[20-Apr-2023] Can you say Dr. Jekyl and Ms. Hyde? That's about as close a description of this landlord I can think of. One day she's emailing you thanking you for taking such good care of the yard, two weeks later you walk outside to leave, finding her enraged and accusing you of killing all the plants and tress in her yard because of how careless and unacceptable you are treating her yard. You know, the same, exact yard that two weeks ago you received the nice email of thanks. She was physically shaking and MAD MAD MAD!!
Wife and I looked at eachother had to pinch to see if we were in a nightmare. Nope it's really her, outside our house, completely red-faced angry about us killing her yard. WOW.
That was our final straw when we decided we had to get out of there. We should've seen the red flags from day one when she trash-talked all the previous tenants and how they just didn't know how to live in a house like this. Uh yeah they did, they just had to deal with you.
We rented sight-unseen although with a Facetime with the current renter at the time, who had bought a house and was required to find his replacement (us) But walked in first day to seeing this is not the beautiful house as it appears from the outside. Inside is a rag-tag number of one off projects, leaky windows and doors. I mean not even because it's 100 years old it's because she doesn't care about maintenance and care, these windows and doors are missing pieces that should be there.
I could go on and on about the rag tag projects. One is the countertops in the kitchen, which aren't even countertops, they're some concrete/paper/cardboard/pixie dust mixture that an artist in Ballard, 30 years ago was using for his art. They thought, hmm what a great idea let's use this as a countertop for a cheap rental. Holy cow that stuff flaked off so bad and was so disgusting we got to where we wouldn't even set down a fork/knive/spoon on them if we were eating with them. No way.
Then there was the lead based paint underneath the kitchen cupboards that I had to sand because it was constantly falling in to our food and plates. Guess she didn't see any of that, most likely just doesn't care.
Please, go talk to the neighbors before you rent from her, but be prepared for lots of cussing when the subject goes to her. Never thought I'd hear an 83 year old, nicest guy in the world, talk that way about another person. You will find horror stories from every neighbor (except one her supposed best friend) She has owned the house for 30'ish years and every neighbor can spend hours with horror stories about how she's treated many very nice people who have rented this house. We're on this list too now.
A huge dead branch fell in the backyard from a dying tree. It made a loud bang, enough that we heard it from inside the house. Because it's next to, and grows over the fence of a beautiful family with a toddler, I thought oh my gosh I'd better let her know about this safety risk. And while I was at it I told her that in order for the very unhealthy grass to get any better it would be great to prune this tree and all the others, that make up a jungle in this backyard. The overgrowth of trees almost completely shuts out sun year round. Not good for grass, not good for safety with dead and dying trees.
What does she do? She pays the pros to come in and prune every tree BUT THE DEAD ONE FROM WHERE THE BRANCH FELL!!!
But alas, that's part of her thing we come to find out. She loves "the fight" and she will do anything it seems to fight a fight with anyone, mostly neighbors and renters.
The landlord told us a story about the amazing family on the other side of this dead tree. She said that they sued her for flooding their basement but that she "won" the lawsuit.
When we met the family and started hanging out with them I asked them about this lawsuit and they looked at me like I was crazy and said, what lawsuit. Duh the one the "Landlord" where you sued her for flooding in your basement?? What? There was no lawsuit, the renters accidentally left their hose on to water the front yard, left for a couple days and it flooded our basement. They called the landlord and asked about homeowners insurance and she told them it was the renters insurance who should take care of it. They contacted the renters insurance company who promptly took care of it, no worries, no issues, nothing. Hmm me thinks you may make up other stuff. Yep that is the case, she will make up anything at any time that suits her. Seems this is a thing for her.
I could use up this space by going on and on about some of the insane things that happened over two years. Mostly she'll leave you alone but the minute something happens she goes in to this fight-mode and make-stuff-up-mode.
I would not rent from her nor would I recommend anyone rent from her. At the time of us renting there were so few homes available and we rented sight unseen from afar. Not that we wouldn't have rented, but the inside of this house is NOT like the outside either. Nor is the landlord what she looks like from the outside. Do your due diligence and talk to any or all the neighbors, just pick one and you'll hear why you should look elsewhere.
We even bought a house because we didn't want to deal with her behavior anymore. We tried to get her to agree to rent the house to someone to take over because we moved. Nope, she told us that she was going to remodel while we were out and we'd still have to pay rent while she remodeled and utilities. We had no intention of buying a house here because we didn't know where we'd end up in two more years but again, it was something we decided to do after her front yard episode where she went bat-shoot about the yard.
I want to clarify, we do not know if it's really lead based paint. That's what she said as we were moving in that it is probably lead based because of how old it is. There is no proof or evidence that it's lead paint.
MISCELLANY
This landlord's information has been viewed 37 times since 04/14/2023.
This landlord has been rated by 1 member.
Link to this landlord's details directly via https://www.ratemylandlord.com/landlords/displayLandlordDetails.html?landlordid=2178
Updates to this landlord's information may be submitted here.
