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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jul 2011
    Posts
    6

    Default Rights Regarding Roommates Who Haven't Signed a Lease

    My question involves a roommate in the State of: Georgia.

    Hello everyone. First of all, I'm sorry for the vague title, I know that's really irritating. Trouble is there are so many issues here that I don't know where to start. Since there are so many issues, and some of them may not hold any legal value, I'll divide them up to save everyone time (that way you can skip a section if you know it's not revelevant).

    My SO and I rent a two-bed townhouse. Our names are on the lease. On that lease, it says that we can sublet however we want, and we don't have to get any new roommates to sign the lease, it's at our discretion. We have this couple who are living with us. Them living with us in the first place is sort of an act of charity because they were kicked out of where they were living, and that same day we told them they could move in with us. The way we've been doing rent is they pay us, and we pay our landlord. In effect, we are their landlord, since our name is on the lease and not theirs, and they pay us.

    Rent.

    When they first moved in they weren't paying rent fairly. Invariably one of them had money and the other didn't, so instead of splitting the rent into four (my share, my SO's share, the girl's share, the guy's share), we split it into three (my share, my SO's share, their share) so that whoever had the money wouldn't be paying two fourths of the rent. Since two fourths is a half, we didn't think it was fair that one person should pay half of the rent.

    A little while later (we can't remember how long, but at least one month's rent, maybe two, was paid that way) we realized that's bull. If they were living anywhere else, a traditional landlord wouldn't care if only one person was paying the rent and they weren't splitting it, they wouldn't reduce the rent. Why should we pay extra, so that one of them can live there for free? So we made them pay their fair share and they agreed to do it.

    A few times the rent hasn't been paid fully. When it's been short it's only been by a few dollars, but as far as we're concerned on principle that's plain wrong. You wouldn't go to a traditional landlord with rent that's short, whether it was short by hundreds or just a few dollars. We let it slide but it's significant because it shows how little respect they have for us.

    Now, we are in the same situation they were in when they moved in: my SO has to pay half (his fourth and my fourth) of the rent by himself. He's just lost his job and I can't work, and have pennies to my name, so we are really struggling for money. He's been paying two fourths of the rent for months now. Do we have any grounds to get them to pay a little towards our rent, the way that we paid towards their rent for them?

    Treatment of our property

    My SO and I bought a washer and dryer after the couple moved in. The washer was $350 new and the dryer $150 used. Since my SO was unemployed at the time, we asked them if they could split the cost with us, and then when they left, whenever that would be, we would give them back their money. So it would be more of a loan. They refused, saying they would never use it (and explaining why), and we didn't press the matter further. We weren't going to ask them to pay for something they would never use, loan or not.

    But they have been using the washer and dryer. They have asked us each time, yes, but neither of us like confrontation and felt uncomfortable saying no. You have to bear in mind these people are our friends, too: we didn't want to be the d*cks and say no, especially when each time it was "just this once". Well, a few weeks ago they used both, and when they went to bed with the dryer running (without cleaning out the lint filter, which we all know is dangerous) I heard rattling inside. There were coins, peices of metal, dollar bills and pens in there. They clearly hadn't checked their pockets. I confronted the girl the next morning and said that was absolutely not acceptable, and she blamed her SO but told me it wouldn't happen again. Needless to say, it did. And this time it was her fault. And this time, they also somehow managed to shut a belt of mine, which was on top of the dryer, INSIDE the door while the dryer was running, which has now damaged my belt. They have also, several times, done laundry and forgotten about it. It has then sat in the washer for a few days and began to smell, so they've washed everything again, which of course puts up our power and water bills. We have since told them they are not to use our washer and dryer under any circumstances, but are we entitled to any compensation for any damage that may occur? Where do we stand if they ignore our instructions (which they have done before) and use it again?

    Utilities and power use.

    The couple have their utilities paid by their parents. We don't. The couple don't care if our utility bills are in the hundreds or if it's $20. We DO. We have a KWH meter outside which I observe frequently. When my SO and I first moved in, it hovered around 19kwh. Since they have moved in it has understandably gone up, but not at the rate it should have. Our first power bill for a 'normal' month (TV on as normal; AC on as normal, etc), when it was just my SO and I, was $50. Our first power bill when they moved in was $168. We sat them down and talked to them about the bill. We made them agree that everything would be unplugged when not in use (example: we have a 72" plasma TV, which obviously uses a lot of power, and they would always mute it when they weren't watching it instead of turning it off); lights would always be switched off when leaving a room; all cooking and baking would be done when it was cool (within reason), so we wouldn't have to put the AC on high power; and the AC would be set to 78 auto. They argued with us about everything, and tried to make us "try one thing at a time", which would require us, for example, keeping the AC off for a month and seeing how that affects the power; then unplugging everything for a month and seeing how that affects the power; then something else, something else, etc. We told them we couldn't afford to potentially have months more expensive bills and they very, very reluctantly agreed to our terms.

    They have some tropical fish which we take care of whenever they go away for a while. I went into their room last night to feed the fish and found that one of their laptops was plugged in and left on, even though they would be gone all weekend. Also, they had a TV, two laptops, a set of ipod speakers and a printer plugged in, which violates the terms we agreed to.

    They have a totally blase attitude to the bills. Because THEY don't pay, they could care less what the total is. It doesn't matter to them that the higher the bill, the more my SO and I pay. Considering their unrelenting selfishness, which is unlike anything I've ever seen; the fact that loaded mommy and daddy pay their bills; and the way they violated clear terms we set out, do we have any grounds to charge them more than half of the bill?

