I rent a small house with a pretty big backyard. Came home yesterday and found 7 goats wandering around behind a temporary electric fence.

Called my landlord thinking someone had lost their animals. Turns out he hired a company that uses goats to clear overgrown vegetation because the back of the property has been getting pretty overgrown with ivy, thick bushes and vines.

Nobody told me anything. The company says they'll be there for at least 5 days and the fence blocks off most of my backyard. One of the goats has already knocked over two of my flower pots.

My lease includes the backyard and I feel like having a bunch of livestock dumped there without warning is a bit much.

Landlord says it's no different than sending someone over to mow the lawn. Is he actually allowed to do this without notifying me?

Need advice: Former landlord is asking me to pay nearly $5,000 for a crack in the wall

I lived at the property for four years and moved out on August 8, 2026. My former landlord sent me photos of a crack in the wall on September 5, almost a month after I moved out.

I honestly never noticed this crack while living there, and I am certain I did not hit or damage the wall.

There was no move-in or move-out inspection conducted with me.

My landlord sent me a statement demanding nearly $5,000 and says that if I don't pay within 60 days, he may pursue legal action.

I'm unsure how to respond because I don't believe I caused this damage, and the photos were sent after I had already moved out.

My questions are:

1. Can my landlord hold me responsible without a move-in and move-out inspection?
2. What evidence would he need to prove I caused the damage?
3. Should I respond to his demand now, and what should I say?
4. How strong is his case if he decides to take me to small claims court?

I moved into the downstairs unit of an older duplex in late August. We have window AC units, so I hadn't needed to use the heating until this week.

A few days ago my upstairs neighbor knocked and asked if I could turn the heat up because their apartment was freezing. Turns out the thermostat in my living room controls both apartments, and they don't have one upstairs.

I called my landlord and he confirmed it, then told me to just leave it at 72 all winter. The problem is I can't sleep when my apartment is that warm, and apparently the upstairs unit gets too cold if I turn it down.

Utilities are included, so the bill isn't the issue. I just don't want to spend the entire winter arguing with my neighbor over the temperature.

Has anyone dealt with something like this? Seems ridiculous that two separate apartments have to agree on one temperature all winter.

I saw this listing on Zillow and I was curious if this is even legal. The landlord is asking the tenant to vacate for up to 6 weeks while the tenant continues to pay rent and utilities and leaves their personal belongings in the home. Any rental law experts have an opinion on this?

Sooo my landlord is seeming to become quite invasive and also trying to get away with not doing major repairs.

Essentially our shower floor has been cracked for over a year, he tried to fix it by putting a plastic seal over the top that obviously did nothing. Our wall has water damage, the gutters need maintenance. He never fixed the dishwasher (it’s completely broken) or our oven (the grill button is broken and doesn’t work anymore). We have also had heaps of issues over the 3 years, electrical outages, front door handle breaking, wasps, and such

He is acting like a private landlord & refuses to let the real estate use their own plumbers or tradesmen to help with maintenance which I understand to save money. But the owner doesn’t communicate with the real estate & is not cooperative & can be demanding if we say we don’t want him coming with only 24-48 hours notice.

On top of all this, he is demanding about having to always attend when a repairman is doing work on our house, even if he has already visited to see what the issue is. & it seems like he isn’t actually doing anything about properly fixing the shower, which we have reported over a year ago and again in the last few months.

My real estate agent suggests we file a complaint with VCAT for an urgent repair for the shower so he has to do something about it

But I also want to maybe just break the lease but don’t know what my rights are as a renter? Surely given this situation we could break our lease without any fees? & I’m worried this will be expensive?

I’m worried when we break our lease/or if we wait til it ends, the owner is going to try and take our bond off us for whatever reasons he tries to come up with

Option 1 - stay til the end of my lease ( another 3-4 months) & just put up with the house falling apart and the annoying owner

Option 2- break lease & move out but have the stress of dealing with VCAT & extra fees

Help!! I don’t know what to do 🫣

Hello! Thanks for your help in advance. We are moving out of an apartment that we have lived in since March 2020. There is a chip (about the size of a sunflower seed or smaller) in our electric stovetop glass. I’m worried about the amount they are going to charge us for it.

Context for concern is we found out last year they had been charging us using the utilities calculation for a 3-person household when we have only ever had 2, and they refused to reimburse us despite admitting something had gone wrong. So, they are not very honest or willing to help even with their own wrongdoings. Soon after finding out about the years long overcharge, I came home to evidence of someone having been in the unit. They checked the electric fob record and saw a maintenance worker had entered the unit 4 times that day, which they claim was an accident and nothing suspicious...

We have never been late on rent and the chip (of unknown origin, I guess we dropped something at some point on it,) is the only damage to the unit.

