love to live here himself, so he could get us all out with 30 days notice anyway, right?) then that’s something that I need to be aware.
Also, note to self: resist urge to show landlord who is boss by telling him what he can and cannot do or say. The guy is pissed off about the mattress, and since he wasn’t asked about it, he’s got a right to be. Getting defensive will only make things worse. But I should probably know what my rights are in case things actually go sour.
Have to admit, that beautiful 1BR on Polk Street with the hardwood floors and the view of Alcatraz that I looked at back in February is starting to get its appeal back.
Check out your lease, make
Check out your lease, make sure there’s no exclusion of running a business. Having wording in the lease not allowing clients over would have been a big red flag, right?
You might want to make sure the lease doesn’t include any common area exclusions. Does it mention the garage space in there, or is that something he “threw in” for free? If you’re just renting your apartment, you’re SOL on common area use.
IMO, any public area access should be included in the lease. I’ve asked to add it in, just so a landlord can’t try to “sell” a rental based on area that isn’t really part of the deal.
Get your business tax license updated, make sure that your area is zoned for professional services/consulting. As long as it’s not forbidden in your lease and you pay taxes to the city, how can he call it illegal?
If you don’t already have it, the Nolo Press renter’s rights book is a must have.
About the book, Tenants’
About the book, Tenants’ Rights, from Nolo Press. Really essential if you are a tenant or a landlord. I have a copy, and I am sure it’s available at the S.F. Public Library. A real eye-opener. Dispells a lot of myths.
Sounds like your roommate is apology impaired. A simple, sincere, “I’m terribly sorry, Mr. Fongavichini, I wasn’t thinking and thought that it had been abandoned” seems worth a try.
Poindexter is correct about the common area thing. It matters not how long the landlord has allowed the tenant to use an area that is not strictly part of the unit; permission is voluntary and revocable at any time.
What “illegal business” does your landlord think your roommate is running?
Justin is a masseur. I
Justin is a masseur. I haven’t been tactless enough to ask if he does “full-release” massage (and I don’t have any reason to suspect that he is). Sometimes Justin has clients over to the house. other times he goes to his clients’ houses.
The presumption seems to be that having clients come to the house for massages is illegal. I’m not doing any business out of the home at all anymore, haven’t for almost a year, and don’t plan to. But the landlord is spinning a yarn that he is “turning a blind eye” to what Justin is doing and that if one of the neighbors complains about a business being run in the house that he would “have to” evict the entire apartment.
I suspect that he is full of shit. I also recognize that having customers come to the house is different from me sitting at home as a telecommuter. This actually sounds like a zoning issue rather than a Rent Board issue.
Of course, almost everything we take for granted in SF renter’s law is out the window because this house was built after 1979. We have no rent control at all and once the lease is up the landlord could quintuple the rent with only, what? 30 days notice. Something like that.
Yeah, there’s nothing at all in the lease that gives us any expectation to use the garage. We had verbal permission at the landlord’s whim, and then one of us pissed off the landlord. Whim changed predictably.
I think as far as the roommate being “apology impaired” is concerned, the word “sincere” might be key. We have a lot of furniture that belongs to the landlord, and when we moved in, a lot more was in the space. He offered to remove anything we didn’t want, and the items we declined to keep around went down to the garage. When Justin moved in, he decided to sell his old bed to his old housemate in SoCal and not move it up here to SF. All four of us were in the room during this conversation when it was suggested that he take a look in the garage and ask the landlord if he saw anything that he could use.
Justin thinks that this means we all said it would be fine and that Florescito would be happy to let him use the mattress. I don’t recall any of us pretending to speak for Florescito; just suggesting to Justin that talking to Florescito might get him some of the stuff he’d need to get started in the apartment.
But it is amusing watching the logic of “the other person’s overreaction absolves me of responsibility for provoking the reaction in the first place” that seems to be going on. Frustrating, but amusing.
“I used to be disgusted…” =^)
I’l check it when I get
I’l check it when I get home, but I signed it pretty recently and I don’t recall it stating anything about business use.
The garage space we’re SOL on; it was never part of the lease; we had only verbal permission, and that’s been revoked. we were given 24 hours to get our stuff out of the garage. Guess what I’m doing tonight?
It’s a little funny though; most landlords get uptight about people storing bicycles INSIDE apartments. I’m not comfortable keeping the bike inside the apartment just because what if it falls over and bike chain grease gets on the carpet or whatever? But outside is bad because it’s wet all the time.
I’ve invited him to name a price for monthly bike storage in the garage, and if he bites I’ll get him to put it in writing.