Landlords Are Crazy

From the time I rented my first apartment at 19 until about six months ago, I operated under a basic assumption: all landlords are crazy.

Apartment landlords, or any complex run by a company or management firm, maybe not so much. However, when you rented a house, it seemed to me that all landlords were nuts.

The landlord of that apartment I rented at 19 had a house he divided into an upstairs apartment, a main level that was kept in tact “for the family to visit” and a basement apartment. We basically lived above a creepy museum, and my landlord liked to work on the house shirt-less (at 70), made snide comments about boys coming over and let his son-in-law use the back of the house for his “art” at any given time – which usually translated to the hours of 10:00 p.m. – 2:00 a.m.

I did not like that man.

I had another landlord that tried to keep our security deposit because we didn’t clean the front of the garbage disposal.

Yet, none of these compared to the landlord I had to take to small claims court. He changed the lease after we signed it (not something to do to a lawyer’s daughter), and one of its new clauses included charging us tenants a $50 fee for any repair done on the house.

We discovered this on the day we asked him to send over a plumber because two out of the three toilets weren’t working. (Little known fact: I can fix most toilet issues. I have two sisters; you learn. Even in the 300-year old house where I shared one bathroom with four other girls, we only had one plumbing issue in a year.)

I was not pleased, and seeing how we had not approved the revised lease, my roommate and I decided to move out nine days after moving in. At the time, the landlord said he was fine with that and agreed to return our security deposit and 21 days worth of the first month’s rent.

Three months and no check later, I filed papers at the D.C. courthouse.

I got my money back, but moving in and out of a house in the span of nine days isn’t something you get over quickly.

I had one landlord I adored. “This is my investment property,” Peter said. “Please keep it nice for me.”

When I signed the lease at his (gorgeous) house, and his dog lay down at my feet, we were both sold.

“She’s a very good judge of character,” he said, referring to the dog. “I think you’re supposed to be in this house.”

Based on the original Picassos in the house, I also don’t think he worried too much about money, so Peter tended not to get too involved in our affairs. He even helped me look for a job. When he sold the same house a year later for double what he paid, there were no security deposit issues. Everyone was happy.

Apart from my beloved Peter, I’ve had many other landlords over the years, and they all led me to the same conclusion, landlords = crazy.

He was the one shining exception to my rule.  

So, you can imagine how difficult it was when I became a landlord this past August. By my own rules, I’m now in the ranks of the crazy. (This one’s a whole different kind of crazy than the weird, quirky, medicated categories I already fall into.)

In addition to sometimes staying up at night wondering how my hardwood floors are faring, I also worry that my tenants think I’m nuts. (Who worries about how their tenants feel about them? Crazy insecure people, I know.)

I understand a little more of the landlord crazy. I wonder how my new cast iron sink is doing without me. I hope the washing machine is being treated well. I think about chipping paint.

But I also try to give my tenants their space and recognize that they are paying for a place to live, after all.

Hopefully I’ll figure out the balance. But if you ever catch me complaining about the grime on the garbage disposal, I expect a friendly reminder about the small versus the big things in life.