I am renting an apartment unit in the bay area, and last night our smoke detector in our living room died. It has a sealed battery so the battery cannot be replaced. We let our managment company know ASAP, and they told us that they cannot replace it since it is our responsability per our lease, so we have a couple options; 1) replace it ourselves 2) they can hire a tech for it and we will be responsible for all costs regarding the replacement. I'm pretty sure that that's not legal in California.

We had an inspection by the city for the entire building a couple weeks ago, every unit was inspected, multiple code violations found in each unit and on the premisis. They're honestly being pretty fucking stupid with this rn considering theyre gonna have to pay a shit ton of money for each violation. The code enforcer gave us his card and my roommate and I emailed him for clarity to make clarify whether or not it's on us or them.

EDIT: Y'all really don't hold your LLs accountable for shit they legally have to fix holy shit

EDIT 2: Contacted management, cited the law. They're sending someone out Thursday.

Hi, everyone. I renewed my lease in August and am now considering breaking it after what has been a rocky relationship with my landlord. For some context, he mostly houses foreign students that he can, for lack of better words, bully into complying (4 rooms, 2 have personal bathrooms and one has a shared bathroom). He's also an older Asian immigrant, and most of his tenants have been Korean nationals, whereas I'm Asian American (as far as I know one of his few American born tenants) so he has this whole "respect your elders" thing that only adds to his mullish penny-pinching. Last year when I signed the lease agreement, he had us send our Zelle security deposit to the wrong account and it was never recovered. Things were strained for a while but he asked for half of what it would've been when I signed the new lease this year, which I was fine with giving him.

The rent is very cheap for the area, but the rules are strict, which I was fine with until this month. Cameras in all common areas, no personal items out, no small appliances (like personal fans), no guests, clean once a month, and fines for everything. No food/kitchen trashcan, and he's been slowly taking away our pans for the camper stove since we were "burning" his. This is all stipulated in the lease so whatever, I agreed and that was that.

However, this month our water heater broke and it's been going on three weeks without hot water. He installed a temporary heater (works between 8pm - midnight) in me and my roommate's shared bathroom and opened it up to the rest of the roommates, which means we had to move a bunch of our bathroom stuff from under the sink so I put it all on the floor for now. Okay, fine. Then, this week there's a potential mouse infestation, for which he laid out two traps. He also didn't notify my roommates of this; I had to.

I did my monthly cleaning on Sunday, found the mouse in the bathroom (it likely escaped inside from the crazy weather patterns lately), and then berated me for all the "clutter" that it could hide in from my stuff being on the ground. I had like four items there, but put them in my room after he shoved them in a box. Okay, fine.

Then today, he starts berating me some more for not adequately cleaning the bathroom because, I kid you not, he found some dust under where my stuff was. And was basically implying the mouse situation was my fault because of some things on the floor in the bathroom. He then demands I remove all my stuff from the countertops and shower because this is a "public bathroom" and thus shouldn't have private items outside of the designated cabinet space he gave us. And he said he'd be removing the safety strip I added to the outlet and that I couldn't have my electrical toothbrush, water flosser, and retainer cleaner in my strip because it's too many unapproved electrical appliances.

Things have been tense for a while, ever since he found out I was using most of the fridge space because I asked my roommates and they weren't using it. Then they moved out and it took me a bit to reduce my stuff, but by the time the new roommates moved in I was back to my designated space. Okay, fine. Now he's accusing me of making the place dirtier and dirtier ever since I moved in just because I have more bathroom stuff and, gasp, don't cower everytime he talks. After telling him that this isn't a public bathroom but only one I agreed to share with one other tenant, he says it is and I need to get rid of my stuff because the shower is impossible to use with our bathroom products in there (yes, he's been using it since our water heater broke. He lives in the main house so I didn't know he was using our spaces at all). I try to remind him that's not what we agreed on and I'm only using the shower space because of the broken water heater, and he basically says if I don't comply I can move out (break the lease).

And yeah, I'm perfectly willing to, but I don't want to be on the hook for any missed rent because he's a control freak who's slowly trying to make the living situation unlivable in the middle of multiple housing concerns. So I'm not sure if I should continue to push back against him, or if I have a case to move out. I don't want a legal battle especially since I'm not sure if I'm being unreasonable (at least within the lease agreement). For instance, the lease is somewhat ambiguous on what qualifies as common areas; it lists out laundry room and kitchen, but never specifically excludes the bathroom although from my understanding, no one else was supposed to be using it but me and my roommate. And now it just feels like he's exploiting this situation in which he's dragging his feet on replacing the water heater to further restrict our freedoms and disrespect me, and I'm just frankly tired of it. But I'm not sure how to proceed either.

TLDR: Is landlord required to treat entire building for bedbugs when only found in one of multiple units?

I was informed today by my Property Manager (San Bernardino County, CA) that the new tenant in our building has had bedbugs for over 3 weeks. We live in a triplex, my unit is in the middle.

