UPDATE: Whoo hoo! We found a new place to live. I'm so excited. And no, it's not the dump above. I found a place today a few minutes from where we live now that has a spectacular ocean/city/bridge/mountain view. It has a big deck, a creek running beside the property, a modern kitchen, walk-in closets, beautiful draperies/tapestries from Iran, the most gorgeous powder room I've ever seen, and a great vibe. It's not perfect, but it's by far the best thing I've looked at that is within our budget. It even has a double garage!
It only took 3 months of searching to find a place that's less than 5 minutes away from our current rental. Our new landlords are lovely people -- and engineer and an OB/GYN from Teheran --who even lowered the rent a bit because they liked us. They've put a lot of work into renovating the house, and seemed thrilled that we liked their place as much as they do. Now all we have to do is get busy sorting, packing, throwing out and moving. UPDATE
I know that putting a free ad on Craigslist to rent your property is a time-consuming, arduous task that taxes you to the very core of your beings. It is an affront to your dignity that such a thing is necessary. How dare I, a mere potential tenant willing to make your mortgage payment for you, question you, much less complain about your methods? Asking you to include such meaningless details as the amount of rent, when the place is available for move in, the location, the number of bedrooms and other miscellaneous details such as what appliances are included and parking availability, is beyond brazen of me. As a mere renter, I should be able to intuit such information simply by clicking on your misspelled title and looking at an out-of-focus picture of the front porch and a Google map link that narrows down the location to North America. People like me are so demanding!
Then when I email you to gather such information as I may, you either don't respond at all, or you send a terse two or three word response such as "its (sic) empty tomorrow" and answer no other questions. Queries about location and viewing times are treated as outrageous invasions of your privacy. It appears that in your universe, no one has to give notice, no one has need of any knowledge beyond the fact that you have a place to rent, and everybody should be willing to pay obscene amounts of money for the privilege of living in your "beautiful, quiet, spacious" rental without even looking at it first.
After several days and more frustrating emails, we finally meet to look at the property. You are 20 minutes late and don't apologize. That overgrown lawn and garbage strewn about the back yard? No problem. You take care of the yard. The filthy, scratched hardwood floors and stained, ancient carpets? They look OK to you. The paint that's peeling off the walls? You're more than welcome to pay for paint and do the job yourself. The battered applicances that you bought used 15 years ago? I guess I don't really need a stove or a fridge. The fireplace that doesn't work? Your wife used to store extra dishes there. The three bedrooms you finally admitted to having? One has no door, the other is the size of a bathroom, and the third looks into the neighbour's kitchen. The one small closet among them? Clothes are overrated.
The big garage that you said was one of the best things about the property? You forgot to mention that you are renting it out to two different people who store their Harleys there. Oh, and they like to ride their bikes early on weekend mornings and they are allowed to park their cars in the driveway because they're friends of yours. You and your husband will have to park on the street. Since there was nothing about pets in your ad, I tell you that I have a cat. Well, just get rid of it then! A cat would wreck the place.
And the best part, and I know you'll appreciate this, you can live here for the unbelievably low price of $2,600 a month not including utilities. Wait, you're not interested? How dare you waste my time! Lots of people want this place you know, but I showed it to you first because you seemed like a nice lady. Just get out of my sight. I knew you were a bitch the first time I laid eyes on you.
* * *
I'm really not exaggerating when I write that looking for a decent place to live in Vancouver is pretty much one of the most frustrating and time-consuming experiences I've had in recent years. The above scenario actually occurred, and this was after a nearly 10-day dance between the "gentleman" in question and me. I have other similar dances pending after taking a different tack and putting in a "Housing Wanted " ad of my own last week. One landlord wants to rent a well-maintained, big house –– if the pictures can be believed –– for June 1, but he can't show it until after May 21st for reasons he doesn't want to share. Although he told me he was only showing it to people whose ads he responded to in the Housing Wanted section, I saw it advertised in the general Craigslist rentals today so I'm guessing all bets are off. He hasn't responded to my email for a viewing time.
Then there was the other place I looked at last Saturday, also in response to my ad, that was so filthy and cluttered that I thought I had been transported onto a set of Hoarders. Every inch of floor space was littered with clothes, sports equipment, and garbage and I couldn't imagine what the place would look like empty. I nearly vomited when I looked into one of the bathrooms. It was that bad. The landlord hung up on me when I phoned to tell him I wouldn't be renting the upper floor of his house for $2,300 plus a 60/40 utility split, which he refused to negotiate. He and his wife were moving downstairs. The weirdest thing? They seemed like normal, nice people.
As someone who became an unwilling landlord two years ago when I took over my mother's condominium, I know it's a hassle to deal with existing tenants to show a place, that you don't always have control over what tenants do, and that aggravations abound. And yet, it never occurred to me that I wouldn't fix something that was broken (which means paying someone else to do it), or maintain the property to a certain standard. I literally could not imagine showing my mother's condo in the state of the properties that I have seen and keep a straight face. I would die of shame. But I guess that makes me one of the only honest landlords in the Lower Mainland where people can, and do, get away with murder.
