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  1. #5
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
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    1,995

    Default Re: Landlord's Right to Enter

    In most jurisdictions, the Landlord can enter in the case of emergency.

    I'm a landlord, and I had to do this on a number of occasions, and we had to do this just a few months ago. I live upstairs from this tenant, and in the middle of the day, my wife smelled gas, and it came from the tenant's unit. We tried to track them down at work, but no luck. We have the keys, and a provision in the lease that we can enter. Had we tracked them down, and waited for them to return, it'll take an hour before they can leave work, and get back.

    Of course, it we FULLY observes the tenant's rights, we can call the gas company, have them come in, turn OFF the MAIN SWITCH, then sit around and have the building be without heat and hot water for the entire day while the tenant is gone. Then, the utility would have to make a return trip to turn the gas back on in order to VERIFY everything is in order. This is the gas company procedure in the case of an emergency shutoff. Because this second trip is NOT an emergency, the gas having been shut off, you can wait another day or two.

    Fortunately, we were able to get in, the gas company found the loose connection, tightened it, and went on their way.

    My wife's girl friend had her "carbon monixide" detector going off one afternoon, and when the fire department came, and it turned out it was from the apartment next door based on the instrument readings. Fortuantely, they were able to get the landlord, who had the keys, to gain entry as the tenant wasn't in. They were told they would have to break the door down if they cannot gain entry.

    BTW, the "carbon monoxide detector" went off at that apartment next store the night before, the tenants didn't smell anything, so they just yanked the battery out. Emergency told this friend of ours that had she yanked the batteried out (she thought of doing it) as her next door neighbors did, no one called emergency, the concentration of gas in that apartment would have surely killed the neighbors by the following morning.

    Oh, we had to break a door down once in an emergency, the tenant changed the locks without notifying us. Someone smelled gas, and we gave emergency repsonders the permssion to break in, else they shut the entire building off. According to the lease, the tenant is responsible for the replacement of the door, and new locks, are in violation of the lease if they do not make a set of new keys and give it to us, already in technical violation of the lease for changing the locks without notice where we can start eviction proceedings.

    You should discuss conditions of the landlord's entry. I had a case where it took weeks to get an "appointment" to see a tenants unit, (we just couldn't set a date) because the guy downstairs complained about water dripping from his ceiling. Being a beleiver of TENANT RIGHTS, and beleiving dripping water was NOT an emergency, I didn't get to it for weeks. When the plumber finally came, he was amazed I waited so long as the ceiling and walls were full of water by then.

    Finally, I had a tenant who tried to commit suicide by swallowing a bottle of deadly pills - I don't recall what it was. Her EX couldn't get her on the phone all day, and begged that it was an emergency, and if we can enter with our set of keys. We didn't think under the circumstances it was an emergency, so we held him off, but after a whole day of frantic calls, we finally "gave in", and went in to see what was going on. Meanwhile we were thinking to ourselves, "let's hope this lady wouldn't get too upset if she found out we went in without her permission".

    She was there, unconcious in bed, and she was taken to the hospital, and we were told afterwards, another hour or two of delay, she would've been dead. She is a mom to a beautiful 2 year old at the time, and thinking back, we should've acted sooner, and worry less about "tenant rights".

    I always been wondering about it through the years ,as we were that close to saying to her ex, "don't bother us anymore, it's not an emergency if you just can't get someone on the phone". I don't know what I would've done if she died as a result of my action (or inaction)

    One more thing, this last tenant who tried suicide didn't make a big deal about the landlord being able to enter. Some tenants do. If she had, we either would'n't have rented to her (dangerous as you can see), and if we did, we would've told her ex we couldn't help.

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