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Murine activity

Eileen begins to ponder purchasing some boa constrictors for her apartment. Before it comes to that, however, she dons her Ninja hazmat suit and declares all out war on the vermin in her vicinity.

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Charting mouse elimination.

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"(C) The owner of a rooming house shall maintain it and its premises free from all rodents, skunks,
cockroaches and insect infestation, and shall be responsible for exterminating them."

http://www.mass.gov/Eeohhs2/docs/dph/regs/105cmr41...

(and more, here: http://www.lawlib.state.ma.us/landlord.html)

You don't need to have a lawyer-roomie handle "pestering" the landlord about it. It's simple: there's no "pestering" involved.

1)Inform the landlord of the problem in writing. Use certified mail if you like. Maybe even snap a nice set of pictures of you with the note, putting it in an envelope, and then slipping it under the door of the owner/super (in addition to the certified mail copy.)

2)If there's no action within the mandated response period (probably 24-48 hours), call the city health department and ask for an inspection. Show the inspector proof of notice to the landlord.

3)Sit back and watch with glee as your slumlord landlord is actually forced to spend some money to maintain their property.

4)Find a new place to live, because I guarantee your landlord isn't gonna renew the lease. Also, have a digital camera handy, because you're about to find out what "retaliation" means. Luckily, if anything happens, the massive burden is on the landlord to prove that anything that happens to you/the appt wasn't retaliation. I still wouldn't park that nice expensive fixed-gear bike in the hallway.

5)Keep all related paperwork SOMEWHERE ELSE- your lease, proof of mailing the letters, etc unless you are home. Ie, someone should take it all to work, and you should have copies. Landlords have been known to go rifling through tenant's apartments when nobody is home and take copies of leases and such, and then claim that they were at-will and serve them notice for the end of the month.

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...consider finding a better landlord as soon as you can.

I'm lucky to have a decent landlord, in a property targeted at grad students. I don't expect concierge service, and I'm not checking the law library to make sure that he's in 100% technical compliance. I do minor repairs and improvements myself, and try to only bother the landlord with the things I can't reasonably do myself. Sometimes I ask him after the fact to pay for materials, and he has.

If I were a landlord who started getting Certified Mail paper trail from a tenant, I think my first thought would be: oh no, what's wrong?! And if it's just to inform me that they have a mouse problem, I'd probably worry that this tenant is either litigious or we needed to establish a better understanding of the relationship. If the tenant doesn't seem to quickly understand that Certified Mail is a sign the relationship is doomed, then I'd give them sufficient advance notice that we won't be renewing the lease.

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If I were a landlord who started getting Certified Mail paper trail from a tenant, I think my first thought would be: oh no, what's wrong?!

If there's an infestation in the building, and presumably your tenants have complained verbally to you (which I think we can assume is what happened in this case) and you haven't done anything, you're god damned right you're going to get a certified mail paper trail, because a rodent infestation is a serious health code violation, and you were given a chance to fix it.

Certified mail is not something you should get hot and bothered about; stop being a child. Certified mail is used any time you may need to be able to prove that you sent a piece of correspondence. It's not a little tic box on the postal service form that instructs your mailman to "deliver, with insults, a nasty look and a 'GOOD DAY, SIR!' to the recipient." It's a tic box that says "give me some proof you delivered this to the addressed party."

And if it's just to inform me that they have a mouse problem, I'd probably worry that this tenant is either litigious or we needed to establish a better understanding of the relationship.

Leases are business arrangements, not "relationships." Cordial is of course preferred, and that's how mine is with my landlord, because from experience I know that if I mention something's amiss, I don't even have to ask; he takes care of it. But if I find mice hanging out in my bread drawer and mice crap all over my stuff in the basement, and I ask him to call an exterminator and nothing happens for a couple days, guess what? He's going to get something in the mail from me, and two days later, the health department is going to get a phone call.

Landlords are not there to be your friend or buddy. They're running a business, and leasing property to you for which both of you have legal and contractual responsibilities. These laws and codes exist because since the beginning of time everyone's been trying to screw everyone else. They exist for both your protection and the landlord's. If the landlord is not doing what is expected of them, they're already the one abusing any "relationship", not you.

The laws are written such that you have to notify the landlord in writing there's a problem and that is when the clock starts ticking on how long they have to take action. If you find mice and phone up the landlord and they say "oh, we'll get on that right away" and half a week goes by and nothing's happening, guess what? You just wasted half a week. You call the landlord again, and they say "oh, we're having lots of trouble finding an exterminator, they're all booked for weeks", and you notice the landlord comes by and drops a trap here and there and some poison. And a week goes by and there's still mice everywhere, so you call again. And the landlord says, "gee, I put down traps, we'll just have to give it some time." And then another week goes by, and you finally decide to call the health department. They come by, see the mice, notice the traps, talk to the landlord, and he says "wow, we have mice? First I've heard of it! I'm a good landlord, I take care of my property- see, I put out traps, just in case! I have no idea why my tenant didn't let me know before calling you." You look like an idiot- and you are, because you've been living for a month with rodents.

