I am posting this for a friend of mine who is a landlord with one property. She owns a three-story house where she lives on the first floor. She presently has four tenants on the third floor. She rents the apartment out by rooms. Not everyone knows each other but it works out as this is a college community

She accepted One tenant who only wanted the rental for six months which was fine with her. She now is having several other students interested in looking at the apartment however this one tenant out of all four is giving her a hard time. He’s telling her that she needs to give him 24 hours notice to enter the apartment.

The other three tenants are fine with allowing her to come in at a moments notice so, now there seems to be a conflict here. She has an opportunity today to show the apartment to a student who will be leaving for the holidays and the difficult tenant told her that “I told you I need 24 hours notice so if you go in today, I will be deducting rent for this day”.

I told her that’s fine, if he deducts the money from the rent just take it from his security deposit, however, he seems to be a rather irascible individual and might cause a stink.

She has permission from the other students, so feedback on this would be appreciated. Anyone ever deal with this kind of situation?

Sometimes you get aggravated and then decide to play the jerk's game rather than just evict them.

In this case, if she decides to play, just have her give the jerk a 24 hour notice EVERY SINGLE DAY. Just walk up and attach it to the jerk's door EVERY DAY.

"You wanted it-you got it!"

Along with this, have her modify the lease agreement to say that any refusal by tenant to honor any notice will result in a $200 or more charge,per incident, payable immediately. Then enforce it.

I'll go against he flow here and say the LLady is the jerk. Why does she think no notice needs to be given? because she has walked over the other 3.

I'm sorry but advance notice needs to be given. What a nerve to do this.

She is giving notice even if it’s a few hours. She is asking them all via text if it’s OK. Three say yes one says no. That’s the issue how does one deal with that.

One other thought to ad:

When I had the rooming house, my rental agreement said - and everyone agreed before move in- that I or any workers could enter the main areas at any reasonable time (something like 9am- 8 pm, or whatever) to do repairs or show vacant rooms. If anybody needed to go into their personal, private room, notice was required.

DJ that sounds quite reasonable to me. I think that as long as there are closet in the lease that everyone agrees on that is understandable.

This is similar. Everyone has their private bedrooms and the common areas are shared. There’s no need for her to open up anybody’s bedroom doors she just wants to show the main areas.

DJ, yes, agreed, I inquired on her behalf.

I told her about this site and I am going to go over and work with her and show her how to look things up. She is not very computer savvy so I am happy to help her out.

Ken, that is what I was assuming however, I don’t think there is anything in Connecticut state laws that address this issue of getting permission from three and one says no.

I’ll research though and see what I might find

So Ally, even if the other three roommates give permission she can’t go in to show the common areas? This doesn’t make sense to me, and I’m not sure how clear the law is on that but again I’ll research it.

She just called me and told me that this particular kid caught her in the driveway as she was leaving and told her point-blank “if you come into my apartment I’m going to call the police“.

I told her it was a civil matter in the police probably would not do anything about it however, I told her to stop communicating with him and don’t engage in any calls or texts at this point. He’s due to leave at the end of December and hopefully he does but it sounds like he’s showing another side of him that is not very pleasant.

well here's different story. Is it common area?-- cause no one owns the COMMON AREA. He made it clear-- INTO "HIS APARTMENT".

think MAYBE WE'RE HITTING APPLE AND ORANGES HERE.

For me and this is just me-- now that the gauntlet has been laid down-- I would go in. Cause I am the boss not the tenant. Let him call the police and get a case number.

Sounds like a big man want A bee to me. Giving the finger to a women-- your land lady --is a big no no. He's probable a big pussy and from PA.

myob, yes thank you for your response. I wasn’t sure if I clarified that in the first statement but yes he threatened her with calling the police if he found her in the apartment. This is a four bedroom apartment, rooms are rented separately.

The other tenants told her she could certainly go in. She asked them early this morning if she could go in at 11 and they responded yes. The other one, the problem kid said “I want 24 hours notice”.

She was showing the common areas. She knew that the kid did not want anyone in his room and she respected that. With the permission of the other roommates, she went in. I was there to meet the interested party and to help her. She’s a fairly new landlord and a friend so I wanted to help in any way I could, and she appreciates it when I show up so she’s not the only one in the apartment with someone in the event that the other tenants are not there.

Oh, and one more thing. She was having issues with the heat in the house and the thermostat.

She told me this yesterday and called the plumber. There’s a thermostat on the third floor where these four roommates live that needed to be looked at. He told her he could come by within a few hours.

She texted them all and apologized for the short notice, but this was an emergency situation because the heat was not working and the plumber was available in a few hours so she just gave notice that he would be coming over. Three all responded back that it was fine but the noncompliant one said “it’s not an emergency, I need 24 hours notice“!

I suggest that you look up your states laws concerning the time frame in which written notice needs to be given, to enter.

In Michigan we must give a 24 hour notice, except in an emergency.

As far as his personal room is concerned he apparently is asking for a 24 hour notice, so I think she should give it.

This is an idea for the future. She needs to take a video of each room, when it is empty and available, if they are different.

When a prospective person desires to apply and view one of the rooms she can show the video.

Now, the common area is different and she should be allowed to show that at any time.

PB.. yes she is well aware that 24 hour notice is what the law is however, if she texts them and asks for permission and they all agree then the timeframe is negligible at that point.

Yes, to show his room he wants 24 hours notice and she will abide by that however, this was common areas.

I like your idea and definitely will advise her to take pictures and videos of the room so that when someone wants 24 hour notice, then we could show the interested person everything they need to see.

Sounds like this kid is a student. I would contact his parents and explain what is going on. In all the leases my daughter was in during college, I signed every one of them or she was not approved. If I didnt get help from the parents, I would immediately file for eviction against both of them.

Patrick, his lease ends at the end of December.

My friend said that he is moving his items out. He has a bicycle, a motorcycle and a few other things and they are now gone. I think she’s going to wait it out. We have discussed putting clauses in the leases about this for the future.

Sometimes parents are not cooperative but it seems like he will be leaving and she could move on.

So if any one of the four tenants wish to invite anyone, including the landlady, into the common areas of their home they need the permission of the other three? Yeah, right.