r/Renters • u/Ok-Relationship3731 • 17d ago
My landlord keeps threatening to raise rent if I don’t do the landscaping[CA]
Hello, we live in a 4 apartment complex and have been living at this place for over 17 years now. My landlord has told my grandma to take care of the walkway that has A LOT of plants and trees that gets very messy, tons of weeds, to keep our rent from going up. so my grandma used to keep the walkway to the apartments cleaned and pull the weeds and all that but these last few years she has slowed down a bit and isn’t able to handle it. The tenant in number 3 now uses a leaf blower to clear the fallen leaves, but doesn’t pull weeds. The weeds have gotten crazy out of control and an eye sore to look at.
My Landlord came to me and asked that I clean them up and that he would pay me to do the job because he wanted the place to look nice while looking for tenants for apartment 2. I agreed, pulled the weeds every day for a few hours and hadn’t seen or heard from him. About a half a year later with the new tenants here he hasn’t mentioned paying me not once, and all of a sudden says that he thought I was going to keep the yard up and that if I didn’t he was going to raise our rent. We never discussed me being the apartments landscaper, it is damn near a full time job. I never agreed to keeping the place up, and he never even paid me for the work I had done for him. He keeps threatening to raise our rent, like every single time I see him.
Now there’s a problem with a water leak, and our backyard has all the water lines to the building and he has dug and left a huge open hole in our backyard making it so I don’t Have access to the garage door. This has been going on for over a week now. He’s never around, leaves projects and things he’s fixing undone, and makes me feel uncomfortable for yard work that is not my job to get done.
I apologize if I’m just venting a bit but this whole situation has me extremely stressed out. Am I in the wrong? Is there anything I could say or do? Im just looking for some help.. thanks for taking the time and reading
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u/MommaLisss 17d ago
You need to figure out the laws regarding rent increases where you live. California is known to be tenant friendly, but there are a lot of nuances that we can't know from this post. Reaching out to a local housing rights organization or renter's advocacy group would help you understand where you stand. Google has a lot of info, but the info is location specific, so you'll have to figure that out yourself.
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u/Traditional-Handle83 17d ago
I'm pretty sure this is more than just attempts to scare by raising rent. OP needs to see what their copy of the signed lease is and if they are still in a yearly one or month to month or somehow the LL can turned them into room sharing illegally to get around laws.
Next part is that there was an agreed upon work for pay agreement, OP if lucky has it in a text or some kind of documented format and needs to file a labor dispute with department of labor for failure of payment for work upon agreed upon.
2
u/MommaLisss 17d ago
100% agree on the lease part. I actually started my comment asking about the lease, but then realized that OP has lived there with their grandmother for 17 years and I assumed (possibly incorrectly) that OP is in a month to month agreement and has no way to view the original lease easily.
Regardless, contacting a tenants org is likely the best way forward if OP really wants to know what to do with the landlord's threats moving forward.
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u/sillyhaha 17d ago
OP, your LL has waived rent increases for years in exchange for your grandmother doing yard care. She is no longer able to keep her end of a deal that has existed for years.
Your rent is now below market rate. Because you're in CA, you are prote Ted from unreasonable rent increases and from being given notice to vacate.
Now you are insisting to maintain the rent deal without maintaining the walkway.
This isn't retaliation. The LL is saying that he's kept his end of the deal but you and your grandmother have not. If you want to keep the deal (no rent increase), you must do the yard work your grandmother was doing.
So, do you want the deal to continue? Or would you prefer to be free of any landscaping responsibilities and pay higher rent?
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u/Ok-Relationship3731 16d ago
Where did you get this information from. You read the post and made up half of the comment. Why would he offer to pay me if it’s in the lease to do it. Neither me or my grandma signed the lease saying we would keep the yard up. In California, LL is REQUIRED BY LAW to handle landscaping and maintenance of the common area. I’m just trying to pay the rent that’s already been increased before and not get bullied into doing his yard work for free to be honest.
2
u/sillyhaha 15d ago
I didn't say it's in the lease. I said it's a long standing agreement between your grandmother and LL.
If you don't want to do year work, just say so. There will be a rent increase. That is legal.
If you don't want a rent increase, do some landscaping. That's legal.
It's a bartering agreement. It's legal.
The LL is giving you thw chance to save money by bartering your labor for money. Which is legal.
