I probably have seen too many episodes of “Law & Order”
Posted by Isabel on February 13th, 2007. Filed under: They're just my family.My sister and her husband are moving. (Not to Seattle, unfortunately.) They live in an old house and the heat hasn’t been working properly all winter. The property managers haven’t been very good about getting it fixed. Basically my sister and her husband are fed up with being cold and having to sleep with an electric blanket at night. Plus they aren’t technically allowed to have their cat at this house and my sister is sick of keeping her curtains closed for fear that the property managers will drive by and somehow see the cat in the window. They are anxious to move into a nice, new apartment in a complex where things get taken care of and their cat is welcomed.
I don’t blame them really.
They’ve been looking for a new apartment for few months and recently found the perfect one (it even has a storage unit). They were just waiting to see if there was an opening. They got the call last week that they could move into their new place in March. When my sister called their current property managers to give them their 30-day notice they were told that they would still have to pay rent for all of March. I wasn’t really sure how that worked out and my sister wasn’t either. She read through their contract and still wasn’t sure what the deal was. But dang it, they weren’t going to pay rent on a place they weren’t even living in.
They were told that if they could rent out the apartment themselves, they wouldn’t have to pay for rent for March. So they hung the “For Rent” sign in their window and waiting for someone to call them.
Someone called. He was excited about the house. He wanted to come and look at it right away. My brother in law set it up for him to come that night. But my brother in law works night and wouldn’t be home. That meant my sister would have to show some strange guy her house alone. And not just the house, as the guy was “very interested” in their garage/storage area.
When my sister called to tell me about this yesterday I freaked out, “You can NOT be alone in your house with a stranger. Can’t you call one of your friends to come over?!” She said she had called her girl friends, but none of them could come over. Then I asked her if she could call one of her husband’s friends. She said she wouldn’t feel safe with being alone with any of them either.
“Sounds to me like you guys need new friends.”
She just laughed and agreed.
I suggested she call our brother to come over. She didn’t want to bother him. She told me she has a bat in her house, so she could just use that on the guy if something happened, “or he could use it on you!”, was my reply.
She kept laughing at me and telling me to calm down. She said it wasn’t a big deal.
Not a big deal?
Am I the only one that would never be alone with a strange guy in my house? A guy that was “very interested” in checking out the creepy garage?
I finally talked her into calling our mom and leaving the phone on so that my Mom would be able to hear her screams and could call for help. It was the best plan I could come up with on such short notice. My sister said she didn’t want to carry around her phone because “the guy would think I didn’t trust him!” Yeah, you don’t. It’s a stranger. Feel free to not trust him. He should understand.
I made her promise to call me as soon as he was gone so I would be able to stop worrying about her. I also made her promise to say a prayer before he got there. (My sister is of the “non praying” type, so this was a stretch.)
A few hours later she called me back to tell me the dude never even showed up.
She was bummed out because they really do want to find a renter for their house. Me, I was happy she wasn’t beaten with her own baseball bat.
(Why am I the only one that was freaked out by this? Please tell me you are to. Please.)
February 13th, 2007 at 6:18 pm
You are right. It’s not a good idea to be alone in the house with a stranger.
As for her landlord saying she has to pay for all of March… it’s probably due to her not giving a full 30 days notice… but if her lease is up and there’s nothing in the lease that requires them to give 30 days notice.. then she’s not required to pay it. Unless there is some law in her state that I’m unaware of.
February 13th, 2007 at 6:22 pm
If this had been me, I probably would have seen no problem with it. But reading through your whole story, I have to agree that it’s not very safe. At all. And the fact that he was “very interested” and then didn’t show is super shady.
And WTF? how can their management tell them that they have to pay for all of March? if that’s not in the rental contract, then they should refuse. I hate when rental companies and landlords try to bully their tenants. She should ask to see where in their rental contract it says they have to pay for the entire calendar month. That is such BS.
(Can you tell that this kind of thing pisses me off?)
