trixielexi
Junior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? California
I've looked into whether or not this is considered a lodgers issue or a renters issue but in research I've found that in California lodgers have the same rights are tenants, so correct me if I'm wrong on this matter.
My boyfriend and I rent a room in a home in a gated community. Our landlord who owns the house lives there as well as her two kids and two other roommates. We pay $650 in rent that includes utilities. We have paid on time every month we have a rental agreement that states how much the rent is but that is all when it comes to paperwork. We were supposed to have a house meeting last week that talked about resigning agreements and such much the meeting was cancelled. We split the responsibilities of cleaning the bathroom and we worked out with the other tenants who use it that it would alternate responsibility on a weekly schedule. Me and one of the other tenants have cleaned the bathroom numerous times but one of the other tenants is simply refuses to clean it, as well as other tenants leaving pots of food on the stove and not cleaning the kitchen after themselves.
Today, our landlord decided to take off the burners off of the stove and put a note saying it was out of service along with the fridge water filter. Now the water filter I'm not concerned about because it's not a utility we pay for but we were a little concerned about the stove being out of service as most of the food we cook has to be made on the stove. My boyfriend texted our landlord to ask when it was going to be usable because again, we pay for the use of the kitchen and gas and we needed it to cook dinner. The landlord had a meltdown about us texting her and she kept saying that we should have talked to the other tenants about what was wrong. She started accusing us of not going to work and therefore we should help with cleaning the house (we do work, our work is off for 2 weeks because of the holidays, but again, rent gets paid to her on time so it's not really her business what we do for a living I could get that money from inheritance for all it matters to her) and that she took the burners because she needed to clean the stove because we don't clean it. We wipe it down every time we use it and then she got upset that we were scratching it with the sponge. We asked her how we should clean it and she told us to not worry about it that she would clean it herself. When I confronted her about needing to use the stove she got in my face and threatened me. I backed off because she's an older woman and I didn't want her to hurt me and somehow have it turned around on me because she is older even though I'm disabled. I have no idea how to go about this. She's taking down other things that we use in retaliation and claiming we can't use them including not letting us use the stove.
We pay for those utilities and she is always complaining about how she might not have enough money for the utilities and even unplugged our mini fridge because it was taking too much electricity (we had to get one because it took her 2 months to buy a fridge for the tenants and still limits our space for her own food)
What can I do? We are looking for a new place to move to because she is completely bonkers whenever we try to talk civilly to her and she spends all of our rent money on weed and complains she can't pay the utilities. Is there anything we can do to ensure she doesn't evict us just because we pissed her off? Or how do we go about filing a suit about her restricting the utilities we pay her for?
I've looked into whether or not this is considered a lodgers issue or a renters issue but in research I've found that in California lodgers have the same rights are tenants, so correct me if I'm wrong on this matter.
My boyfriend and I rent a room in a home in a gated community. Our landlord who owns the house lives there as well as her two kids and two other roommates. We pay $650 in rent that includes utilities. We have paid on time every month we have a rental agreement that states how much the rent is but that is all when it comes to paperwork. We were supposed to have a house meeting last week that talked about resigning agreements and such much the meeting was cancelled. We split the responsibilities of cleaning the bathroom and we worked out with the other tenants who use it that it would alternate responsibility on a weekly schedule. Me and one of the other tenants have cleaned the bathroom numerous times but one of the other tenants is simply refuses to clean it, as well as other tenants leaving pots of food on the stove and not cleaning the kitchen after themselves.
Today, our landlord decided to take off the burners off of the stove and put a note saying it was out of service along with the fridge water filter. Now the water filter I'm not concerned about because it's not a utility we pay for but we were a little concerned about the stove being out of service as most of the food we cook has to be made on the stove. My boyfriend texted our landlord to ask when it was going to be usable because again, we pay for the use of the kitchen and gas and we needed it to cook dinner. The landlord had a meltdown about us texting her and she kept saying that we should have talked to the other tenants about what was wrong. She started accusing us of not going to work and therefore we should help with cleaning the house (we do work, our work is off for 2 weeks because of the holidays, but again, rent gets paid to her on time so it's not really her business what we do for a living I could get that money from inheritance for all it matters to her) and that she took the burners because she needed to clean the stove because we don't clean it. We wipe it down every time we use it and then she got upset that we were scratching it with the sponge. We asked her how we should clean it and she told us to not worry about it that she would clean it herself. When I confronted her about needing to use the stove she got in my face and threatened me. I backed off because she's an older woman and I didn't want her to hurt me and somehow have it turned around on me because she is older even though I'm disabled. I have no idea how to go about this. She's taking down other things that we use in retaliation and claiming we can't use them including not letting us use the stove.
We pay for those utilities and she is always complaining about how she might not have enough money for the utilities and even unplugged our mini fridge because it was taking too much electricity (we had to get one because it took her 2 months to buy a fridge for the tenants and still limits our space for her own food)
What can I do? We are looking for a new place to move to because she is completely bonkers whenever we try to talk civilly to her and she spends all of our rent money on weed and complains she can't pay the utilities. Is there anything we can do to ensure she doesn't evict us just because we pissed her off? Or how do we go about filing a suit about her restricting the utilities we pay her for?
