A Guide to Surviving the Rental Experience (or Renting for Dummies)

On three separate occasions in the last month, I’ve had conversations with friends about the pitfalls of renting a living space. Since it seems to be such a hot topic within my circle of buddies, I figure there must be many more enquiring minds or newbie renters that could do with a little advice on the issue. Then I started thinking how much knowledge I’ve accumulated on the subjects of tenant law, roommate disputes, lease agreements, house hunting, and moving in general. I’m up on game, to say the least.

I sort of consider myself a connoisseur of Stockton’s rental units. If there was a degree program for Professional Renter, I’d have at least a Master’s. I’ve lived in plenty rental homes as a tenant, a sub-leasing tenant, and a temporary couch surfer. I’ve lived in apartments, houses, duplexes, triplexes, attics, bedrooms, closets, and condos. Some where tiny spaces, others were expansive abodes. In some cases the monthly rent was a steal and other times it was inflated. I’ve rented from property management companies, from private owners, from friends, from tenants willing to break their own lease to rent to me, and from corporate controlled apartment complexes. I’ve had nearly every possible combination of living arrangements; from my current solo existence to an out of control tweeker pad with god knows how many other people during my lost years, from living with my sibling to living with a significant other, and I’ve moved in with complete strangers, casual acquaintances, and best friends. My roommates have been a mixed bag of characters: a crazy middle-aged karate instructor/Gulf War veteran (AKA Karate Rock) that rented me a room, the newly outed super-flaming gay guy that shared a couple of residences with me, the irritable lesbian with a vicious bark and no bite in my first apartment, and the raging alcoholic boyfriend with a penchant for destroying furniture and fixtures during drunken fits. I’ve lived with first time renters, under-aged high school students, hippy retirees, clandestine lovers, and quasi-relatives. I’ve been burned by roomies, neighbors, and landlords enough to have learned some painful lessons, but I’ve also benefited from living with some of my former roommates. Yes, mine is quite an extensive renter “resume” because I’ve never renewed a lease agreement (or even wanted to). Anyhow, here are a few pieces of advice from me to you, as an expert.

• Whenever you have a roommate, you should draft up a Roommate Contract & Agreement. ANY ROOMMATE. Even if it’s your boyfriend, even if it’s your best friend from childhood, even if the person is “hella cool” and you guys “get along really well”, even if you are the one moving into the home they already live in. Even if you never have to use the contract against your roomie in a court of law, the document serves a very valid purpose. All the headaches that come with communal living are put on the table up front, so miscommunication and the accompanying conflicts are greatly reduced. I’m not advocating the use of a contract to enforce a fascist dictatorship of your home; it’s just a mutually agreed upon Way of Doing Things. If nothing else, writing up the contract with your co-tenants puts everybody on the same page as far as how y’all want to live. You’d be surprised how many of the things you see as common courtesy or essential upkeep are entirely foreign to others! It’s better to be up on game about your roommates pet peeves or annoyances up front, rather than discovering he/she is a neat freak or nark months down the road when he/she flips the fuck out and/or flushes your stash. Such a document should include the terms of paying rent (how much, when, repercussions for late rent or bounced checks, etc.), the expected length of the living arrangement, what utilities exist & who’s responsible for them, and ABOVE ALL the agreement must clarify what happens when it comes to moving out. The last part is crucial! How long should their notice be? Do they forfeit their security deposit if they bounce out on you early? Are their certain activities or behaviors that could lead to a roommate’s eviction? Optional sections of the agreement can divvy up housework, stipulate the rules about guests, address noise curfews or studying/sleeping schedules, and establish a smoking policy. Trust me, a Roommate Contract is totally necessary.
• Familiarize yourself with your rights as a tenant and the responsibilities of your landlord. Remember that there are laws to protect you from oppressive or shitty landlords & living conditions, just as there are laws to protect their investment from you.
• The amount of your security deposit cannot exceed the monthly rent, unless an additional pet deposit is required. When you move in, a landlord can charge you a security deposit OR last months rent – not both! If the landlord intends on keeping any of your deposit when you move out, you can request a detailed accounting of what they are keeping it for. They are required to present you with receipts (or copies) and detailed time sheets or fee statements if they employ someone to make repairs, if you request it. If the landlord fails to give you this documentation within 30 days of your request, they forfeit their right to the deposit money & it must be returned to you in full according to California state law.
• Any correspondence with your landlord should be written whenever possible & you need to retain a copy for your records. If you need repairs made, you can call them BUT also send a dated letter. If you have a complaint, you can talk to them BUT also send a dated letter. Trust me.
• When looking for a place, put the time and effort in to evaluate your options whenever possible. A little searching can pay off big time and a hasty move can land you in a shitty over-priced place that you despise.
• Plenty of corny kitchen decorations and Lifetime movies have told us that home is where the heart is. This is true, but let’s not forget it is also where all your worldly possessions are too! Keep that in mind when picking a neighborhood, a roommate, or a lock for your bedroom door. If you have a lot of pricey shit, get renter’s insurance. If your thrift store / hand-me-down chic like me, just remember to lock your doors/windows and be mindful of the company you keep inside your castle.
• Get to know your neighbors. It is terribly annoying when neighbors routinely call the cops on you for being loud or having a party or because they’re fucking crazy, so open up a dialogue ASAP. Besides, it’s nice to have someone looking out for you in da ‘hood.

