Tenants find ways to deal with uncooperative landlords, managers

After noticing problems with their rental property, most tenants contact their landlords to promptly fix their troubles. Unfortunately for many rental residents, dealing with uncooperative management can be more annoying than the problems that need fixing.\nDirector of Student Legal Services John Irvine said many students make the mistakes of not analyzing their lease or researching their management before making a commitment, causing students to have to come to him to help facilitate problems with housing management. \nJunior Lauren Felder, who works for SLS, said she reported many of her housing problems to her manager at her leasing agent, but he showed little interest in helping her.\n"I called the company that owns (my housing complex) and told them part of the reason why I think nothing is being done is because I heard the manager is going to quit soon," she said. "Well, they called him up and didn't mention any of the problems, but instead asked him to stay. And then the manager called me up and yelled at me for talking to the owners."\nIrvine said many of the problems noted on move-in inspections are never fixed and when move-out inspection comes around, students are unfairly charged for damages that were there prior to their residency.\nSenior Melissa Koehlinger said she was unfairly charged upon her departure from her former residence.\n"I was there for both move-in and move-out inspection and it was completely wrong," she said. "Nothing was cleaned. The walls were not painted. None of this was fixed after the move-in inspection. And of course, we were charged for these problems again upon move-out inspection."\nKoehlinger's roommate, Toni Ott, who graduated this winter, said she was misled into believing that they would not be charged for these problems since it was management's responsibility to repair these violations.\n"They never fixed anything they charged us for, so where did the money go?" she said. "They shouldn't call it a security deposit if we don't get the money back."\nDoctoral student Alexandre Eisenberg said he was charged full costs for normal wear and tear when he moved out of his former residence.\n"When they do those charges they don't charge you for the percentage of the apartment that is dirty," he said. "But you end up paying to repaint or fix half of the apartment, when only a few inches are dirty or damaged."\nSenior Zach Weiner claims upon his departure from his previous housing commitment, he was charged $3,000 for damages, including vandalism to the parking lot he shares with other tenants. \nWeiner recently went to small claims court to fight off the charges, which he already paid upon leaving. \n"(The) management told us that we were absolved from all monies owed," Weiner said. "However they still appeared in small claims court to try and bilk us out of the same amount of money we already paid."\nWeiner said the judge took a look at their release contract and dismissed the claim.\nThe complex's legal representative Michael Carmin said they had no intention of charging him twice.\nIn addition to absurd charges, many students said they were given absurd requests from management.\nAbout a week into the lease Weiner said the landlord decided to turn their laundry room inside their basement into a communal laundry room, to be shared with all of the other tenants in the complex. \n"People would just walk in and out of our home at all hours of the night to do laundry," Weiner said. "People would throw beer bottles down there. They'd smoke on our balcony. We tried to put a sign telling them to only use the laundry room from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., but the sign was torn down by them. It was definitely annoying." In addition to the inconvenience of having visitors wander in and out of their home, Weiner said he felt a financial burden as well.\n"Not only were we the subjects of vandalism, and excessive noise, but originally we were paying for the water and electrical use by these 30 other tenants," Weiner said. \nCarmin issued a written response to these claims, saying that the laundry room was an improvement to the home.\n"(The) management installed new several laundry machines and dryers for tenant use," Carmin said. "This was a major improvement over the very limited laundry facilities that had been available in the original, unfinished portion of the basement area. The laundry room in the finished basement was designed for exterior access to avoid anyone entering the laundry room through the house. The tenants were advised of the plans for the laundry room and made no objection."\nAnother resident, senior Priscilla Cherry, claims she was forced to get rid of a dog which she was initially allowed to have by management.\n"Management even played with the dog," Cherry said. "Then one day, out of the blue, they tell me to get rid of the dog by 5 or I'll be evicted."\nCarmin said the complex has revised its lease to make it clearer about the prohibition of pets. \nWeiner said he expressed his many complaints to management, but since the owner approval was needed for most actions, and Lewis was difficult to contact, many problems went unsolved for a period of time.\nWeiner said his few contacts with the owner were unpleasant. \n"We often received unscheduled visits from (the owner), at odd hours of the night," Weiner said. "We never received any calls ahead of time. And they weren't even emergencies. He would just knock on our door at 1 a.m. or would just sit out in his car in our driveway for long periods of time, just to check the place for an inspection."\nIrvine said many of these problems are due to students not being careful about signing leases. He said tenants should understand what is expected of them and penalties for not following guidelines. In order to clarify these distinctions, Irvine is proposing amendments to the Bloomington Housing Code which will be read before the city council on April 2nd. \nIn the amendments, there will be a standard form for move-in and move-out inspections and landlord responsibilities will be clearly defined, including repairs.\nEisenberg said he hopes changes will be made to protect tenants in leases.\n"Their lease was absurd because you would see only one paragraph about the responsibilities of the landlord and it wouldn't even protect the tenants," he said. "And the entire rest would punish the tenants for every little thing."\nCheck out tomorrow's paper for the final part of the three part series in which solutions to these problems will be provided.