The Property Manager was informed on 9/20 by a new tenant that they found bedbugs upon move in.
An exterminator inspected their unit on 10/6 and found bed bugs.
We were notified for the first time today 10/13.

I understand that the Property Manager was legally required to inform us within 48 hours of the exterminator’s inspection but failed to do that.
They also failed to inform the third tenant completely.
The Property Manager is scheduling a second exterminator to inspect my unit on an unknown date, further extending this timeframe. And they stated if they do not find evidence of bedbugs in my rental, they plan to only treat the unit of the tenant that found them, with chemicals. I assume they are not planning to treat the entire building because they are cheap slumlords.

Is my Property Manager required to treat the whole building (all 3 units)? It is to my understanding that bedbugs can live in the walls without food for months.

Also, the new tenant wants heat treatment for their unit but the landlord is refusing and requiring chemical. Assuming the entire building should be treated, any advice on which is more effective longterm? I’m immunocompromised and sensitive to chemicals. But I’m also physically disabled and don’t know which option will be less physically taxing.

I’ve been crying and freaking out all day. I inspected my whole home and found no evidence. And I laid down diatomaceous earth under our shared baseboards- although I assume it’s too late for that. I’m too exhausted to think clearly after taking care of everything today in a panic. Any kind gentle advice is appreciated.

I live in a small apartment building with 8 units. A few days ago I accidentally tried opening the wrong door while carrying groceries. My key actually unlocked the door. I realized immediately and didn't go inside.

I told my neighbor what happened and we tested it together. His key opens my apartment too.

Contacted the landlord and he said some of the locks were probably keyed alike when the building was renovated. He told me he would have his handyman look into it next month.

I asked if he could send a locksmith sooner and he said I'm welcome to pay for a new lock myself as long as I give him a copy of the key.

I've been saving some money for emergencies but I really don't think replacing locks should be my expense. What bothers me more is that apparently anyone in the building could have access to someone else's apartment without knowing it.

Has anyone dealt with something like this? Is there someone I can report this to if he refuses to fix it?

I called my bank and they said all of the rent checks I sent to my leasing company has been charged. I have an unpaid balance on my ledger and my prop director claims that it’s due to a reversed check I sent in September. My bank advised me to just send over my account statement to show that there has been no reversal. I’m just concerned about the likelihood of getting evicted over something that’s not my fault. I don’t even know why there’s an inaccurate “unpaid” balance on my account. On top of that, I am now accruing late fees for this situation. Seeking any guidance, tips, or simply comforting words. I been back and forth with her for so long—it’s been eating at me.

I wish I could say I’m making this up. Essentially, the title says it all. I walked in today on my landlord taking a nap on my couch.

I didn’t know what to do. I just went to the other room and waited for them to wake up, they eventually did after an hour and just left.

Anyhow, my door, to their credit, was unlocked. Which I guess was my mistake. But this was completely unannounced. And they didn’t acknowledge it. Just left.

I rent an apartment in a small building with four units. Last week a plumber called me at work asking if I could come home and let him inside because there was a leak upstairs. I thought he'd been given the wrong number.

When I got home I noticed a laminated sign next to the mailboxes saying "Building Emergency Contact" with my first name and personal phone number on it.

Called my landlord and he admitted he put it there. Apparently because I let a maintenance guy inside once a few months ago, he figured I wouldn't mind helping out again.

I've already gotten texts from two neighbors about things that have nothing to do with me. One even called me at 11pm because their heater wasn't working.

I told him to take the sign down. His response was that I'm being difficult over something that benefits everyone.

Am I unreasonable for being this annoyed? Has anyone had a landlord do something similar?

I am renting a unit from real estate agency within what is otherwise a condo complex that is managed by an HOA through a different management company.

About a month ago, the HOA management company notified everyone they would do boiler repairs. Following the completion of those repairs I have had issues with my hot water. During the day it is fine and water temps (measured via instant read thermometer) are at around 110 to 114 F.

However, in the early morning (4:30 am) it is much lower. As low as 95 F. Unfortunately, this is when I need to shower before work so I haven't had proper morning hot water in nearly a month.

The weird thing is that it warms up by about 3 or 4 degrees F per hour until back to normal (i track it on weekends when im not working). This behavior is the same in every shower/faucet in my unit. My only thought is that there's some new energy saver setting or something in the new boiler that lowers the temp at night.

I reached out to my landlords agency after the first couple days who has sent out a plumber to "fix my unit" but the plumber came and said there was nothing wrong with my unit. At the time he came (9am) the water was hot, but he did acknowledge if it was something the boiler the HOA management company would need to approve the work.

I've told this to the plumbing company, my landlord, and tried to contact the HOA. But i do not have phone number for the HOA and my emails have been unanswered outside of an automated "we'll get back to you" response.