TIP:
Enter the amount, and click "Tip" to submit!
old new lefty
Rw005g
G.E. Baxter
Isalina Herself
Kerry Lauerman
A Persistent Muse
Salon.com
Comments
Do they have rental agents in Vancouver? Is that worth the extra investment? I wish you well in finding a home.
And I love the landlords who don't allow pets, smokers, paint, or hanging anything on the walls. Why don't I just go live in a hotel instead? It probably wouldn't cost me more than some of these rents.
Good luck with your search. Moving is hard enough as it is.
I am sorry you've been having bad experiences with these crappy landlords, but it did make for an entertaining post!
Thoroughly disgusting. Sounds like how one of my rentals looked once after the lease was broken one month in. My son and I carried out thirty or more forty gallon contractors garbage bags full of clothes, toys, dirty diapers, beer and booze bottles, used rubbers and tampons... etc. For some reason that is the memory you have brought to mind. And what's up with those prices?!?!?!?! Definitely a landlords market I guess.
The scenes you described sound like nightmare scenarios. Yuck!
Good luck Emma.
One year, we had two tenants (separate locations) who decided that their need for an animal to love was greater than the contract. Well, in the month or so before we caught them, Fluffy and Rover did enough peeing and crapping in corners to soil rugs permanently, stain the underfloor and impregnate the smell in the walls. Clearly toilet-training the animals would infringe on the aniumals' right to be themselves.
In both of those places we lost rent because they would rather leave then give up Fluffy or Rover, and the cost to have the carpets, and in one place the subfloor, replaced wiped out all of the positive cash flow for all of our properties for that year and the next.
So, I learned the hard way that nice landlords get screwed and a tough landlord, if he's lucky, breaks even.
"Then when I email you to gather such information as I may, you either don't respond at all, or you send a terse two or three word response such as "its (sic) empty tomorrow" and answer no other questions. "
In defense of the landlords, I've been having a moving sale on Craigslist and you would be amazed by the rapid evolution of the spambot. It's difficult to tell who is real and who is an advanced bot.
And when you do contact a real person by chance and thoughtfully answer their questions, 3 times out of four they never write back. Even the ones who promise to come take a look at your item rarely show up or bother to call and tell you something came up.
Assuming they do show up, they will demand half-off on the toaster oven if they find even one minuscule scratch. So yeah, I can understand how landlords become jaded.
I had one landlord, who lived across the street from me, freak out when I got cable installed. I told her that I needed tv and Internet. She acted like I was a third-grade dropout because I needed to watch television to be entertained.
While I thoroughly enjoyed the sarcastic tone of this post, I am sorry that you're encountering people who feel put-off by having to make an effort. Unbelievable prices, too!
Hope something suitable comes up soon.
:-)
That's why I live on my boat...it's paid for.
@traveler: I know that these kinds of things happen with pets. That said, I have been a pet owner my entire life, and I have never once engaged in any of this behavior. My pets are housebroken -- I can't imagine not doing that. Why would I want to live in filth and disorder? I respect other people's property as I respect my own, and that means I am careful. I know many other responsible pet owners. There are a scant few landlords/buildings in Van. that allow pets and they do NOT have the problems you describe. It seems there is a determined band of irresponsible pet owners that ruin things for everyone else. With a pet deposit that equals half a month's rent, plus $50-sky's the limit fees ON TOP of the monthly rent that are non-refundable, it seems to be a pretty safe bet for most landlords. I allow pets at my mom's condo but I eyeball the tenants carefully, and I ask to come into the place at least once every 3 months. So far, so good. I do respect your right to say no, but that doesn't make all pet owners bad.
@Travis: Of course the knife cuts both ways. I have sold things on Craiglist too and experienced some of the same problems. But when I rented my mother's place, I responded to every single reasonable inquiry in a timely manner. It really wasn't that hard.
@Buffy: If my mother's place was big enough, we would definitely do that since it's in a fantastic location. But it's a one bedroom plus den and we'd have to pay market rent there, plus store most of our things, so that would end up being more expensive.
Yikes.
When is this going to change?
There was the "study" that was carved out of the garage, unheated, unpainted cement walls, tiny little garage window.
There were the places where people had added additions in odd and unusable shapes and sizes, trying to add square meters but obviously butting against the limits of the building code.
There was the cat-piss house. Enough said.
There were the places where the owners were trying to trade up. They'd spent 10K and wanted to add 50K to the price for tarted up bathrooms and kitchens. And if you asked a question like, does this fridge (a brand new metallic green in an antiquey style to match the brand new metallic green antiquey style kitchen) come with the house, they'd answer, "only if we get our price," which I took to mean they were planning to be spiteful and difficult if we offered less than the asking price.
Then there was the house we nearly bought. Except it failed the inspection so badly the bank refused a mortgage.
That put paid to our plans to buy a house in England and it turned out the property market crashed, so the failing roof of the house we liked was actually a blessing.
Thankfully, my mortgage is now cheaper than my rent would have been-- renting on the westside vs mortgaging on the east.
Good luck with your search!