My apartment complex doesn't have an outgoing mail box, anything I can do about this?
My apt. complex has absolutely no official outgoing mailbox. Only a cheap wicker basket which they keep in the leasing office which is quite a walk from my actual apartment, not to mention it's in no way a secure spot for outgoing mail. Anytime I have outgoing mail I need to drive to the nearest postal service mail drop off container, but I don't have one very close to me, and it becomes a nuisance to do anytime I need to send something. Is there anything I can do about this?
Asbestos in my university owned apartment and nothing is being done?
Asbestos inside concrete is completely safe. No, seriously. Asbestos becomes a danger when it is in the form of airborne particles. If it's embedded in concrete, it is completely safe. If you drill a hole in the wall, you will create small airborne particles. Tearing down a building with asbestos in the concrete creates a lot of danger because of all the dust generated, while leaving it in place doesn't put the stuff into the air. I've been in several industrial facilities that have warning signs on old pipe insulation. They say Do Not Disturb. Extensive precautions must be taken to work on those pipes, but again if it's left alone the stuff isn't airborne and therefore isn't a risk. It does concern me that they don't want you vacuuming ceiling tile particles. Those can be replaced, and in fact usually have to be replaced as they decay over time. That's rather different from saying they found it in the concrete walls. However, I doubt you have any kind of legal recourse per se. It's very likely that whatever they are doing has already been cleared through the building inspector. You should try and get more information from them though... any real asbestos evaluation will identify the specific sources. It shouldn't say "ceiling", it should say "ceiling tiles" or "spray insulation above ceiling tiles" or "pipe insulation". Then you'll know what the issues really are.
How can we get our landlord to fix our apartment?
Hello, my husband and our son have been living in our apartment for 18 months. Here are the issues in our apartment... • Leak in the living room ceiling, leak is coming from the upstairs apartments radiator. • Floor in the bedroom (the corner by the window) is not elevated enough, therefore we sometimes get a draft from outside. • Our son’s closet has a hole on the floor. • The outside intercom button has been out of order since we moved in. • The bathroom ceiling/walls often have dark spots on them (we believe it’s from the pipes in the wall. Anything we can do to get this fixed asap? Thanks.
Why are there often no ceiling light fixtures in US apartments/houses?
From my experience I don’t believe this has anything to do with environmental concerns, like saving electricity or structural issues, like concrete ceilings that can’t have electrical wiring easily run through them. In CA, it would be a lot harder to prove compatibility with Title 24 lighting requirements if you tried to put “switched wall outlets” in the plans because they would want to force the light to be on a dimmer, but you can’t prove that with a switched outlet. And in central California, almost every apartment complex is conventionally framed and under 3-stories… so running ceiling light fixture circuits would be easy. So what else could be the reason?I have two theories as to why this phenomenon is so common here in central CA.Cost: People who build apartment complexes ALWAYS build them to make money. By not installing ceiling light fixtures and instead using switched wall outlets so that renters must light their apartments using lamps, the landlords and investors are saving themselves money on the initial construction of the building. Not only do they not have to buy and install the fixtures themselves, but don’t have the cost of the wiring and circuits that would be required. But, it doesn’t just save them money when they initially build the complex, but over the years they save money because the renters must supply their own lamps. They don’t have to worry about replacing outdated or broken light fixtures throughout the years and it allows them to put more responsibility on the renters.Style: This is related to the fact that renters must supply their own lamps. I think landlords like apartments to have interiors that are stylistically neutral so that a potential renter can decorate however they want. It is easier to attract renters if they aren’t forced into style choices by the existing interior design. So, by removing light fixtures from the equation they are making the style a little more generic so that renters can establish their own style by bringing in their own floor lamp light fixtures. I am not as sure about this theory, though, and think the previous reason of the landlords saving themselves money is more valid because landlords are notoriously cheap.
The tenants in the apartment next door smoke pot all the time and I can smell it in my apartment. Can I break my lease?
Unfortunately, no - this does not provide you with any legal justification for breaking your lease. This actually happened to me when my wife and I were living near Bothell, WA about 10 years ago - our nice, quiet, friendly old couple neighbors downstairs moved out, and two young "ladies" moved in underneath us and began runnning what was obviously a combination drug and prostitution operation in the apartment underneath us. It was literally so bad that the smell of the pot smoke would seep through the floors to greet us when we got home. We told the management, who said that there was nothing they could do and we should contact the police. We did, but being in unincorporated King County, the call was lowest priority and by the time the cops did show up, the neighbors downstairs had left or were at least no longer smoking. The cops said there was literally nothing that they could do unless they witnessed someone breaking the law, and that the likelihood of that happening was, basically, nonexistent. We wuond up breaking the lease and paying our extra two months' rent, and buying a house that summer, rather than deal with the situation.Bruce Feldman is technically right that you could have a claim for loss of "quiet enjoyment" -- but whether or not a court is going to support your desire to leave the premises is going to be highly dependent upon the state/county/city that you're in and how protective the jurisdiction is of tenants v. landlords. On that question, you should seek the advice of a tenants' rights group in your city. Also, keep in mind that you'd likely be asserting the loss of quiet enjoyment in a lawsuit that would be brought against you by your landlord for the broken lease - a major cost in time, energy, and frustration (if they're anything like the landlords I've dealt with, they'll send you notices of payment, then send you to collections, then file suit against you, so you're fighting them on two fronts).As a postscript, the week after we moved out, the tenants downstairs were evicted for failing to pay their rent, and they seized all assets within the property (not that there was much in there) and locked them out of the unit. So, rather than deal with the problem and lose one set of unreliable tenants, they wound up with two empty units at the same time, one of which undoubtedly stunk of pot (and perhaps worse).
Can we still get approved for an apartment if my fiancé checks it out but not me?
He got a showing for sunday but i work and he doesnt. Not sure i can call out again. I just have to apply hours but i dont wanna go down to 0 hours. Is it possible to get approved if i dont go? Or should i just use my hours. I feel bad my job gave voluntary time off and i used it but didnt work i just recently won a tv at my job i really do not want to call out but i want to see the apartment too :/
Are those "secured" access apartment buildings a waste of money for nothing?
You know the ones. Where residents enter the building using a pass code and visitors have to use the telecomm to contact the resident, and the resident buzzes them in. Apartments showcase this in their listings as a valuable amenity. I have noticed that, all else heing equal, the apartment complex that has so called secure access has higher rent prices than the comparable one that does not. But why? It's no way to hold off a half way determined intruder. All the person has to do is wait for someone to come out and catch the door before it closes.