Didn't I say that if things were getting this bad, you'd better be prepared to be looking for somewhere else to live when the lease is up? If only because if you have that shitty a landlord that you need to call the health department on them, you don't want to live there in the first place?

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Mice schmice. Get a cat.

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When we first married, we moved into the upper story of a 1740/1850 farm house in Littleton and adopted a cat.

Note from downstairs landlord, ca Dec 1989:

We have a worse mouse problem than usual this year !!! Please do this, that, other thing ... we will hire somebody if it gets worse ... blah.

Return note from us:

We had a mouse problem a couple weeks ago. It lasted about ten hours and resulted in four fatalities. Haven't seen one since. Marilyn Murrrowwww says "thanks!".

Return note from landlord:

When we are away with the dog, we will leave our door to the hallway open. Please open yours - our home is Marilyn's home!

(p.s. Isn't "murine" referring to minks???)

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To pieces.

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Even 20+ pound sloth cats become surprisingly adept mousers when their apartment is invaded. It's the best way to handle things, innit? You get no more mice, the cat gets fed, and the landlord doesn't get any certified mail.

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Just backing up the anecdotal evidence with more of my own. I have owned many cats. Never had a rodent problem at any time I owned one. The one time I did have a rodent problem, I borrowed a friend's cat for a couple of days. No more rodent problem. As a side benefit for my friend, his cat got exercise and interesting dinners.

Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com

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for the landlord to keep your security deposit when he might take pictures of his own to show the place wasn't clean enough, or those scratches on the walls that are simply goign to happen. Have fun fighting that one.

And also have fun dealing with local health departments, thats not an overnight process either.

Some places you are just going to have mice, rats and skunks and there isn't anything you or the landlord can do about it.

Exterminators can't control the weather, and they can't make tenants pick up after themsleves.

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for the landlord to keep your security deposit when he might take pictures of his own to show the place wasn't clean enough, or those scratches on the walls that are simply goign to happen. Have fun fighting that one.

It'll actually be a TON of fun, because housing courts are really, really used to landlords pulling this shit. Housing court is also a great place to mention that you're not sure your landlord kept your deposit in a separate account or didn't gave you the deposit back with interest, or charged a pet deposit on top of the regular deposit...and the court will give them even more hell.

Even worse for them is if they pull BS after you've called the health inspector and they were fined for violations. Why? Because the court looks VERY poorly on anything that might be construed as retaliation; the burden is for the landlord to prove it wasn't retaliation, and heh, they're going to need luck on their side for that.

A naive scummy landlord who has had a lot of backbone-less tenants will trot into court and get slapped around; an experienced scummy landlord will back down very quickly if you mention "housing court"- your deposit check will magically show up unharmed, maybe even with the interest you're supposed to get (for buildings over a certain # of units only, maybe...I can't remember.)

It's a common trick for scummy landlords to bill tenants for things like plastering and painting over the tiny holes used to hang pictures, or for a bump or scrape here and there, or (much more commonly) deduct or demand a "cleaning fee, either before you move in or after you've left. Also extremely common (and illegal): "key" or lock fees or deposits, and extra deposits for pets. Landlords are required to change the locks when turning over the apartment; they can't charge you for it.

ALL are considered by the courts to be normal "costs of doing business" for landlords; your landlord will get laughed out of housing court so fast his/her head will spin, and you'll enjoy the pleasure of having your legal expenses paid by him/her, as well as awarded damages.

Also, the landlord has to actually prove the damage and cost of repair. Hole in the wall? The landlord can't just make up "$200" and deduct it. He or she either has to document the damage, submit a bill of materials, or a bill from whoever they hired to fix it.

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except with scummy landlords come scummy lawyers, scummy licenced exterminators, scummy locksmiths, scummy repairmen that can tie you up in court just as easy.

Some landlords don't even get a deposit but can simply sue for damages to an apartment.

But Ive seen it the other way as well, with tenents compaining of "bad air" and getting to stay rent free for months at a time.

And these smaller management companies are the worst because they have people with nothing better to do full time than harrass tenents.

Like you said before, you might have to move out, but then its really you losing in the end.

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Is when you pay your rent. Make sure you pay it on time, even if your landlord doesn't say anything if its late or not. If there are penalities in the lease, this can come back at you at the end of the lease if theres any question about the security deposit.

I rented a place once where the landlord took some security deposit because of some "extra cleanup" (which actually could have been true.) But even if I wanted to fight it, I had been late 4-5 times on the rent and the landlords never said anything at the time, but waived those penalties in the end in exchange for the deposit.

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If there are penalities in the lease, this can come back at you at the end of the lease if theres any question about the security deposit.

Late fees on rent are ILLEGAL, save if the lease agreement specifies fees for rent late beyond 30 days.

http://www.mass.gov/?pageID=cagoterminal&L=4&L0=Ho...

I once tried to give my landlord some extra money because I was accidentally late with the rent.

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nt

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