Uhh...What brought this on?

[klmno]

The night before last I rec'd a phone message from a lady who works for the realtor that is managing the lease for the house I'm renting. It said that the owner had driven by it looked like one of the window ACs was not in correctly and could be letting water in the house so she wants to come by with someone to check on it. Then, she asked for me to call her and let her know when would be a good time because the owner would like to come by this week and the realtor is out of town on vacation. I returned the call yesterday, late afternoon/early evening, and said this weekend- either Sat or Sun afternoon would be fine. This lady asked if she could give my cell phone number to the owner so she could call me directly and we could arrange a time ourselves. I said sure, that's fine with me.

Then, about 8:30 last night, the phone rings, I answer, and it's the realtor herself (not the assisstant I'd spoken to about this.) She starts going off at me saying "V owns that housde not you" (meaning me) and I tried to calm her down and asked her what the problem was exactly, I know I don't own the house. She said they had contacted me because they wanted in to check the house out (that's another thing- all the window ACs look firne to me but I never said that) and she said made it sound like I wasn't working with them or something. I said, look, I got a call yesterday, I returned the call today, she asked when would be a good day and time, I told two options and agreed to let her give owner my number, so what exactly is the problem. Realtor said that she had just gotten an email from assistant and she was out of state on vacation and didn't want to be dealing with this. I said then why are you yelling at me, I didn't send you an email, I didn't request that someone come by...then she REALLY yells at me that the owner doesn't have to work out a time with me, she can come by with just giving me notice when she'll be here and her vacation is being interrupted over this and she doesn't appreciate it and.....and that's when I hung up on her. I don't do well getting yelled at for that long when I don't think I did anything to cause a problem or warrants someone being that angry and she wouldn't even listen so we could try to figure out where communication went awry.

All I can figure is that maybe the assistant sent an email saying owner was going to call me to work out a time and day and realtor had a fit over that???

Owner left phone message this morning that she and her boyfriend will be here tomorrow afternoon, sometime. She doesn't care if I'm here or not, that's up to me. I have a feeling that realtor called owner and basicly told her to do that- just give me notice and nothing else. Where legally they might have a right to do that, I find it rude not to try to work out a time convenient to both parties, which it sounded to me like that's what they were doing until realtor had a fit. Realtor and I have never had a problem getting along so I don't know what the problem is. Maybe it was instigated by the owner. Maybe the miscommunication was between the assistant and the owner.

 

[1905]

The owner CANNOT just "come by and check things out". They are not allowed to do that!!! DO NOT answer the door, call police, they will come in and THEY WILL be in big trouble. I saw this on COPS, the owner just came right in, the tenant was doing drugs and the owner got in big trouble.....he can't just come in. The druggie tenant didn't even got in trouble, but the owners did! Call the police now to verify what I'm saying and what you should do if the owner just "walks right in". THEY CAN'T DO THAT!!!

 

[TeDo]

Any owner of a property can access their property when it is ocuppied by a renter with 24 hours advanced notice. All they have to do is give notice and the reason they are entering for and it is completely legal. As long as they called you to let you know, they are in compliance with the law. Common coutesy, however, would have been to work out a time/date. Sounds like there was miscommunication somewhere and the owner only got one side of the story. If that's the case, be prepared for possible attitude from the owner. If something is said, I would calmly relay the entire scenario to them so they at least have both sides of the story whether it makes a difference or not.

 

[klmno]

That's what I thought. BUT- I still have the phone message asking me to return a call "so the owner can schedule a time". Therefore, if I call back and say Sat or Sun afternoon, whichever they prefer, would be fine, I see no reason for me to get a verbal attack over "me acting like I own the house and the rightful owners can't come in". And I would have been happy to explain that communication to any of them if they bothered to listen instead of rage. Since I got the range, me and the dogs will probably just be gone tomorrow afternoon. And in all likelihood, when this lease runs out in a couple of months, they will get their reassurance that I never thought it was "my" house.

