Ugh. It's a long, difficult story, and this isn't even the half of it. The tenants in the two units are friends, and moved in at the same time. Each unit has hookups in each kitchen. Shortly after they moved in, the downstairs tenant asked if she could install hookups in the basement, for her use, to free up space in her kitchen. We saw no reason to say no, and oversaw the installation to make sure it was done right. We took the wire from the dryer for her hookup, which is on her meter, and moved it to the new basement hookup. She then took over the basement, locked us out of it, and tried to claim it was hers, since she had a door from her unit that went into it! She refused to unlock the bulkhead door so that we could gain access to the basement. When we asserted our right to enter the basement through the bulkhead, she and the upstairs tenant called the building department, claiming a slough of violations. The inspector said that these were the nicest units he'd ever been called into, but he said we had to do some very minor things - tighten a doorknob and recaulk a shower tub in one unit, and in the other replace a window pane that had a fine hairline crack in it, and repair a hairline crack in the wallboard in one place. The tenants then denied us access to do the now mandated repairs, but when threatened with eviction for denial of access, finally allowed access to make the repairs.
The building department inspector says that we have to install a LL meter to serve the unfinished basement (which the tenant is using as a rec room area and, we suspect, to run a barbershop), and to serve the front hallway, which no one uses, and for the outside light at the front of the building. I specifically asked him if we could install battery operated motion detector lighting in those areas, and he said, "No, you have to install an owner's meter." Meanwhile, when I looked up the code he quoted, I see nothing about having to have an owner's meter, just that the circuits from the tenants' meters must not supply common areas. Since there is so little that needs to be supplied, I would be very happy to cap off the circuits to the basement and hallway and the front porch light, and simply put in motion detector battery operated lighting in these areas, and tell the tenant to use the hookups in her kitchen, and get out of the basement. I don't want to get the building dep't angry, but I don't want to spend so much on something that really is not necessary for this building.
I was hoping to be able to evict for non-payment of rent, but despite threats to not pay rent, they HAVE paid their rent. First floor, who is the root of the problem, has not paid us the money she was supposed to have paid us by March 1st for the oil that was in the tank when she moved in, but I don't think that can be counted as non-payment of rent for the purposes of eviction. She threatened nonpayment of rent, but unfortunately found out that this would mean an easy eviction, so paid it before the grace period was over. And 2nd has always paid everything. First floor has sent many abusive foul texts, but no overt threats to harm us. I had to involve the police when first floor ran screaming at me in my car on a public street, yanked open my passenger car door while I was in it, and entered the car screaming at me aggressively while I was calling 911, (all because we had made every effort to avoid a confrontation with her), but the police only went to warn her, did not arrest her. So I may be stuck with these horrible tenants until the end of the lease, when I can refuse to renew the lease, then evict them if necessary for staying over. And of course, this is our ONLY property that's in an LLC, so we have to pay a lawyer to run an eviction.
I'll spare you the rest of the sordid details. But it comes down to whether we should install the owner's meter (and we would STILL have not a single circuit on it, since I am sure that these tenants would try to rig it so that they can steal electricity from any circuits running from it), and risk pissing off the building department, or just not appeal it and install the meter.
And yes, they both posed as leaving a terrible prior LL who refused to repair anything. And since they were mostly college educated and some had real jobs (which first floor promptly got fired from right after she moved in, for mouthing off to her supervisor), we didn't do all our due diligence.
Tough lesson, and it's not over yet.
