Am I Stupid?
Looking at my numbers this morning it became painfully clear that living in my new place – which I don’t even like very much – is costing me very close to a thousand dollars each month more than my old apartment. When I signed the lease I hadn’t even considered expenses like paying for water, garbage, household repairs, and liquor for my housemate’s friends (I don’t drink the stuff myself). Add on to that increasing my old basic rent almost 250% and yeah, that’s nearly a thousand bucks each and every month.
Multiply that out over six months and that could basically erase my tax difficulties. Or buy me a nice motorcycle. Or provide me some security by sitting in a savings account.
Sure, I was in an unsafe neighborhood before, but six grand would pay for a few trips to the emergency room, right?
You’re renting,
You’re renting, right?
Household repairs should be deducted from the rent, and deadbeat drinking roommates should pay for their own booze. Who’s on the lease, all of you?
Only household repairs over
Only household repairs over $100 may be deducted from the rent. If I fix six things at $50 each in a month, I’m SOL. Since I pay for water, I’ve been leaving the water to the toilet turned off rather than getting someone in to fix it. And you’ve heard me joke that the place was not decorated by heterosexuals? Well let me show myself as a bigot and say that it was not maintained by heterosexuals either. If one-tenth the time, effort, and expense that went into making the place look gaudy went into basic maintenance, there would be very few mechanical difficulties here.
And they can get away with this because the building is relatively new, and therefore not subject to any of the controls or restrictions of the rent board. No rent control, no restrictions on what the tenants can be responsible for, nothing. They could make me responsible for repairs under $10,000 or $100,000 as soon as the lease is up.
Like I said, I’ll never live in a non-rent-controlled rental in SF again. If I have to put up with this kind of bullshit, I’ll own.
Roommates paying for their own booze ends when household-wide parties happen. We split stuff four ways and I don’t try to chisel my way out of paying one-fourth of the booze tab, except that I think I’m done paying for one-fourth of any parties held in the house.
The lease is weird. Each of us has a lease, but one person (not me) is a “master tenant”. I have no idea what that means legally, and I don’t much care. Six more months of this and I’ll either just move or have a solid plan for when I’ll be moving.
Live and learn, I guess.
Damn!!!!!
Damn!!!!!
Aren’t you glad you didn’t
Aren’t you glad you didn’t spring for the whole upstairs?
Ok the part I don’t get is
Ok the part I don’t get is buying booze for your roomates friends. You have plenty of friends you can buy booze for. C’mon man.
Great point! Hey, splicer,
Great point! Hey, splicer, how about hosting a TNIPNA@?
🙂
“Only household repairs over
“Only household repairs over $100 may be deducted from the rent.”
I call your attention to California Civil Code 1941:
http://members.fortunecity.com/boodle/cc/cc1940-1954_1a.htm
The code does contain the statement “in the absence of an agreement to the contrary.” Did you make an agreement that repairs under $50.00 would be paid for by the tenants?
If so, I’ll tell you what: I am a professional handyman (AND a California landlord). Hire me and I’ll guarantee any repair you have me do will cost more than $50. I’m not even joking there; I’m not even licensed or bonded and I won’t leave the house for less than that and I haven’t heard of anyone else who will either.
It costs me 3 times that to have someone spray a 500sq foot cottage for bugs. It cost me 3 times that to have some idiot fail to permanently repair my toilet.
“the building is relatively new, and therefore not subject to any of the controls or restrictions of the rent board. No rent control, no restrictions on what the tenants can be responsible for, nothing. They could make me responsible for repairs under $10,000 or $100,000 as soon as the lease is up.”
Who told you that and why did you believe them? The San Francisco rent ordinance covers how much rent can be jacked up and how much in improvements can be passed on. Routine maintenance is not “improvements.” Your landlord is subject to state law in regard to having to keep the crappers working and the roof from leaking. San Francisco rent ordinance has nothing to do with it.
Check it out:
http://www.sfgov.org/site/rentboard_index.asp?id=2142
Here’s a good page from the California State Human Rights/Fair Housing Commission (which is what this concerns):
http://www.hrfh.org/Repairs.html
Get thee to the library and check out a copy of Tenants’ Rights by The Nolo Press.
Yours,
the Ed Exley of Landlords
Before you say anything
Before you say anything about how repairs need to cost over $100, not $50 to be charged to the landlords, I can make any repair cost over $100, too. 🙂
Well, SF Rent Board itself
Well, SF Rent Board itself says that nothing in the rent control ordinance applies to newer apartments:
http://www.sfgov.org/site/rentboard_page.asp?id=3686
Basically, the landlord can quadruple the rent without providing a reason. Your link to hrhf.org notwithstanding, almost everything that I’ve come to expect about tenants’ rights in San Francisco go right out the window because I’m living in a post-1979 building. The California State protections are the only ones I can rely on.
“Well, SF Rent Board itself
“Well, SF Rent Board itself says that nothing in the rent control ordinance applies to newer apartments.…”
That’s right, and nothing in the rent control ordinance says anything about maintenance. That was my point: you (I thought) were citing the S.F. ordinance as exempting your landlord from their duties when the S.F. ordinance doesn’t even mention those duties.
“Basically, the landlord can quadruple the rent without providing a reason.”
That is correct, and that is the ONLY advantage that a landlord gains by owning a newer building in San Francisco, or any building in a non-rent-control city such as the one where mine is. I could build an apartment building in S.F. tomorrow and the law would still require me to make sure the roof didn’t leak and the crappers worked, and would not allow me to make the tenants pay for it. Same thing in Alameda, Barstow, Cucamonga, Daly City, Eureka, Fresno.…
“almost everything that I’ve come to expect about tenants’ rights in San Francisco go right out the window because I’m living in a post-1979 building”
You didn’t answer my question, which was “who told you that and why do you believe them?”
“The California State protections are the only ones I can rely on.”
That’s absolutely true, and they say plenty about what your landlord must do to maintain habitability, and nothing about waivers due to the age of the building.
Withstanding or notwithstanding, or any kind of standing, your landlord must maintain the place in livable condition as defined by the California code I linked you to.
Your building is exempt from rent control. NOTHING ELSE.
Has your landlord threatened to raise the rent if you request repairs? ’cause I think that’s illegal as well.
Your building is exempt from
Rent control includes such things as what costs can be passed on to the tenant. For example, in a rent-controlled apartment in San Francisco I cannot be charged for water or garbage. Here, it’s just part and parcel of the deal. Which goes back to your earlier question: did I make an agreement? Yes. It’s in my lease that I pay for any repairs under $100.
Should I have signed such a thing? Probably not. But I was already committed. My security deposit was put down months earlier. Basically I wasn’t handed the lease agreement until I was days away from moving in. I saw these objectionable “extras” in the lease, and rolled my eyes and signed. So that goes back to my original question about being stupid. I walked right into a bait-and-switch with regards to a lot of other aspects of living here, too. So in June I’ll be looking for a new place to move into when my lease runs out in July.