I lived in a basement apt of a large house. Whilst sitting at the window where the computer was, I looked up only to see HIM standing outside the window and peering in at the at me. I was in my jammies at the time! I KNEW he was watching, because I waved and he waved back!
He would also come knockng at my door at 10 thirty at night sometimes, too, just to talk about the lease.
I simply felt he was prying and being creepy, so I handed in my notice and left.

Many years ago, my landlord got arrested (never knew why), and while he was locked up, no one came around to collect the rent. I kept each month's check in a separate account, but no one ever asked for them, and with my landlord locked up, I didn't know who should get them. (I sent the first one to his address, but it was returned unopened.) So I spent my last six months there living rent-free which for someone on a very limited budget was wonderful.

@IrishEyez, I have the same issue with an up-the-block neighbor (not a landlord, thank god. I am lucky I am not *forced* to deal with him in any way). He will literally walk his dog back & forth in front of my house and just stare into the windows (staying on the sidewalk at least). I have caught him literally gaping up at my bedroom windows while his dog tries to drag him away. I like to look directly into his eyes, frown, and close the blinds to make it clear to him that I see what he is doing and it is unwanted. So creepy. What do they think we're going to do? Invite them in for some alone time? Please.

I had a landlord who was so terrible that the city told him he wasn't allowed to rent out property anymore. Currently, I have THE BEST landlord ever. She's always on top of problems, and allows me to paint, buys the paint, and even teaches my child saxophone lessons. I'd only move if I bought a house, and even then, I'd be sad.

I rented an apartment from a slumlord who very clearly did not understand state rental laws. Most of the time, it wasn't a problem, since the guy was so absentee, we could do whatever we wanted. However, at the end of our lease during our second year, things fell apart.

The previous year, we'd received a letter in May asking us to reply by June 1st with whether or not we were planning on staying another year. We received no letter the following year. The landlord hadn't sent us signed copies of the lease either, so if the lease stipulated we needed to give 3 months notice, there was no way for us to know because he'd broken the law. State law says we don't need to give any notice--if we don't sign another lease, it just means we plan to leave.

Landlord was very upset. His manager (we never spoke to the landlord or met him even once--everything was done through the manager) called and yelled at us for not giving notice. Then realtors started showing up without notice, so we would not let them come in (again, state law was on our side). The realtors would harass us about it, and then call the landlord, who would have the manager call us.

In retaliation for requiring 24 hours notice about realtors (again, state law!), the landlord sent us an eviction notice. Not only were our names (and HIS OWN NAME) misspelled, but there were 1) no grounds for eviction, and 2) he wanted us out a day before the end of the lease. We figured out why--he had promised to paint and professionally clean the apartment for the new tenants, and decided we had to be out a day early in order to achieve that. Obviously, this is not how eviction works, in any state.

We decided not to sue him, because we were broke, we were leaving in a few weeks, and we're not sure we had grounds to sue him for being an idiot, but it was really stressful. We didn't trust the landlord, and were concerned he would send people over on the 30th to clear out our stuff while we were at work, and change the locks. While that would have been illegal on his part, it wouldn't stop being stressful! Fortunately, nothing ever happened, and we got out of there unscathed.

Our last landlords were so bad and the next door neighbors. Slumlords who claimed they would fix everything and didn't. We moved in out of desperation to get out of our previous rental fast. It was a little cottage from the 20's in the woods on a private road. It turned out we lived in the biggest pit on the street! Mice, bats, termites. Creepy landlord walking dog past window all day and night. After 18 months we were gone and vowed never to have the landlord as a neighbor.

Went through a management company for the next one to avoid the close landlord. The address for the owner sounded a little bit away from our house. Same street but the number was farther. Turns out it was right at the next drive!!!!!!!!! Who knew rural addresses do that skipping around thing? We sure didn't...until we had already signed the lease! Our landlady is really good about things and we're glad to have her. But we were hoping for going through the management company for repairs and such. They call her anyway so we don't bother calling them. Not really sure why she has them as they do nothing but take her money. I guess to have someone to get rid of problem tenants...the last person in here ripped the thermostat off the wall in the living room and was growing pot! Hehe! I heard he was hard to get rid of.

We've vowed the next place, no landlord next door, no dogs left out day and night, and parking on the same side of the street as the house. That's all we ask. Oh, and no mice,
of course.

My current landlord never cashes my rent checks. One time I didn't pay on the first of the month because he still hadn't deposited two month's worth of my rent. He emailed me asking for his money and I told him he wasn't getting it until he deposited my other checks. That's a whole lot of my money to just be hanging on to.

