So, three friends and myself have been renting a house together since May. It's been rather bumpy, partly due to friction between us and one of our roommates, but primarily due to the lack of communication with our Landlords. Our house is a two apartment duplex, and we share our side with the landlords. We have the upstairs apartment, they have the downstairs one.
So far, on several occasions, they have failed to uphold their agreements in our lease, particularly in regards to noise. They have a lot of animals. At last count, I know they have at least two dogs, several parrots, a large fish tank, a stingray tank filling the entire garage, and a flock of grouse. All of this is in a town house. The stink becomes unbearable as they never seem to air out their half of the house, so the smell of bird crap and animal odor wafts up into our half of the house. They also have no soundproofing between the two apartments, nor do they have a lock between our halves of the house. Considering that we don't trust our landlords very much, this is concerning if they can come and go as they please without us knowing.
But we've lived with it, and as soon as our lease finishes, we're never looking back. It's easily been one of the worst houses I've lived in. Right now, our main problem has come down to hydro bills. With no reasonable explanation, they have slapped an extra hundred dollars onto our hydro bill between October and December. They claim that it has come from us running space heaters in our rooms rather while also running the furnace. They claim that these heaters can cost up to $3.00 a day to run, and they are arguing that this is where the expense came from.
This is wrong for a few reasons. One, we only used the heaters extensively after they refused to turn on the furnace back in October (they live downstairs, they were warm already). Once they did turn the furnace on, we stopped using the heaters, and rarely use them anymore, maybe once or twice a week, and never for more than a few hours. So I highly doubt this is where the extra money has come from. I don't think that sporadic heater usage would rack up that much extra fees.
They're being tight lipped about other explanations. Our water usage has not risen any. I still use the same water every day. One shower, one or two bathroom uses, and running the sink to clean dishes. I do laundry once every two weeks, the same as I had when our bills were less. All three of my roommates have said the same, our water usage hasn't risen. We're also quite conscious about turning off lights when we aren't home, so I don't believe this is where such a large hike came from either.
It is concerning. Since we don't know exactly how much their hydro usage is, we asked them months ago to start writing down their expenses as well as ours so that we could compare. Recently, they added two pumps to their stingray tank, and applied $200 extra dollars to their expenses to show for it. But I'm not convinced. The stingray tank is the size of a small car, and I honestly don't know how much money it would take to maintain it and continue cycling water. There are times where I feel like our landlords are understating their expenses and raising ours to cover for them. They don't have regular jobs, so they rely on oddjob work and rent to pay their bills.
We're currently forming a list of items to bring to their attention, such as extra clarification on their expenses compared to ours, demanding a lock be put on the door separating the apartments, and our complaints about the smell and noise of their zoo downstairs. We're trying to look for any legal loophole we can find to bring this to someone's attention, anything that might void our lease so that we can leave. Because none of us want to stay here anymore, and we are feeling like we're being taken advantage of.
Any insight from you guys would be great, since we're being very cautious about how we go about this. We don't want to bring up an argument only to have it blow up in our faces and then have hostile landlords below us. Anyone had similar troubles with a landlord? What did you do to confront them or solve the problem?
So far, on several occasions, they have failed to uphold their agreements in our lease, particularly in regards to noise. They have a lot of animals. At last count, I know they have at least two dogs, several parrots, a large fish tank, a stingray tank filling the entire garage, and a flock of grouse. All of this is in a town house. The stink becomes unbearable as they never seem to air out their half of the house, so the smell of bird crap and animal odor wafts up into our half of the house. They also have no soundproofing between the two apartments, nor do they have a lock between our halves of the house. Considering that we don't trust our landlords very much, this is concerning if they can come and go as they please without us knowing.
But we've lived with it, and as soon as our lease finishes, we're never looking back. It's easily been one of the worst houses I've lived in. Right now, our main problem has come down to hydro bills. With no reasonable explanation, they have slapped an extra hundred dollars onto our hydro bill between October and December. They claim that it has come from us running space heaters in our rooms rather while also running the furnace. They claim that these heaters can cost up to $3.00 a day to run, and they are arguing that this is where the expense came from.
This is wrong for a few reasons. One, we only used the heaters extensively after they refused to turn on the furnace back in October (they live downstairs, they were warm already). Once they did turn the furnace on, we stopped using the heaters, and rarely use them anymore, maybe once or twice a week, and never for more than a few hours. So I highly doubt this is where the extra money has come from. I don't think that sporadic heater usage would rack up that much extra fees.
They're being tight lipped about other explanations. Our water usage has not risen any. I still use the same water every day. One shower, one or two bathroom uses, and running the sink to clean dishes. I do laundry once every two weeks, the same as I had when our bills were less. All three of my roommates have said the same, our water usage hasn't risen. We're also quite conscious about turning off lights when we aren't home, so I don't believe this is where such a large hike came from either.
It is concerning. Since we don't know exactly how much their hydro usage is, we asked them months ago to start writing down their expenses as well as ours so that we could compare. Recently, they added two pumps to their stingray tank, and applied $200 extra dollars to their expenses to show for it. But I'm not convinced. The stingray tank is the size of a small car, and I honestly don't know how much money it would take to maintain it and continue cycling water. There are times where I feel like our landlords are understating their expenses and raising ours to cover for them. They don't have regular jobs, so they rely on oddjob work and rent to pay their bills.
We're currently forming a list of items to bring to their attention, such as extra clarification on their expenses compared to ours, demanding a lock be put on the door separating the apartments, and our complaints about the smell and noise of their zoo downstairs. We're trying to look for any legal loophole we can find to bring this to someone's attention, anything that might void our lease so that we can leave. Because none of us want to stay here anymore, and we are feeling like we're being taken advantage of.
Any insight from you guys would be great, since we're being very cautious about how we go about this. We don't want to bring up an argument only to have it blow up in our faces and then have hostile landlords below us. Anyone had similar troubles with a landlord? What did you do to confront them or solve the problem?
