Did i do this right?

[Aspychata]

@Judge
Great points. Also, some states are more consumer friendly or are on the side of the renter. California is so friendly that l wouldn't want to rent out a home there. Whereas Minneapolis felt very unfriendly, and l as a renter, or consumer have very few rights.

 

[Boogs]

Actually, @Boogs , this is what l like about this site is all the differing opinions because l can be rather black and white, due to being on the spectrum, and l need (seriously) a info dump of thoughts to analyze to get thru my schematic of did l make, say, think, do the right thing. Info dumps, ruminating, and emotional blowups are pretty much par for the course for some of us. Pretty much the OP cycled thru all of that from what l am reading and that is pretty much norm, along with a huge group of us suffering from PTSD from prior trauma as the OP stated they have specifically encountered a prior incident which created more trauma.

That's fair comment! Something I didn't bring into my own argument! Have to remember that next time, thank you!

 

[Boogs]

My experience has always been with jurisdictions that lacked any form of rent control. Leaving landlords to get away with murder, if need be from their point of view.

In essence if you have rent control, you can afford to be aggressive with your landlord. If not, well....making it a tenuous relationship will only complicate things. Whether it involves an individual property owner or a corporate property management firm. (That's putting it mildly.)

Under such circumstances, a sense of right and wrong are more often than not irrelevant short of litigating the matter in court. Which in case you'd better examine your lease with a fine-tooth comb. When I first rented the place I presently live in, the lease was 23 pages. Now it's more than 40 pages. Get my drift?

Chock-full of hold-harmless provisions that inherently favor the landlord and not the tenant. Unless of course you've hired an expensive "dream team" to defend you in court.

My perspective is not only indicative of years as a tenant without rent control, but also nearly 20 years as an insurance underwriter with an insurer that insured a multitude of apartment complexes (big and small) in California. San Francisco (one of the few places with real rent control) was the only place we saw any activity favorable to tenants, and even then there wasn't a lot of it that actually went to court.

I could also tell you about the downsides of owning a condominium subject to an HOA. But then I know a number of us here have similar and sad tales to tell.

There a lot of nuance to this, and not all landlords are bad. The problem is that it only takes a few, to deal out some rough treatment on tenants. Also, the balance of the buy-to-let market is not stable (how can it in an artificially controlled and inflated market?) and if rent control went too far the other way, you'd see lots of landlords either going bust or having to sell up, with even worse consequences for tenants in an ever shrinking renters market!

Out of interest, I always heard SF had terribly high and over-inflated property values, I believe largely from the tech industry and it's higher wages (at least at the time). How has the rent controls compared with this? Are they very recent, or long established, and if around a while, how have they effected the rental market, availability, prices, etc?

 

[tazz]

I'm still pretty furious. Maybe I should let it go? I hate having to explain the most basic stuff to entitled idiots. I already let it slide that he entered to return my rent receipt without telling me

I think it's pretty reasonable for you to be furious in that situation. Others have already given you good advice about how to deal with it. I just wanted to pick up on one particular thing...

In your drafted response you wrote "I don't expect you to understand... because you're a guy and have probably never been assaulted..."

I have been on the receiving end of this sort of comment many times - and as a guy, who has been assaulted, several times, I would say it's really not good to make this sort of assumption.

Just a friendly piece of feedback.

 

[Aspychata]

Sorry, @tazz, to hear you have suffered thru this yourself. Men do suffer from assaults and abuse, and yet they are afraid to speak about it.

 

[annO]

This isn't about feelings or explaining about possible risks.

It's about lack of the 24 hour notice and (I suppose) the lack of other information about the people that did the work.

Stop trying to educate the landlord / managing agent (who knew perfectly well what they were doing), and work on controlling their future behavior.

Your goal isn't an apology. You need the landlord to do their job properly.

* Your target isn't the workers. They were doing their job. It's the landlord.
* Your leverage is the actual risk to your physical security, not how you felt about it.
* The media you use has to be traceable, so text messages aren't ideal. Email (first because it's fast), followed by a hardcopy letter.

Thank you. Yes. This is most suitable.

Sorry to everyone for not checking back, I did not expect any more responses. I enjoyed reading all of them. Thank you all for commenting and making good suggestions. I am glad that I didn't send it right away. I probably won't say anything unless it happens again.

 

[annO]

I think it's pretty reasonable for you to be furious in that situation. Others have already given you good advice about how to deal with it. I just wanted to pick up on one particular thing...

In your drafted response you wrote "I don't expect you to understand... because you're a guy and have probably never been assaulted..."

I have been on the receiving end of this sort of comment many times - and as a guy, who has been assaulted, several times, I would say it's really not good to make this sort of assumption.

Just a friendly piece of feedback.

Thank you, you're right.

 

[annO]

I think @Forest Cat makes a good point above.

@annO, I was thinking that context could be important here (and your history with your landlord). For example, if this is the first time you felt imposed upon by him, it would be easier to make sense of this in terms of what landlords need to do to get things done. If he has a history of making you feel uncomfortable or doing things that feel like they invade your privacy or personal space, then it would make sense to be more upset by this incident, and perhaps describe your boundaries a little more forcefully.

I am especially sensitive to people showing up unannounced or being in my space, so I have to remind myself sometimes that the other person’s perception of the situation is very different.

Hope you are feeling better by now.

I am feeling better now. Thank you. He comes in the house sometimes and I don't get too bothered by it because his cousin is my roommate and my other roommate is friends with him. I don't like it but it's easy to let it go that he comes in sometimes. Maybe there is a little bit of build up but mostly it's the fact that a stranger was going to bee here when I'm alone in the house that bothered me so much. I was naked when I got the news and that made it worse. Anyway, I asked him to give at least one hour notice at the base minimum if it's a last minute scenario and to let his last minute workers know that they can't show up sooner than that.

 

[Boogs]

Not saying this is the case, but sometimes, someone who's a frequent and normally welcomed visitor, can get used to feeling at home in the place, especially if those they visit make them feel like that, and when someone new enters the scene, or scenario, those people may either feel they have some precedence not being the new person, and sometimes they merely don't think about it, about what effect it could have on that new person, maybe because they've never been a new person in other peoples network? Maybe they just are a bit insensitive to others, maybe even just not educated or experienced in it? But it's rare for two people in a situation to view it the same as each other, and each may have their own quite valid viewpoint that excuses or explains their actions or feelings, and yet there's rarely any definite absolute 'truth' to it (for want of a better description), or more accurately maybe, there are many truths all mixed together, some relating to others, some completely separate, if I'm not being to abstract? Some have more importance depending on the context of what's being looked at.
Hell, basically, human interactions are a ruddy nightmare to work out, and never is there a simple single answer except in the most exceptional and extreme events (and even then ...).
I suppose I'm saying that each person adds their own feelings to the filter through which they view others, and that colours their perception and tilts the importance of some factors above others. My experience (also being especially bad with understanding other people) is that unless there's no choice, avoiding saying anything contentious or personal or accusatory is generally best as the outcomes mostly get worse not better, whatever the intent, whatever the motive, however hard I try to make myself understood. Keeping it as much to the facts of the matter without aggression or high emotion, only discussing things as blandly as if making a shopping list, tends to avoid the start of tensions, usually unspoken at first, that inevitably escalate. Of course, sometimes all that's a lot easier said than done! Especially when the adrenalin's pumping!

 

[annO]

The landlord is actually the new person. My roommates and I have lived here for 8 years and the current landlord only took over 1.5 years ago.

 

[Judge]

There a lot of nuance to this, and not all landlords are bad. The problem is that it only takes a few, to deal out some rough treatment on tenants. Also, the balance of the buy-to-let market is not stable (how can it in an artificially controlled and inflated market?) and if rent control went too far the other way, you'd see lots of landlords either going bust or having to sell up, with even worse consequences for tenants in an ever shrinking renters market!

Out of interest, I always heard SF had terribly high and over-inflated property values, I believe largely from the tech industry and it's higher wages (at least at the time). How has the rent controls compared with this? Are they very recent, or long established, and if around a while, how have they effected the rental market, availability, prices, etc?

It's no secret the tech industry has gentrified San Francisco, particularly the area known as South of Market Street (SOMA) for some time. I suspect rent control is more about terms and conditions these days, and much less about the actual rental costs. I know outside of the city some landlords took advantage of the pandemic to raise rents as much as 25%. Outrageous. Makes me nervous to know that it's a California-based property management firm that owns the place I live in now in Nevada.

But if you are looking to buy a home, costs have been astronomical for some times. Cost of living is what pretty much drove me out of California and into Nevada. But even then, all those Californians are exiting to other places like Nevada, Texas and Washington and raising their cost of living in the process.