Oh, and he lost my security deposit check, too, and grumbled a bit when I deducted the cancellation fee from the replacement check.

We won't even get into his weird keyboard playing at odd hours of the night.

A couple of days after we returned from our honeymoon, our foyer ceiling literally fell in at 10pm at night because of water damage. The emergency repair guy came out and put up plastic that night. It took 4 months before our "skylight" was repaired and that only happened after we called the city inspector, since they wouldn't return our calls.

Our current landlord is the best. We're more than willing to do simple repairs if she reimburses our expenses. She let us select the new carpet for our entire home, that she paid for. And basically, lets us do whatever we want and she'll pay for it. It could not be a better situation for us.

This ought to be an interesting read, as my husband is currently building an apartment over the garage which we plan on renting out. As long as we're living here I would think that any renters would be fairly happy with the situation. They'll have their own entrance and the yard will be divided by a fence, so plenty of privacy. It'll be brand new, so I wouldn't expect any repairs but whatever comes up would be fixed immediately, as we're right here. They'll have an okay sized yard and we don't mind if they want to put in a garden, although it's pretty shady. Not sure about painting, but if it's something easily changed it may be alright. Pets will probably be alright as well, as long as they keep in mind we have two dogs, which will stay in our yard and are good with other dogs, but not cats so they'd have to keep them inside.

I've always had wonderful, considerate landlords and in turn I try my best to be an ideal tenant. I think I have a sixth sense for choosing the right place/landlord because for the first 18 years I watch my parents be less than ideal landlords of their 5 properties. The only bad thing I witnessed were them holding their tenants captive audiences for their political rants and diatribes and endless litany of their family grudges going back 20, 30 years. What I heard from others made me want to sink into the earth. Every summer I painted my parents' properties and when the tenants see me coming they duck and run for cover, probably thinking I would be as psycho as their landlords.

I just moved so haven't had to wade through any problems with my new landlord yet - but she left us a welcome home card and a 6-pack of craft beer in the fridge when we moved in, so far so good!!

I lived in a big, well worn house that was "perfect" for my roommate and I; we had more than enough space, the landlord allowed us general liberties like fixing up the yard and repainting the ugly walls left by the old tenants, he was okay with our dog and didn't really bother us much.

But, our landlord (not-so-fondly dubbed Mr. Burns), would kick and scream and insist we were destroying the place whenever something needed to be fixed. Leaking roof? Must have been our fault. Basement door hinges were so rusted that they actually crumbled, rendering the exit (read: fire exit) unusable? Our fault. Windows wouldn't open or close because they had so very many layers of paint (and many were cracked when we moved in)? We did that. Awning got ripped off in a hurricane and landed in the neighbor's yard, as well as an old antenna on our roof? Our responsibility to clean up. House got broken into and we were robbed because interior door locks were used on outside doors? We'll have to pay for new, strong locks if that's what we feel like we want.

And then the maintenance guy decided he needed to move in with us because his wife kicked him out of his house (he showed up and asked to move into our basement with all of his belongings). When we told him no, he left his things in our garage and left the country. And guess who the landlord told us was responsible for moving those belongings? :) You know who.

Seriously, people. Just because the rent is reasonable and you get a lot of square feet for your buck does NOT mean it's worthwhile. Honestly, I don't know why we stayed for so long and we all celebrated the moment we left (we also dug up all of our plants and took them with us).

@Yoboseyo Amazing!! So jealous, lol.

I'm extremely lucky that I live in BC, Canada. We have quite a rather strict tenancy act and system that really favours renters, sometimes even to the point where it's unfair to the landlords.

My only advice is to do your homework and, if possible, rent/lease from a management company as opposed to from one person. Many of the buildings in larger cities here tend to be owned by companies that own several others. Buildings will have a building manager but at least that person isn't the top of the chain if there happens to be a problem.

Another nice thing about this is, for example in my position, I have a lease and if I were to move I could move to another building also owned by the same company without breaking my lease.

My landlady has never fixed anything beyond what was legally required (when none of the tenants in the house had hot water). The kitchen cabinets are coming off the walls, I have huge cellar spiders in the summer, and apparently mice, which I did not know about until I got a kitten a year after moving in, and she killed some in the night.

She told us she was planning to paint the house, because it's all peely and crappy looking, but she was waiting on the township to "approve the color choice". That was 2.5 years ago. The house is still military green/white where the paint peeled.

