What do you need to know when renting an apartment?

2024 Author: James Gerald | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 14:00

You have long since come out of your tender age, have become independent and have taken care of finding your own home. And then one day you find the apartment of your dreams, not far from work, next to a bus stop, in a beautiful house and with touching curtains with polka dots in the kitchen. So what if she's tiny! But she's yours!

And you can cook anything on it, you can store liters of "Coca-Cola" in the refrigerator and drink coffee even with beer mugs, without fear that your mother will have a heart attack. You can also invite your friends over to your place and have a bachelorette party after midnight. And retire with Dima, not twitching every time the front door knocks, and fall asleep on his shoulder, and get coffee from him in bed in the morning. Hurray, freedom!

And all would be fine, but only on the threshold of the apartment of your dreams looms the colorful figure of the housewife Freken Bock - the mistress of this glorious room. Fuh, well, that's got rid of, you think, giving her the money and closing the door with a key. You're your own boss now. I hasten to disappoint you. Your housewife has a different opinion on this matter. It only seems that she surrendered without a fight. In fact, she went home to build her insidious plans and come up with all sorts of nasty things. Here is just an incomplete list of problems that you may have to face and you need to know when renting an apartment.

You are asked to pay in advance

If you prefer to see the hostess once a year (and not more often) and have a sufficient amount of money, the easiest way is to pay in advance and keep communication to a minimum. But - only if you are sure that you will live here for a long time, and if you can vouch for the decency of the hostess. Otherwise, you should be on your guard.

If the owners ask to pay for six months or a year in advance, and the amount for each month comes up impressive, most likely they are experiencing money problems. And there are some nuances here. If you want to move out earlier, they will simply refuse to return your money. For the simple reason that they have been spent a long time ago! And the thought may also creep into their heads that you, it turns out, live in their apartment completely free of charge (after all, the money has already been spent a year in advance, and you won't get new ones from you)! And then you will face problem # 2.

Hosts raise their rent

Moreover, the reasons for this may be the most fantastic.

Kira and Stas were faced with a requirement to pay extra $ 100 per month for living in their poodle's apartment. The owners cited as an example the cost of living for pets in a hotel for animals, which costs an average of 100 rubles per day, and tried to draw an equal sign between their home and a specialized hotel. Completely "forgetting" that for 100 rubles dogs are not only kept in a separate enclosure, but also fed and walked.

And Olesya, the hostess, who had a habit of often visiting the apartment in the absence of tenants, accused Olesya of untidy maintenance of the premises and non-observance of sanitary and hygienic standards and demanded to pay her extra 3000 rubles a month for washing floors once a week. Needless to say, the declared amount exceeded the real wages of the housekeeper by about 5 times.

What to do when you hear such ridiculous demands? Someone laughs in the face and points to the owners at the door, someone tries to convince them of the groundlessness of the claims, and someone silently lays out the required amount so as not to spoil relations with the owners and maintain their own peace. This is absolutely not worth doing! Inspired by success, the owners can begin to fantasize day and night, and you will only have time to lay out the money. It is better to put them in their place right away so that they do not indulge themselves with illusions about enrichment at your expense.

You are forced to make repairs

You need to know when renting an apartment: the most common problem that tenants face is accusations of damage to the apartment.

Vera rented an apartment renovated in the fifties. When the tiles in the bathroom began to fall off from old age, the hostess grandmother accused Vera of “jumping in the bathroom” and “banging her head against the wall” and began to demand replacement of the tiles. She did not argue, especially since this claim was not the first of those that were presented to her, she packed her things and moved out to another apartment.

To repair or not is your own business. If you feel guilty, hire workers. If you think that the hostess's claims are unfounded, refuse to pay damages and look for another place to live.

The cost of repairs is greatly exaggerated

Olya and Maxim, on the other hand, got the apartment with a brand new renovation, freshly pasted wallpaper and whitewashed ceilings. Six months later, the walls of one of the rooms with very dark wallpaper were covered with small scratches - the work of the claws of Olya's cat. The spouses did not refuse to renovate and promised to re-paste the wallpaper. When they bought their own home, were going to move and demanded from the owners to return their 800 dollars, paid in advance for two months, they said they were leaving the money on account of repairs. It is easy to calculate that the cost of the wallpaper together with its gluing was exaggerated 10 times that way. Maxim insisted that the money be returned, and invited the owners to choose the wallpaper to their liking, bring them a check, and he and his wife would take care of the repair. The owners objected that Maxim did not take into account the moral damage that they caused them, and demanded a double payment for the damaged wallpaper. Maxim proposed to go to court with claims for moral damage. The owners departed and showed up at the appointed time with new wallpaper - the most expensive one can find in the store. The quality of the new wallpaper was several times higher than the previous one and cost accordingly. As a result, it turned out that Olya and Maxim nevertheless paid twice as much for the repairs and presented the owners with gorgeous wallpapers instead of unpretentious ones.

What to do in this case? Consult with workers who will allow you to realistically estimate the cost of repairs. Do not buy off the owners with money, allowing them to make repairs themselves, if you do not want to part with a round sum.

The owners interfere with your privacy

If you live alone and rent an apartment at the same age as the October revolution, be sure, you will be taught the full program. The hostess will always be aware of the latest news in your personal life. Neighboring old women will perform the role of intelligence and report on your every step. And the granny herself can show up home when you are at work, and then, when you meet or by phone (it's so lucky, if you're lucky, you can hang up), scold you for the mess, a riotous lifestyle and red panties thrown on the couch. What to do? Run, run and run again. Because insanity only grows stronger over the years, and every day communication with the hostess will cost you more and more nerve cells.

You need to know when renting an apartment that there is only one way to avoid problems - to conclude a lease agreement. He will not allow the owners to interfere with your personal life, fix a stable fee and exclude ridiculous demands for repairs. All disagreements will be resolved in court, and it remains to be seen on whose side the court will then be. But concluding an agreement is a real problem. Because none of the owners wants to declare additional earnings to the state, pay increased rent and taxes. This means that the problems described above will not lose their relevance for many, many years …