The Pink Shoe Diaries

So, our landlord is kind of shady. And it is driving me bonkers.

I mentioned earlier that Adam and I are moving at the end of August into another apartment within the complex we live in now. Up until last week our landlord was super supportive
and nice about our moving needs, giving us a whole week to move in, letting us be in there before September 1, etc. And if you are familiar with our dealings with this woman, you will understand why even though things were moving along swimmingly, I still had my doubts.

So, a few days ago she told us she was going to begin showing our apartment which Adam and I both found odd, since 1) there are two empty units in our building right now, and 2) every unit is exactly identical and I know this because when we were first looking at this place, we were not shown the actual apartment we live in now but the one directly above it, and our landlord told us that they were all identical. She had also told us last year that she tries not to show units that are occupied as a courtesy to the tennats, if there are empty units to show and there are TWO empty units, in my five unit building.

So when I asked since there were these empty units, why would she show ours, she informed us that "people like to see what an apartment looks like with furniture in it".That, to me, is a dubious assumption. If you, as a landlord, advertise a vacant apartment and show a tenant that apartment, how likely is it they would say "I really need to see this place with some furniture".

In any case, I guess prospective tenants are more important that current ones, who have been with you for going on three years.

However not to be total D-bags, Adam and I conferred and told her she could show our place as long as we were there while she was showing it. I have heard too many horror stories of valuables going missing because of prospective-tenant walk thrus, and furthermore at least half of the time that our landlord is in our apartment when we are not there (which is far more often than I would like) she leaves the back door unlocked and then denies doing so when Adam and I literally have never forgotten to lock the doors.

So instead of being normal and saying "Sure thing" or "That sounds fair", she says "I can't promise anything". We had to cut the coversation short because at the time Adam and I were at Barnes and Nobles when she had called us. So the next day Adam calls her back to reiterate our concerns. We don't have a problem with her showing our place but we would just like to be there when it happens. Again she was all "Well I will try but I am the landlord and I can show your apartment whenever". So Adam made a call to the local police to ask them about Rental Laws in Massachusetts and according to them, unless your lease says otherwise, a landlord can only enter your apartment with your permission. And if she only has permission to enter when you are present, then she can only enter when you are present.

Simple enough, right?

But according to her, the fact that our lease contains the language "Landlord is entitled to inspect the apartment at the end of the lease" means that she can come in whenever, with whomever she pleases. Even though it makes NO mention of coming in to show the place to prospective tenants when we are not there.

Dur.

So yesterday afternoon she called to say that she was bringing 4 different sets of people to our apartment between 6PM and 8PM and so if we felt we had to be there, one of us better make plans to be home between those times.

So even though I had errands to run I sat home and waited. And waited.

And waited.

And I looked out into the driveway for my landlord's Escalade at 6PM, and at 6:30PM, and at 7PM and at 7:30PM and never caught a glimpse of it. Finally at almost 9PM, Adam calls me after his baseball game and tells me he just heard from her, and she apologized but she had a bunch of no shows so what can you do? "That's what happens when you need to be home for these kinds of things, you wait around for nothing", she said.

Now Adam, innocent soul that he is, thinks this is all a coincidence. But conspiracy theorist that I am, I think she is trying to break me. First of all if there were four no-shows, how come I never saw her car in the driveway? I know what car everyone in my building drives (since there are only 3 of us left) and at no time between 6-8PM was there an extra car back there. Don't you have to BE somewhere waiting for someone before you can say they didn't show?

And further more, Adam told me that she "thanked us for picking up the place". How does she know we picked up the place? I swear I think she told us she was bringing someone last night just so we would do the dishes and pick up the bathroom and now she will bring someone in TODAY while we are at work and we will be none the wiser.

I tell you I was half tempted to put tape over the front door and go out the back, so if the tape was broken when I came home I would know she was there.

Either that or throw a credit card, a rolled up dollar bill and some lines of confectioner sugar on the coffee table in the living room as a little "how do you do" to our prospective tenant.

Crazy? Probably. But I don't think it's any more crazy than her refusing to agree to only show our place when we are home.