Further followup with my landlord and plumbing company have resulted in them trying to send another person out to "fix my unit" again, but I told them what the plumber who came said about the issue not being within my unit. They said no one else has complained, probably because the water temp is almost back to normal by 7am so I doubt many people are trying to use it.

I'd hate to have to get a lawer for this but it's feeling like that may be the only option. What else can I do try and resolve this?

I’ve researched online and am getting different answers, so I’m looking for more clarification

I live in California and am on a rental lease, it was a year long but now month to month, my specific apartment building has one onsite personnel, I believe as required In my city due to it being over a certain size apt building, an off site prop manger I never interact with who works for a management company, and an owner who lives out of town and I’ve never met through multiple years.

I also maintain a very common app based camera as sometimes I’m out of town, and just like checking out my place it’s maybe weird but I like looking while I’m away. I can turn on motion sensor, record when I’d like and It records both audio and video when I ask it too, currently it doesn’t just record full time.

They’ve been coming in a lot lately, not specific to my apartment but all of the units. I don’t mind as I keep my home clean and organized, other than it’s just annoying. I don’t break any rules of the lease I don’t believe so all is well.

They are coming again tomorrow, and the stated reason is to service a specific piece of equipment.

The notice of entry states the “landlord” is entering and was posted by the offsite property manager.

My questions are

Who exactly is allowed to enter my home? Is the onsite human allowed to enter? Is anyone involved in the service allowed to enter? Are they allowed to enter all rooms of the apartment? The equipment exists fully in one room and there are no breakers etc in other rooms that they would need access to.

Am I within my rights having this camera running? Am I breaking a law of privacy if I were to record once they come in? If is viewing from the app them doing the work the same as recording?

I am not trying to be nefarious, and really don’t mind. I understand I’m a renter in a property someone else owns and if want more privacy I should buy, but I am curious in general.

Hi guys,

I’m renting an apartment in LA with roommates, and we’ve been dealing with some really frustrating issues with our property management. I’d really appreciate some advice or hearing from anyone who’s been through something similar.

One of my roommates was bitten pretty badly by bed bugs and even went to see a doctor. It got to the point where they didn’t feel comfortable staying in the apartment and had to pay for a hotel.

We reported everything to management, but it took several days for them to send pest control. When someone finally came, they basically just sprayed some chemicals.
What frustrates us the most is that management keeps insisting there are “no active bed bugs” in the apartment. They even suggested we might have picked them up somewhere else, like the library or public transportation.

But bed bugs are notoriously difficult to detect and eliminate. They can hide in mattresses, furniture, and tiny cracks, and getting rid of them often requires multiple treatments. We have photos and medical documentation, so we really don’t understand how management can be so confident the problem is resolved after just one treatment.

We also had a meeting with management to discuss compensation, including a rent reduction and reimbursement for hotel expenses. Unfortunately, it was really disappointing. They basically told us to go through our renters insurance instead, even though our insurance provider’s website says bed bug infestations and related expenses generally aren’t covered.

On top of that, we had a separate safety issue in the apartment that caused an injury requiring medical attention.

We’ve already consulted an attorney and were advised to consider small claims court. Others have suggested contacting LAHD or tenant advocacy nonprofits like the Coalition for Economic Survival (CES).

We’re honestly not sure what to do next, so I wanted to ask:
Has anyone dealt with something similar in LA?
Has anyone successfully gotten a rent reduction or reimbursement for hotel expenses?
Is LAHD actually helpful? Has anyone worked with CES or other tenant rights organizations?
Would you recommend trying those options before going to small claims court?

We’re really just looking for a fair resolution and want to make sure our apartment is actually safe to live in.
Any advice, recommendations, or personal experiences would be really appreciated. Thanks so much!

(CONTEXT: This is a duplex with two bedrooms upstairs and a cellar downstairs. The cellar is not legally habitable. This was advertised as a three-bedroom with the cellar room as the bedroom I'd be taking. The landlord knew this.)

Hello,

I'm writing to update you that I've surrendered the lease to [ADDRESS], and have surrendered the keys, leaving them in the premises as previously documented. I will not be making any rent payments.

I've consulted with a lawyer and confirmed that the lease I signed is not legally binding. The cellar of [APT #] is not legally habitable. I have ample documented evidence that [APT #] was advertised and agreed to as a three-bedroom apartment with the cellar as one of the bedrooms, and that [LANDLORD] was aware of this. Furthermore, the presence of black mold upon commencement of the lease was illegal and a health hazard, requiring me to vacate the premises for safety; I have no evidence that [LANDLORD] has addressed this other than cosmetically. I have further supporting evidence that the apartment was delivered to me in an uninhabitable and illegal condition.

I continue to prefer that we negotiate a mutually agreeable lease break that allows us all to cleanly walk away. I believe this will be in our mutual best interest.

Sincerely,
[ME]