My previous upstairs neighbor had two massive dogs in her tiny, tiny apartment, and she would collect their poop in a five-gallon bucket that she kept under her porch. Which, unfortunately, was right under my kitchen window. When it got hot, it was really rank. I left her a polite note asking her to move it away from all the doors and windows. She moved it under my bedroom window A/C unit. I asked the landlord to do something about it, but she did not, because the tenant was moving. The tenant left it behind. The landlady had to deal with it later. :)

Checking state rental laws is a BIG tip! Knowing what are your rights and what are your landlord rights can save a ton of hassles in the long run. The last place I rented before my current location (and across the continent); had at first; a very easy management company; we even looked at the place by calling the number listed and he giving us the code key to get into the place.
For the first three months; it was great. If we had issues; we called the management company and he would either send someone to us to fix the problem or he would tell us we could fix the problem ourselves and the deduct the costs from our rent.
The the owner of the place switched management companies and it went bad. The new management company wanted us to sign a new lease and raise our rent by $150 a month, since they were now in charge. They did not want to pay for repairs to the heating/cooling system, which needed the motor replaced and they wanted us to move out for a week, with no hotel arranged, so they could paint everything!
We debated every point, got our rent to stay as it was, got them to fix the heating/cooling system and after informing them that we knew the landlord/tenant laws for the state; they paid for our hotel stay for a week.
We gave them a full two months notice that they were moving and they argued over returning our security deposit, saying when they painted, they found we had damaged the property. Luckily, we had taken pics of the property when we moved documenting every issue with the place and previous damage and had given digital copies to the previous management company and had our own copies.
Our new management company is good; maintenance is great and we don't even have to change our own light bulbs!

I lived in a Brooklyn rent controlled apt for 17 years. Loved my 1882 build apt, but what I saved in $, I paid in aggrevation I guess. Many bad-landlord stories, too many. I will share two things: The man (about 60 yrs old, with long gray hair) lived with a parrot on his shoulder for several years (the parrot eventually died and he did not get another one). He would walk around the building and the neighborhood with the bird perched on him and its poo dripped down the back of his shirt. yeah.

Second. We didn't like each other much and he was very happy when I married and planned to leave. He was very UNhappy when I (legally) informed him that I would (legally)sublet my apt to my husband's nephew. Three days later, my apt was on fire. Luckily, my nephew and his roommate were not at home and did not have a lot of stuff. Everyone knew the landlord set it, but neither I nor the fire marshall wanted to pursue it. Just so very glad to be gone. Poor Parrot.

Landlords who keep the deposit! When I left one rental apartment, I hired professional painters and professional cleaners to make the place spotless. And spotless it was! At hand-over of the keys, my landlords found things to complain about: I missed my own going-away party to clean the oven (again) and clean the outside communal hallway (I went and bought a bunch of cleaning supplies and cleaned that darn oven and hallway wearing my nice party clothes). Once I was moved overseas, my landlord decided to keep my deposit anyway, because I "left behind" the brand new carpet I had professionally installed (with their consent) over the bare floor in the front hall and because there was a ring of dirt on the balcony where there was once a potted plant. $1000 dirt ring. Because I was overseas looking for a place to live with a baby in tow, they knew I wouldn't be able to go to court. I paid my rent on time every month. Was never loud, never had a party. But I did have a baby. But I moved out with him, so they should have been happy with me, right? Greedy bastards. (I'm looking at you Mr. and Mrs. A!)

I then made a habit of photographing every inch of a rented apartment before I moved in and handing the landlord copies of the photos I took. Saved my butt.

Today, I am looking to buy rental property. So, I'll be interested to read everybody's landlord tales!

My last landlord was really ideal. I went from renting out a separate apartment on the ground floor of his huge 1913 house to moving across the drive to the mother-in-law he had built to match on the property. Mark became such a good friend that last Christmas we hosted at my house and he and his teenaged son joined us.

What made him a good landlord were his reasonable expectations, his attention to detail in property maintenance, and his sincere desire to maintain a good relationship. I hope that he thinks of me as one of his best tenants. After 4 years, I only left as my m-i-l house was not large enough to accomodate two.

When I was 19 I rented an apartment from a man in his mid forties. He was constantly asking me out on dates, showing up unannounced, and lingering around my apartment. The apartment was the top floor of a two story Victorian home and the basement was shared between the two apartments. There was a locked storage room in the back that the landlord used for his "storage" and we would slip our rent under that door. One day the door was unlocked I looked in. It was a tiny, dirty room with a desk, a tv, minifridge, and bed. The desk was covered in porn and it was clear that he had been living in the room for sometime without my (or the other tenants knowledge). He creeped me out so much I moved the next month!

More recently I had a landlord give a key to my basement to our neighbors for "emergencies" without notifying me. I found them rooting through my belongings at 1:00 AM. