D and I bought a house in August 2007 and we lived there somewhat happily until we moved to China, in August 2008. I say somewhat because living with someone else is always a challenge for me because I'm a control freak who borders on being obsessive-compulsive so living with someone who puts things where they don't belong, who doesn't unpack boxes and seems unphased with leaving big piles of STUFF everywhere is a challenge. Let's just say there were times where I had to shut myself up in the bathroom and hyperventilate a little.
The point I was trying to make was that we lived in that house for a year and nothing happened. By that I mean nothing broke down or exploded or stopped working. The house was perfect, and as far as we knew from the inspection we got when we bought the place, there was nothing wrong with the house.
Since moving out and renting to tenants, the following has happened:
- The furnace stopped working in December. Apparently the element broke or something.
- The pipes froze and burst last week, covering the first floor with an inch of water.
- The heat is not reaching the top floor where the bedrooms are. I find this weird since it worked fine last year.
First of all, of course their bills are higher because they have THREE KIDS. I mean, they take more showers, baths and run the dishwasher way more than we used to. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that a family of five will use more heat and hot water than a couple. Also, we told them when they were viewing the house that we shut the vent in the downstairs TV room so that the heat would reach the bedrooms, and that we used a little space heater when we watched TV down there.
Second of all, the pipes froze and burst because of them. We spoke with the contractor this morning who said the heating vent in the storage area wasn't open (which is has to be in the winter so the pipes don't freeze) and that the tap leading outside wasn't shut off (which it has to be so it doesn't freeze). Both are things we specifically told them to do when we showed them the house, and they are written in the handy little 'Home Binder' I put together for them.
Essentially, they've caused us this problem, and now we have to pay to fix it because they're the tenants, and we're the landlords.
The fact that this is happening when I can feel myself of the verge of falling into a depression REALLY DOESN'T HELP.
And, the puppy wee'ed in the kitchen this morning... and I just can't muster the energy to get dressed or take a shower today and I know that's not good.... and we have dinner plans that I'm already backing out of because I just feel like crawling into bed and ignoring the world today.
4 Responses to "The Joys of Being a Home Owner."
Sorry things are rough. Maybe dinner plans would be good though. Take your mind off things. Hang in there!
Here in the UK there is a standard clause in most tenancy agreements that states that the tenant must keep the house in a generally good state of repair and this would cover freezing pipes. I don't know if your agreement has anything like that? Here ,it means that while broken boilers and so on come under the landlord, if something breaks through our negligence, we foot the bill.
Did they put down a deposit? If you get a receipt for the work, you could probably deduct the sum for the pipework from them when they vacate the property.
Also, as far as I know, you don't have to change your heating supply because your tenants demanded it. Tough shit to them. You are entitled to send someone in to check it is working first. And even then, you are entitled to simply repair it if it is broken.
The level of the bills isn't your problem. I feel that the bills in my house are too high. I am moving. I wouldn't expect my landlord to change provider.
Bree is right. Go out for dinner. You know what you were saying about the importance of just going out for a walk? Count this sort of thing in too. Anything that gets you out the house, grab it!
I agree with everything Soupy said...
take it out of their deposit. arses.
In Ontario you're not allowed to take a security deposit. We take first and last month rent, but that's it, and it's not allowed to be used a security deposit. I've had friends who have had landlords try to withhold the last month's rent, but the laws are such that they protect the tenant in these cases, and not the landlords.
Basically, it's a case of he said, she said. The tenant says he opened the vent. The contractor said the vent wasn't open. The tenant will bring this to court to fight it and that will cost more tha repairing the damn thing ourselves.
So, in future, the property manager will go the house and open the vent himself so that we know it's done.
I did end up going to that dinner, and it was nice getting out of the house. Still feeling pretty low generally though.
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