    Dogs.

    We both have dogs and there have been a lot of problems there. Up until very recently their dog wasn't housetrained. When it made a mess in the house they would not punish it. Rather than train their dog to not take our dog's food (which we have done with our dog), they repeatedly insist that we should take our dog's food away from her after 30 minutes, whether she's done or not, rather than leaving it out for her. There are literally hundreds of issues with their dog's training, and the way they expect everyone to bend to the dog's will (the girl screamed at her boyfriend for leaving a plate of food in the dog's reach, for goodness' sake, rather than punishing the dog for going for the food. It's ridiculous), but I don't think all of it is relevant.

    Where it does become relevant is their dog has bitten my SO more than five times, drawing blood each time. It's a small dog, and a puppy at that, and my SO is a large person. But each time, the dog has been to the toilet in the house and my SO has shouted at the dog and tried to put it in 'time out'. The horrible thing has attacked him. One time in particular, the dog was in time out by my SO's feet. It had been sitting there for around 10 minutes, when, with no warning, it leaped up and attacked my SO's leg, biting repeatedly. All of this is because they refuse to train it.

    They also hit our dog once. What makes this worse is that they, particularly the girl, REFUSE to give their dog so much as a tap on the nose when it does something wrong. We believe in doing that (to our dog, not theirs!), but they have actually tried to change that and interfere with our dog's training. One day their dog was sick and they had to rush it to the vet. The girl came back inside looking for her phone. She was running around the house frantically, which my dog took as a sign she wanted to play with her. So my dog bounded towards her and jumped up at her, and the girl shouted at her and struck her so hard that she was knocked over, and spent the next 20 minutes cowering under a table, shaking and refusing to even come to me. Do we have any grounds to... anything, there? Compensation because she struck our dog? She deserves to be punished in some way. To not want to hit your animal is fine. To refuse to hit your animal, but strike someone else's so hard that the poor thing is knocked down, is sickening.

    They are also consistantly violating a lease agreement with their dog, and that is picking up after it. We had a neighbor complain about the dog poop everywhere and they actually laughed. We told them it wasn't acceptable to leave dog poop everywhere and it certainly was not, in any way, funny. I suggested that, rather than being pathetic and stooping to "that's not my dog's poop, that's your dog's", one person should go outside once a day and pick up any poop that they see, and we should take it in turns who does it. They refused (are you seeing a pattern here?), saying that "once a day was too much work" and once a week would be better (I don't see how it's LESS work to go out less often and pick up MORE poop, and I also don't see how that's anything but disgusting, but there we go...). To this day they continue to not pick up after their dog, even though it is a CLEAR lease agreement and we have already had someone complain and say if it doesn't stop they will report us. Since none of us have paid the $600 deposit for EACH dog, it's definitely in our interests that we are NOT reported. They also consistantly violate a verbal agreement we have, which is that if one of us looks after the other's dog and it poops, we won't pick up after it but we will tell that other person, so that it can be picked up quickly before the neighbors complain. As a result, we have just noticed 10+ poops out back that we have had to pick up. We have no idea how long they have been there, or whether the neighbor has reported us.

    Do we have any grounds to report them for breaking the lease, when we haven't paid the deposit and their names aren't on it? What's so frustrating is we know that the reason they don't pick up after their dog is their names aren't on the lease so it's us that will get in trouble, not them.

    Finally...

    Moving out.

    They have suddenly decided that they are moving out. The story they have given us is that their parents want them to live on their own so that their grades improve, and since their parents are paying all of their rent they don't have a say in it. BUT.
    - We gave them the option to move in with a friend of ours before, when my SO had a job making a lot of money. They talked to their parents but told us no, because the friend's place was 10 minutes away from where our girl roommate worked, and that was too far. This place they are now moving into is 20 minutes away from where the girl works.
    - They're moving into an attic apartment, which the girl has always wanted, and she will not shut up about how much better than this place it is.
    - We've been told by someone that they want to move out because "there's too much drama" here.

    The problem is this: they've given us two weeks notice. That's IT. This was after my SO lost his job, and, as I said, these people are supposed to be our friends. On our lease it says that if we have to leave we have to pay half of the remaining lease. We're now stuck with a place we can't afford because they're leaving. We have found a roommate but he's not ideal: we wanted a couple, so the rent would be cheaper, and if they'd given us notice we could have done that. Instead, my SO is now going to be paying 2/3 of the rent, when we could barely afford paying 2/4 of the rent.



    I really feel like they KNOW they're in trouble for everything they've done, and they're getting out as quick as they can. We pretty much want to take these two to court for everything they have, for anything we can. The way they've treated us is intolerable. The day-to-day stress they have caused is unbearable. I've not been able to sleep for weeks. I'm writing this in my room, pretending to be sick because I can't bear to be around them. In my own house, I'm confined to my own little room. It makes my blood boil just being near them.

    Is there ANYTHING we can do? At all? Sue them? Get money back from them for the way that they're leaving us like this, with no time to find a couple and instead being forced to have a creepy guy move in?

    I am so, so sorry this post is so long, and I'm sure not everything is relevant. Trouble is, I'm having problems figuring out what is and what isn't.

    Thanx everyone.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Sep 2005
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    98,846

    Default Re: Rights Regarding Roommates Who Haven't Signed a Lease (Bills, Respect, Etc)

    That wasn't even close to concise.

    If your roommates give you less notice than is required under state law, they owe rent through the end of a legally adequate notice period. If they owe you rent, or other money, and refuse to pay it, small claims court is available.

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