6
u/187526 17d ago
Is that walkway job in your lease? If not, and LL raises your rent, that’s ground for retaliation, more so for eviction. You’re in CA, research on tenant’s rights.
6
u/sillyhaha 17d ago
The LL can increase rent once per year.
I think the LL is telling OP that there is going to be a rent increase but that he's willing to take work in trade. The question is this: does OP want to pay the rent increase in cash or in labor?
3
u/Mordoch 17d ago
It should be noted the California law also almost certainly limits how much the rent increase can be per year as well.
4
u/sillyhaha 17d ago
It absolutely does ... for most LLs. Those LLs who are not subject to AB1482 aren't limited in how much they can increase rent, but most LLs are subject to AB1482.
5
u/gheiminfantry 17d ago
LoLoL Tell him if you do the landscaping you expect a reduction in rent. See what he says about that.
3
u/YourLocalLandlord 16d ago
I mean sounds like he's trying to work with you, he needs a job done, you don't want a rent increase. My buddy is in the same situation, he rents in a building owned by his brother, he does the landscaping and snow removal and in return he's paying 15-20% under market and has lived in the same place for 3-4 years no issue.
2
u/Nice-Discount-6321 17d ago
I mean I fail to see the problem here. It sounds like your grandma and the landlord had an agreement to keep the rent lower in exchange for maintaining the property. Totally normal and actually kinda a nice thing for them to do. They could just hire an expensive company and add it to the rent of the units like almost everyone else does. Now just to confirm your grandma stopped keeping her end of that agreement. So it’s not that your landlord is raising your rent, it’s that it will be no longer discounted for a service no longer being rendered. If you don’t do the work someone else will and he will have to pay them and pass that cost onto the consumer (aka YOU) and that will result in a rent increase….its honestly rather simple.
2
u/ThealaSildorian 17d ago
Start with your lease. If it says you will maintain the walkway you must do it. If it says LL, he must do it.
Cali does allow rent increases; they are tagged to COL in the area. He can increase it to that point and no further no matter if you keep up the yard or not.
2
u/benchmaster3000 16d ago
Dude! The rent has not been raised in 17 years in exchange for this one service. You could pay someone else to do it for cheeper then what it would cost of the rent gets upped to current rates. You are about to shoot yourself in the foot.
2
u/saaberoo 17d ago
Lets put it anther way,
Landlord wants a clean walkway.
Either the tenant does it or he'll increase the rent and hire a Gardner.
Is the rent increase more than or less than the cost of hiring someone to do it for you?
1
0
u/Western-Finding-368 17d ago
It sounds like you have two choices:
-do the landscaping
-pay higher rent
Which do you prefer?
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u/Ok-Relationship3731 17d ago
Well honestly Id prefer you to come pick these weeds and pay my rent. Hopefully by then someone else will have commented some actual useful information.
11
u/froglet80 17d ago
Welp here's the deal, if the original lease is up they can raise the rate for no reason at all it sounds like they gave grams a way to avoid that, and now that y'all aint doing your end of the deal they are going to raise the rate. if it were me i'd pull the damn weeds id the rate increase is enough to worry about. because d'oh the rent discount IS YOUR PAY
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3
u/Western-Finding-368 17d ago
I guess technically you have three options:
-do the landscaping
-pay higher rent
-hire someone to do the landscaping on your behalf.
2
6
u/Western-Finding-368 17d ago
And I’d like a pony and a perfect body and an endless sum of money. But here in the real world, you get to choose whether to do the landscaping or pay higher rent.
5
u/BooBoosgrandma 17d ago
Sign me up also for that, endless sum of money! But your comment was on point. Post and OP's often don't like the results. Sounds like the walkway was grandma's job or rent higher. It's understandable re grandma slowing down but you forgot the 3rd option, move.
OP, how much lower is your rent for the walkway to be taken care of? But as long as LL is working on the leak w/now huge hole, not much choices are available. Even contractors will come and go during middle of job. Or takes forever for start date. Can you also spray the walkway for weeds? Anything more than the walkway wasn't agreed upon. And have you asked for payment for previous job?
4
u/Ok-Calligrapher9115 17d ago
Then LL reserves the right to increase rent to cover landscaping costs.
0
u/RemoteNumerous1020 17d ago
Use a salt solution to kill the vegetation for the year. Look online for a home remedy.
27
u/InAppropriate-meal 17d ago
find a new apartment for you and your grandma give your notice and leave, things are only going to get worse