All Forum Posts by: Johann Jells

I'm pricing a new cleaner for my two 3 & 4 unit rowhouses after years of making deals with tenants for maintenance. One is a tile hallway, cement basement stairs and 2 carpeted stairs and halls, the other 3 halls and 4 stairs of laminate. Request is vacuum the carpet, sweep and mop the hard surfaces, occasionally dust the moldings. I got a price of $150 for the whole job. Now, the woman who cleans my own apartment in my 3rd building also does the 4 floors of hallways, and doesn't take much over an hour to do it. She charges us $120 for the 1200 ft 2 br 2 bath plus the halls. Am I getting a great deal from her, or getting a ripoff price from the other?

How often do you folks with multi-families have the common areas, halls and stairs, cleaned? We currently contract for every 2 weeks, but some new tenants were commenting.

That's simply cultural. Floor tile has a history going back at least 5000 years! But people with your taste are no doubt responsible for the boom in "wooden plank" tiles, which I personally think look ridiculous. I like natural stone patterns. 

So, this whole thing is killing me. What does the crowd think of my issuing a new lease that excludes them from using the laundry and storage room entirely while the other tenants continue to use it?  Is it legal to have "levels of privilege"? I would issue the new lease with the restrictions of no public area privileges and a major rent hike, simultaneous with the notice to cease and my letter asking them to leave.

 "Terroristic threat" is the actual legal term commonly used, and these people are educated, white Europeans. I do not think a judge would be swayed.

 What can you mean? I'm asking them to leave, explicitly saying it's not a legal eviction. If they refuse I'm where I began, I don't see how I am damaged by offering them a low conflict, no legal issues or records way out.

Simple Non-renewal of lease or MTM is not an option. I'm thinking the reason to let them know I have the video is to present as strong a hand at this point as I can, so they just give in rather than try to weasel and fight. These are educated people and I'm trying to show them that simply leaving makes the most sense for them.

I recognize this probably won't work and I'll have to jack the rent and remove any perks not in the lease to make the situation as uncomfortable as possible for them. I really hate this, they're not lowlifes. They just can't get perspective on what renting in a B grade multi-family means and obviously the husband has anger issues.

@James Lloyd, how could a court fault me for politely requesting they leave while making clear it is not a legal eviction?

Thanks @Marc Winter,  but at this point I do not have the leverage to legally remove them, hence the "bluff".  Also the target of the threat is a guy with a drug record who would not be happy seeing cops. But I know he is not the problem, he's been there the 7 years I've owned the place and has been nothing but helpful, the new couple has been there a year and has done nothing but kvetch, even down to finding coins etc left in the free dryer.

Most of my units are on upper floors with narrow stairwells. After a few times I decided my health was not worth the hassle of DIY moving fridges, and hiring the inexperienced would be a disaster, it barely works for 40 gal water heaters. I just suck it up and buy from the big box. Even so, one delivery crew laid waste to my stairwell.