I have had some carppy landlords in the past. One came in the home on a regular basis when I'd be at work and I figured it out for sure in 2 ways- 1) my underwear in my inderwear drawer was mmisplaced, and 2) I called to get my phone messages from the answering machine one day and hit the wrong number so instead of it going to messages, it turned on the speaker/intercom (I didn't even know it could do that) and darn if the landlord (I recognized his voice) wasn't there egging my dogs on to bark more. These weren't the same dogs I have now- this was about 20 years ago. Anyway, while landlords have their rights, some of them are a little over the top and tenants have their rights, too. I've had great experiences- where I lived there and rented over 4 years- but I've had some rotten ones, too. These people were trying to sell the house but couldn't so ended up renting it- which is how a realtor ended up being a manager for a lease. If the owner wants to walk in anytime she can, that's fine, but she might need to adjust back to not getting a fat check every month.

 

[TeDo]

I would make sure the owner knows the whole situation from your side. You did not deserve to treated like that by the realtor and I would make sure the landlord knows that. I would also consider letting the realtor know the whole story when she's calmer and let her know you expect an apology. Just because you pay the rent doesn't mean you have to get along at all. If any landlord, or their representative, enters the home without 24 hours notice, it is a violation of your tenants rights and is prosecutable. Keep that in mind for future reference. Sorry something so simple has turned out so complicated. I would maybe even consider speaking privately with the assistant to see if you can figure out what happened (if the assistant is "dependable").

 

[TerryJ2]

Yes, definitely you want to be home, to meet these people. Something is up.
I would also be very cordial and open ... and when the time is right, tell them about the Realtor. No matter what the issue is, she was unprofessional.
So sorry you have to go through this.

 

[klmno]

I put in an email for "trouble ticket" which is the only way I have to communicate with the realtor without calling her on her cell. It said that I rec'd this call sayin the owner would like to schedule a time, I returned call saying this weekend and giving permission for assistant to give my cell number to owner to work out details, and the next thing I know, I'm getting a verbal attack, which I don't appreciate. I said I still have the voice mail if she'd like to hear it and I think I made reasonable action to 3 different people making an issue over an ac so if realtor is upset over her vacation being disturbed, maybe she should talk to owner or assistant. Maybe I'll print it out and tape it up so the owner can see it tomorrow.

 

[susiestar]

I would speak to the owner if it seems right to do so, and I would also give the owner a written account of everything, with the info that you feel this was handled VERY UNPROFESSIONALLY by the realtor. A written account to the realtor also seems liek the right thing to do. Follow up ANY discussion from thsi point on with an email.

 

[seriously]

Definitely sounds like unprofessional behavior by the realtor and I think it's safe to assume that the owner would appreciate hearing that this is happening. They are paying for those management services and, just like you would complain about a problem with someone's employee, you have the right to complain about the realtor.

I would suggest you try not to be too mad about this. If you've had good interactions with the realtor in the past I would be cautious about leaping to conclusions. For all you know the woman is on vacation because a family member is dying. who knows. Maybe you just got her on a really, really bad hair day?

And it might be the owner who didn't want to deal with coordinating the schedules and gave the realtor grief - who passed it on.

Lots of possible explanations that don't justify her behavior but might cast a different light on it.

Tenants do not deserve to be yelled at or treated disrespectfully. That's what I would complain about to the owner and, if the realtor has a boss at the management company, to her boss. Calmly sending a message to the realtor that you found her behavior unprofessional and you look forward to a better working relationship in the future may be helpful since you do have to deal with this person in the future, even if you decide to move out.

If it won't be inconvenient I would be there when the owner gets there. In general, it is best to be present to avoid any problems like things missing after they have been and gone and then having to deal with a bigger problem than coordinating schedules.

We have a rental that we had to convert when we couldn't sell it a couple years ago and we have a management company handling it. One of the things that we do is an annual inspection by the management company to check for repairs that need to be made or maintenance issues that the tenant might not be aware of like needing painting done. Everything is done by advance notice and the tenant is home if possible. Every year the inspection has turned up issues that the tenant didn't realize needed to be dealt with from our perspective.

We stay on top of maintenance things because we are treading water and if something minor turned to something major because of our neglect it would be really bad. It may be something else is going on with the landlords. You could just ask them when they come over and they really might just be worried about the A/C's.