Tequila is like kryptonite to Ms Maryjane Foxie

For whatever reason, I conveniently forget this fact when presented with an opportunity to drink the devil booze. I then re-learn the lesson, without fail, by the end of the evening. Yesterday’s foray into Drunk-ville ended quite early, since my alcohol consumption started earlier than usual, and the homies were left to fend for themselves while I got reacquainted with my toilet bowl. My bad.

Now that I’ve regained consciousness, I’m ready to start the day’s complaints with a new found sense of irritation.

* According to the New York Times article HERE, American hospitals nationwide have been snitching to the INS about injured or ill illegal immigrants seeking medical care. Since they lack insurance & most nursing homes won’t accept these patients, the hospitals will assist in their deportation to avoid the financial responsibility of treating them. I can’t help but think how fucked up it would be to get hurt or sick and seek treatment, only to be deported by people uninvolved with immigration matters. That would be like catching an STD and when you went to the clinic, your ass got fired from your job. Unrelated & unnecessary double Fuck You’s for folks already in a screwed up position.

* The House of Representatives passed the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would require employers to disclose employee salaries so that women will know sooner if they are being paid less for equal work. This Act was written in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2007 ruling in Ledbetter v. Goodyear. The Ledbetter ruling stated that employees have to file discrimination charges within 180 days of the initial unlawful employment practice, meaning a female employee getting shitty wages must sue within 180 days of her first unequal paycheck…even if she isn’t aware of what her contemporaries are making. You have to sue before you know your being screwed? Sounds fucked, huh? The Paycheck Fairness Act intends on rectifying the problem, but Bush has vowed to veto the legislation if it makes it through the Senate. What a dick…

* This headline made me puke in my mouth: “More Rapes Linked To Young Women on Drinking Binges”. WHAT!?! Obviously, the editors of San Diego News don’t realize that rapists commit sexual assault, therefore are at fault, and the alcohol consumption of their victims doesn’t change that fact. Women have a right to exist in the public sphere, intoxicated or not, without being subjected to sexual violence. Our police forces are supposed to protect the community, drunk or not, and arrest the rapists without blaming the victimized women in the media. This isn’t 1956, after all.

Haven’t they heard the phrase “Shit rolls downhill”?

                       