February 13th, 2007 at 6:34 pm
I agree with you. Anytime I’ve ever had to have work done or the cable installed or whatever, I DO NOT like being alone with whoever is doing said work. I just don’t feel safe. Although, I do watch an unhealthy amount of Law & Order, CSI, Forensic Files (on Court TV) and other shows like that.
Your sister should be a little more cautious and who cares if a stranger thinks you don’t trust him?!?! I also think that they should just say screw it about paying March’s rent. If there is nothing in the lease then why should they? Maybe they should ask an attorney to have a look at it.
February 13th, 2007 at 6:48 pm
Of course she should have someone with her! I don’t ever allow anyone I don’t know in my house if someone is not with me. I don’t even answer the door if I’m home alone. I check the back seat of the car before I get in it, I do not go to the ATM after dark, I don’t even go to the mailbox! But I do watch a whole lot of dateline and 20/20. That may have to do with my paranoia, but you can never be too safe.
February 13th, 2007 at 6:50 pm
Ditto and ditto. She shouldn’t take her safety for granted. I don’t know how you get through to her, though, if she didn’t buy it from you. Was her husband ok with her being alone with a strange man? God.
As for the rent…do they know ANY lawyers or law students who wouldn’t mind reading the agreement? See what it says and tell the landlords uh no. When we lived just north of Chicago, Mr. Squirrel got a job out of state. We had to move but 4 months remained on our lease. According to our lease, we had to pay for those next 4 months even though we were leaving for a “legitimate” reason. I tried reasoning with the building owner/company, but they didn’t care. I asked them to put out its availability on their website & start showing the apt, then we wouldn’t have to pay all 4 months. They didn’t, even though they said “they’d try.” I found some pro bono lawyers who work on renters’ rights. They were AWESOME. Mr. Squirrel and I eventually sent the management company a letter saying we’d pay one month’s rent & they could keep the security deposit after dealing with the lawyers. THeir lawyer sent back a scathing letter repeatedly telling us how wrong we are and our “lawyers” are wrong and we’re going to LOSE and we’re wrong (do you get the point)? And then the last sentence was “but we’ll just take one month’s rent.” Idiot! They could have had an extra $1000. Idiots. But yeah. We were thrilled. So, long story short: find any lawyer type person to read the agreement and maybe they’ll even place a call to the landlords.
Sorry.
February 13th, 2007 at 6:54 pm
Uh no, you were right and she should have been freaked. Her husband should have been freaked. I can’t believe she wasn’t concerned. Does she not watch the news? I’m thinking they SHOULD pay the extra month of rent as punishment for worrying you. I don’t even let the cable guy in if HP is not home. Tell her to think of her cat next time if she doesn’t care about you!
HS is right – get that lease looked at by a lawyer STAT. What state does she live in?
February 13th, 2007 at 7:15 pm
You are not crazy. I fear the day my sister Ryan (recently 21) moves out of my parents’ house and into her own place. She’s not very good at looking at the big picture.
February 13th, 2007 at 7:23 pm
I don’t think I would have seen it as a big deal, but my husband would have had no part in me being home alone. He would have made sure he was there or someone else could be there. He’s sees the big picture, I don’t.
February 13th, 2007 at 8:16 pm
i dont think i would have been too crazy about being in the house alone either. you can never be too safe, ya know? hope everything works out with the apartment. hope they dont get stuck with the march payment. that sucks
February 13th, 2007 at 8:33 pm
I am with you on being worried about her being there alone, but everyone would tell me that I was being over paranoid. I made Shaun go to the piercing studio where I got my lip pierced last night so I could get a new ball, just so I wouldn’t be alone there. You never know what could happen!
February 13th, 2007 at 8:41 pm
I made one of my girlfriends bring her BABY to my house AND SPEND THE NIGHT with me because there was someone coming to look at our TV early the next morning and I was scared to be by myself.
So, yeah….TOTALLY get it.
February 14th, 2007 at 12:04 am
A single woman in a house with a strange man. I TOTALLY get it. I’ve also done the phone thing too before when someone I trusted couldn’t physically be around. I’ve also pretended to have someone on the phone when someone was at the door before too. I’ve also intentionally left doors and windows unlocked/open if someone strange was around in order to make a getaway if I needed to. I think paranoia and caution is where women get in trouble. They try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. Think Ted Bundy. Yikes!
