Dealing With Very Litigious(?) Agents During Roommate Search! -CA
Hi BP! Last year I teamed up with my longtime buddy and purchased a 4 bedroom (single family detach) house near campus while we are finishing up our degrees.
We use 2 bedrooms for quiet living/study, and offer the other 2 furnished for temporary bed & breakfast stays. Last year we limited ourselves to advertising on airbnb and off campus housing. Usually we only ended up to renting out to 1 lodger at any given time, without woes. And the 4th bedroom ending up for guests as we each have big families who sometime visit LA from east coast, etc.
But this year we are behind on bills so we broadened to offering each/both room for single occupancy on the dreaded CL and other sites.
I'm shocked that most of the callers we have gotten so far, rather than have questions about the rooms, are actually so far just ones that go straight into stating that they do not meet our listed description/requirements (ie, male owners looking male roommates) but 'here's why you cannot refuse considering us anyway.." followed by robotically reading some script/quote such as from the NHA, FHA or ADA.
Here's a log of just 5 recent calls to date:
1. 'We are 2 couples are you cannot limit it to 1 person per bedroom as that's discriminating family status or family size!)'
2, 'I'm an agent and I have a qualified disabled person to stay for just a month or two but you're not handicap-equipped are you?' (No? Well you will have to modify your bathroom and furnishings permanently for my client for his 2-month stay, then, per FHA)'
3, I'm an agent with a mother and her special needs high school daughter (so if you refuse to share your home, bath, and kitchen with females you're violating ADA)
4. I see you dont accept pets but I'd keep my support dog locked in the bedroom at all times and his barking won't disturb your studies (and she's not a pet that's why you can't refuse to consider me since I'm disabled).
5. I'm an agent with a lady and her baby and you cannot refuse renting your room to a lady with a child and by the way the bed in one room would have to go in storage from the looks of the pic to make room for the baby's crib, walker, etc.
Usually the calls go on with the caller repeating their scripted quotes and how refusal to show them our room will result in visits from 'officials' and charges filed etc.. all within a total call duration of just 1-2 mins or so (while we reiterate we're not okay with co-ed bathrooming in our household, nor making modications as we're probably relocating after graduation).
Of course, we are compassionate about persons with disabilities but since when did offering a spare room or two in our own household turn into some sort of implied legal 'boxing ring' climate?
Especially agents- do some have nothing better to do than apparently target individual resident proprietors (rather than property managers, landlords, etc who are likely more family with tenant laws)?? Again, I didn't have this nuisance last year but then again last year we didnt list on CL, etc. Is it something in the air? Chemtrails? GMOs?! Trump?!? =L
Or perhaps because in 'today's economy' it because room rentals are cheaper than renting out entire apartments and now litigious folks have found ways to 'take over your home' by using whatever Act or statute to argue they can squeeze in an extra person or two each room (or their family) into our house kitchen and bathroom? It's frightening to see how many homeless are piling up on the streets here in CA each day more; we dont expect to stick around after grad if this ambiance keeps up.
So like, aren't we entitled to offer each of our 2 available bedrooms for single occupancy only? We don't wanna deal with hearing couples fighting (lovers' quarrel etc) while studying, etc.
Aren't we entitled to limit sharing out kitchen and bathroom with the same sex/gender? Or with trans and disability movements etc and what not are we now required to just be okay with co-ed bathrooms, our bedroom used as a baby nursery, or our own bathroom structurally customized per temporary lodger's preferences?! (If so, where does it say that?!)
One agent pointed out that its because we're lookiing for '2' roommates or '2' rooms rented out and so that means we have to comply with ADA and HUD(?!).. and when I stated our household is 4 bedrooms total and proprietor-occupied we just finished renovating our bath as it is, it robotically replied that it didnt matter and we have to handicap-modify our bathroom if we want to rent out more than 1 bedroom in our house at the same time (is that true?!). I could swear I read somewhere that ADA doesn't apply to less than 5 bedrooms and is proprietor-occupied. Shouldn't a licensed agent know more about this than laymen?!
Anyways, just thought I'd rant about my experience which brought me here in my first post here, getting it off my chest!
Thanks in advance for your input BP..