 

[DDD]

I think you're handling quite well. Sounds like grace under fire. Chances are there is something "up" like a prospect for purchase in the wings....but...in my Realtor years I never dealt with rentals so really don't know. Good luck. DDD

 

[donna723]

I agree that it sounds like something is up. And the air conditioner thing sounds like an excuse to me ... a window AC unit is either in right or it's not. That's something that would be easy enough to check out from the outside without making a big deal out of coming in to the house! And if the air conditioner were dripping water on to the floors, do they not think you would have called to have it looked at?

 

[klmno]

Well, I decided that this very well might have been turned into a chaotic issue when it didn't need to be by the owner. It seems highly possible to me that the assistant, not being used to doing the coordinating between the owner and tenant, thought she was just handling things the way she should by asking me to call so we could schedule, then when I threw out a couple of options, she decided to just have the owner call me directly. Fine. But, if the owner had it in her mind that what she really wanted was to tell me when she'd be there (beyond me then why assistant didn't have a date and time set to tell me), and the owner rec'd a message back from asst saying to call me directly to schedule, owner might have assumed I was demanding that and shoots nasty email off to realtor. All I know is that it's opbvious to me that the mis-communication was between at least 2 of those 3 parties and not me because I went back and listened to my original message from asst again.

But I am POd about it (being yelled at and accused of acting like I own the house- not the part about the owner wanting or needing to come by) and felt it best not to be there at the house when it would only be me, owner, and her boyfriend. And I really didn't want to shut my dogs up in the bathroom and thus, hear them barking over it, for the entire time they were there. So, I cleaned house this morning, printed out copy of my statement sent to realtor and taped it in iinside of the front door with "owner's copy" written on it, packed a little bag and the dogs and drove to the town where difficult child is in Department of Juvenile Justice and got a cheap hotel room for the night. I can go see difficult child in ther morning without having to drive hours first, come back to hotel to get dogs and check out and be back home tomorrow afternoon. I can get a couple of things accomplished here that I needed to do this weekend so tomorrow afternoon, I'll be "home" and can do laundry and grocery shopping then. Really I think I needed to get away and it feels good to have the dogs and myself a little closer to difficult child tonight, even though he's five miles away. I visited last weekend so he'll be surprised to see me tomorrow. I just hope he didn't get isolation time for that fight a week or so ago, then he only gets 30 mins of visitation.

Back to this situation- I'm not going to allow anyone to yell at me today. Period.

PS I brought my laptop but not my separate keyboard so typing is not that easy!

 

[klmno]

I'm home now and it doesn't even look like the owner was in the house at all. I didn't get a hpone call from anyone saying it was rescheduled or anything. The envelope I'd left for her taped to the inside of the front door is still here.

 

[1905]

Don't go away and let them let themselves in again. I'm telling you, this is not right. If you say no, and they want to come by, the answer is no. Of course it doesn't mean you think you own the place, but they have to follow the rules just like you are. They can't yell at you, they have to folllow the rules as well. I swear, if you never allow them to come in, well, they have to evict you if they want to come in.

 

[klmno]

TY1 Right now I'm trying to re-coup from major lack of sleep last night (cheap hotel room was horrible and extremely hot) and my visit with my difficult child was more eye-opening thatn I could have imagined and I'm still wiping tears from that. I couldn't care less what they do with this house right now.

 

[TeDo]

What happened with your visit? I'm very sorry it apparently didn't go well.

 

[Star*]

HEY------

WHats wrong? I don't care about the house either - I DO care about you.

 

[klmno]

I'll post about it later today or tomorrow in a new thread. I just need time to quit crying and cipher out how much of my emotional overload is due to lack or sleep and how much is feeling the pain all of us difficult child moms have to feel sometimes.

thank you both for caring. Star, I know you've been there at a lot of of worst moments and are able to see difficult child from a wider perspective, just due to timing of his posts in the past.

 

[Star*]

OKey dokey smokey......

Just so long as you and my n'few are okay. Regardless -----Love ya both. Get some re...HEY if you are supposta be sleeping how come you are talking to me????

((((((((((((you are getting VERYYYYYYY SLEEPY..........very sweepyyyyyyyyyyyy veryyyy sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeepyyyyyyyyyyy swwwwwwwwepy (said like elmer fud hahahhahahah )_verwwwy sweeepY_

Nite nite.........post later.......deep breaths .............calgon bath............nice cup of something ..........sweepy............

hugs & love

 

[1905]

((hugs)))