February 14th, 2007 at 12:21 am
When you said she had a bat in the house, I thought you meant a flying, blood sucking bat. I wondered why she thought the bat would save her. Perhaps it was a trained bat. A protective bat. A “watch bat.”
Now I kind of wish I had a bat in my house to save me.
February 14th, 2007 at 12:32 am
Dude, when the heating repair guy came to my apartment I left the door open and STOOD IN THE HALL because I would not even enter my apartment with him. I too had no one who could leave work in the middle of the day to come with me. The heating guy, who was probably perfectly nice, was not thrilled with my weirdness but I am alive today to speak of it.
You are not alone.
February 14th, 2007 at 12:34 am
Dude, when the heating repair guy came to my apartment I left the door open and STOOD IN THE HALL because I would not even enter my apartment with him. I too had no one who could leave work in the middle of the day to come with me. The heating guy, who was probably perfectly nice, was not thrilled with my weirdness but I am alive today to speak of it.
You are not alone.
It will not let me leave this comment. I will keep hitting enter until it takes.
February 14th, 2007 at 12:53 am
I would never be alone with some stranger. I thnk you idea for your mom to be on the phone would have worked and I wouldn’t think twice about carrying my phone around while I showed him the around the house.
February 14th, 2007 at 2:00 am
I wouldn’t feel right about that either. Sounds a little creepy. Two of our next-door neighbors are police officers, and there’s another guy a few houses down who is a police officer. I have their phone numbers in my cell phone, and it just makes me always feel so much safer. But I STILL wouldn’t be here alone with any sort of repair man or strangers of any sort.
February 14th, 2007 at 2:18 am
you are totally right to be freaked out…. my sister was raped and murdered when a guy knocked on the door and she answered…. you can not! be too careful!!!!! please tell her to not allow a stranger in the apartment while she is alone!!!
February 14th, 2007 at 3:50 pm
Most rental contracts include a “time is of the essence” clause. If your sister hasn’t had timely repairs, especially for the necessaries like HEAT, the landlord has no right to expect timely execution of her half of the contract. This may include rent for the month of March.
This is how my husband and I got out of a crappy apartment in Orem years and years ago. I went without an oven for a month…it took them three months to fix the fridge, so it would actually be cold…
A nicely written letter sent by certified mail will probably get that point across.
February 14th, 2007 at 4:02 pm
I can totally understand being freaked out by your sister’s nonchalance. I have a horrible story of what happened to a girl from my high school–she & her roommate let into their apartment a guy answering an ad about a mattress they were selling, and he killed them both. An awful, unusual situation, but terrifying nonetheless, and enough to make me be veeeeery careful about such things.
As for the apartment situation, I second the advice about contacting a landlord/tenant hotline and/or local Legal Aid office about the terms of the lease. It sounds like they may have some room to get out of an extra month’s rent.
February 14th, 2007 at 6:07 pm
If the landlord has not fixed the issues, then they have every right to leave. Most cities have some sort of housing authority that handles these kinds of disputes.
As for showing the apt to a stranger alone…ABSOLUTELY NOT! You had me freaking out as I was reading this. Thanks goodness he didn’t show.
February 14th, 2007 at 6:18 pm
You were definitely right to be freaked out. I would be too.
Once a couple of guys showed up at our door at 8pm offering to “clean our carpets while we waited.” Lukily Tim is good at thinking on his feet and made up a story about how we’d just had our carpets cleaned! Darn! But come on. Seriously? Why would we let 2 strange guys into our house that late in the evening? How stupid do we look?
February 14th, 2007 at 6:52 pm
Crazier shit has happened, so I’m with you. Good call on the “leaving the phone on” idea.
February 14th, 2007 at 8:13 pm
I’m a little bit late, but I totally agree wtih you. We can never be too careful. I love the “he’s a stranger, feel free not to trust him!”
So true.