Here’s the problem I’m having with the media’s coverage of our state’s financial woes: California has one of the lowest home ownership rates in the nation & has been criticized for years because a huge cross section of it’s population is doomed to permanently rent their homes. So, when the talking heads on my late night news shows discuss the foreclosure crisis (which has slammed Stockton, CA harder than any other city nationwide with 1 out of every 75 homes being foreclosed on in the month of May 2008), why aren’t they talking about how it is affecting us renters? Kitty-corner from my apartment, a four unit apartment building has just been foreclosed on & the people living there are pretty much up shit creek sans paddle. The property owner is obviously strapped for cash, so I doubt the four families will see their security deposits anytime soon, and the bank that has assumed ownership of the property has kicked out the renters but doesn’t owe them any thirty day notice or financial compensation for their loss, even though none of them are at fault for their eviction. Disposed renters are given only 72 hours to vacate their homes and then they face the task of finding a new rental unit, not to mention coming up with another first month’s rent and security deposit. What are these people supposed to do? They were already renting a low-income apartment, so I doubt that any of them are wealthy enough to up and move at the drop of a hat. What are we, as a community, doing for these people? AND WHY does the mainstream media act like the only people facing economic troubles related to the foreclosure crisis are those folks that defaulted on their loans? What about the renters? People that have been paying their rent, people that have abided by the tenants of their leases, people on Section 8, people already in dire financial straits because of rising gas and food costs, people that don’t have the credit or income necessary to get a fucking loan in the first place are being evicted left & right. Many of these people don’t know that their homes are in the foreclosure process, since the property owner is not required to relinquish this information to their tenants, and then one day…*POOF*… their rights to their place of residence are gone because foreclosing lenders typically evict tenants in order to re-sell the property. Someone that looses the house they bought & live in to foreclosure can rent another house. They already make enough money to qualify for a home loan, so they have the cash needed to rent & property managers don’t give a damn about that aspect of your credit, so they won’t have trouble getting a spot. Renters thrown out because their landlord defaulted on a loan are not in a similar financially secure position. So what if you’ll have trouble getting another home loan ‘cause your credit is fucked? Those renters are having trouble getting another roof over their heads because someone else fucked up! Now that is a situation that deserves some hard-hitting journalistic attention! I’ve scoured the Internet in search of articles, segments, or op-eds on the subject, but it’s slim pickings.

Approximately 1/3 of Americans rent their homes and in California that figure shoots up to 42%. The available evidence suggests that the majority of foreclosed properties are likely to be rentals (or multi-unit dwellings, like duplexes or triplexes), since a property owner isn’t likely to default on their own home loan before the loan they have out on their rental properties.** Estimates for how many renters are being royally screwed by the crisis are inaccurate and incomplete at this point. Experts warn that the current data grossly underestimates the numbers of disposed renters. What figures we do have suggest that as of 2007, 22% of defaulted mortgages in California were on rental properties. In other words, at least 1/4 of the homes lost are those of people that have no part in the whole loan-situation to begin with! And you know that plenty of rentals house more than one tenant (apartment buildings & multi-unit houses, for example), so counting the number of foreclosed rentals doesn’t even begin to show us how many people are being screwed over. Worse still, all those former homeowners are now joining the ranks of the renting class and, according to the laws of supply and demand, are driving up the cost of renting for everybody. U.S. Census Bureau statistics show a 14% jump in the nation’s median asking rate for rentals since 2003 and California is famous for it’s inflated rental rates, so you know it’s worse around here! Woe is the West Coast renter, I suppose.

On July 8th, Governor Swart..z… the fucking Gubernator signed into law Senate Bill 1137, the so-called Perata/Bass Mortgage Relief Bill, which requires tenants to be notified once a bill of sale is issued on the property and, once sold, tenants now have 60 days notice before their eviction…BUT only if the defaulted loan was taken out between January 2003 and December 2007. Now, these innocent parties have two months to pull a shit load of money out of their asses, find a new place in an increasingly cramped rental market, AND prepare to pay more rent each month to boot! Good looking out, California!

Here are a couple Stockton-specific annoyances this subject has planted in my head:

1. Why does the city General Plan include a few more Spanos & Grupe housing developments between now & 2013 if we can’t afford the homes we’ve built thus far? Why are we OK-ing more single family home development if predictions suggest the need for more multi-unit rentals? Shouldn’t a General Plan consider this type of shit? Isn’t that why we make a fucking General Plan? To generally plan for the future’s needs?

2. Why is The Record ignoring the foreclosure crisis as it relates to us renters? Aren’t the editors aware of the fact that many Stocktonians rent? Don’t they have a duty, as our main news outlet, to inform the citizenry of regional disaster like this, rather than use any article on the subject to paint faux-silver linings all over the fucking place? How about giving renters a heads up, in case they didn’t know they should be worried?

3. Where is the federal bailout for the poor victims of this crisis, like Stockton’s needy masses? How does Washington justify multi-million dollar bank bailouts for lenders that profited from the mortgage refinancing schemes and sub-prime loans that caused the crisis, when innocent displaced Stocktonians are too broke to cough up the cash for their security deposits? Why aren’t our tax dollars being used to protect us from poverty? From homelessness? From predatory financial entities bent on profit at any cost?

 

** Also, this assumption was stolen from a 2008 report issued by the  National Low-Income Housing Coalition, located HERE.