All Forum Posts by: Terry Pratt

I have a short cursory rental agreement with Tom that doesn't say anything. Perhaps I should buy renters insurance and deduct it from the rent?

Just saw this ad on the left...is this a great country or what?

I'm (sub)renting a room from someone (Tom) who is renting the whole house. I buy and sell stuff on eBay, and right after I moved in, an expected package didn't show up.

Tom assured me that he's pretty much around the house all the time (since he's been laid off over a year) and he's never had a theft problem in the house and nobody steals mail.

Turned out that one of the other unemployed guys in the house (not laid off, just living off his father's money) was in his usual spot (watching tv in the living room) when the mail arrived, and he set down my package and proceeded to pile the Sunday paper (which he was reading) on top of it...and then forgot about it thus not telling me. So I got the package a week later when the pile on top was finally removed.

Fast forward a few months, TV Man is gone but now there's another unemployed bum (Joe) in the house. Someone - presumably him - broke into my room while nobody was home (Tom had a medical appt or something) and stole $1,000+ of stuff I had bought and was planning to resell.

Joe is gone and I'm never gonna see my stuff - some of which is rare and irreplaceable - again but I'm sore about the whole thing and I think Tom has some responsibility.

Tom just shrugs and continues to live for free and drink like a fish on my rent money.

What do you think?

Suggestion:

How about renting to an individual at an intermediate rate (somewhere between what a family would pay and what you could get by renting rooms), putting the individual in charge, and letting them rent out the other rooms?

I'm (sub)renting a room from someone who is renting the whole house. If the rest of us pay the rent (to him) on time and don't skip out, he lives there for free (plus he's got the whole upstairs so he's got a really good deal), but if someone doesn't pay or skips out, he has a potential problem - he's in charge and it's not the landlord's problem.

He's also a handyman and does all the basic everyday maintenance, and the landlord's happy with the arrangement.