Check out my lease agreement

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user3214

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Yesterday my landlord entered by apartment while I was at work and without letting me know she was coming in.

When I got back I found a letter on my desk dated 7days ago letting me know they are coming in to change my lights.


So anyway I was looking at the agreement I had signed, and check out what I found out:

Criminal Activity: Tenant, and family member residing on the Premises, or any guest or invitee shall not engage in criminal activity, including prostitution, threats, intimidation, and possession of dangerous weapons, ………

HAHA what do you consider a dangerous weapon?
 
Maybe an unstable explosive device? Nothing else comes to mind; all the weapons I can possibly think of are not in of themselves dangerous.
 
I am not a lawyer, but if I was, and I was interpreting that contract, I would see the heading "criminal activity" and interpret that to mean that you may not ILLEGALLY possess dangerous weapons on the premises. After all, it's not criminal activity if you LEGALLY possess them.

Why would that be in a lease, you might wonder, since any illegal activity would be dealt with by the police...

Well, because even if you get arrested for committing a crime in a rental unit, that doesn't automatically void your lease. But if they have a clause like that, forbidding you to commit crimes there, then if you get busted for it, they can start eviction proceedings because you violated your lease.

What concerns me more is the lightbulb changing. Are you saying that the letter you found was sent to you 7 days before they came in, and you just forgot about it or failed to read it? Or are you saying you really didn't get advance notice? Because it's likely (you'll have to check) that under state law, they are required to give 24 hours notice or something similar before they come in to do maintenance.

Aaron
 
Anything that can kill Chuck Norris is a "dangerous weapon" but those don't exist. And I really do think that the contract is forbidding illegal possesion of weapons, albeit in a very ambiguous manner.
 
I don’t know from the wording it sounds to me like they consider “possession of dangerous weapons” a criminal activity. They could’ve also said “if any criminal activity is committed your lease is done…”

About the light bulb thing: they didn’t let me know beforehand, they entered my apartment without my knowledge and left a pre-dated letter from the 12th stating ‘we will be changing the light bulbs on the 17th’
 
As a landlord myself, I believe they illegally entered onto the premises without consent. Depends on the contract. As to the dangerous weapons, did they find them? (Illegally searching) Arte they doing anything about it?
Also as a landlord, I believe every law abidding citizen should have a gun. Most of my tenants do and I have no problem with it. (Heck, I carry ALL the time)
 
Whitebb, in the contract it says they are to give me 2 days notice if they are to enter for non-emergency purposes.

They didn’t find any weapons though, I don’t have any (in the appartment)
 
It's a bunch of BS, probably mostly intended for insurance purposes so if someone burns down one of their apartment buildings with some home-made napalm, the Landlord can come back and say "we told you not to do that so it's not our fault".

IMO, keep quiet about owning guns and keep them out of sight and locked up. Don't tell anyone you can't totally trust about them and don't totally trust anyone who doesn't deserve your trust.
If you wouldn't trust a person with your life, don't trust them with knowledge of your guns.

Just that should keep you out of an awful lot of potential trouble.
 
Maybe an unstable explosive device? Nothing else comes to mind; all the weapons I can possibly think of are not in of themselves dangerous.
Click to expand...

Maybe he shouldn't be storing nitroglycerin in his place. :neener:
 
When I got back I found a letter on my desk dated 7days ago letting me know they are coming in to change my lights.
Click to expand...

Did the landlady leave a backdated note for you when she illegally entered your apartment?

Or do you mean you found the unread note where you left it on your desk last week? (in which case it was your minor screw-up, and the landlady was within her rights to enter)
 
At my last apartment, on two occasions the maintenance people entered to change the lightbulb on my balcony. I had intentionally unscrewed the bulb halfway, as I didn't like the light shining into my living room, and I also wanted to be able to stealthily slip out onto the balcony at night, if need be. For whatever reason, there was no switch to control that light.

The first time they entered to change the bulb, there was no notice beforehand or afterward. The only indication I had was that the light was on. I had to call and ask the office lady if they'd done it. The second time, they posted general notices on everybody's door, at the same time they entered to change the bulbs! 24 hour notice became 24 second notice. :cuss:

After that second time, I had a face to face with the office lady that they were to, under no circumstances, change that bulb, nor enter my apartment without proper notice. She tried to explain that it contributed to the safety of the complex in general, therefore it wasn't considered "my" light. Also, she said that since those balcony lights were a safety feature, they were allowed by law to enter without 24 hour's notice.

I explained that the light in fact detracted from my own personal safety, which trumps their property rights. Additionally, as they were not paying for the electricity which powered that bulb, I would darn well unscrew it if I so desired.
 
last time i lived in an apartment i changed the locks as soon as i moved in. after that the day we moved out i put the original locks back in
 
A coworker of mine peppered the landlord with a paintball gun the third or forth time he decided to enter without giving notice (he keeps the doors locked btw). He'd previously warned the guy that if he came into the house without notice he was going to be shot.
 
Did the landlady leave a backdated note for you when she illegally entered your apartment?

Or do you mean you found the unread note where you left it on your desk last week? (in which case it was your minor screw-up, and the landlady was within her rights to enter)
Click to expand...

The landlady left the backdated letter on the day of changing the light bulbs.
Good idea about the locks I think I will be changing them.

A few weeks back someone painted the pole next to my motorcycle. Good thing it wasn't sprinkled with green paint, again no notice given :( total disregard
 
In the relatively brief experiences I've had in living in apartments (~7 years total) there has always been a request for entering my apartment for some type of maintenance work or other and the request has always been in writing about a week before. (This is not to say the landlords have never entered without notice while I was a work.) On average, this occured about once a year. IMO, I've always felt that they do this just to do a walk-through cursery search to find any illicit activity that may be occuring on their property and see if any significant damage to the apartment has been done. I've never had any problems keeping some of my firearms in cases in the closet.
 
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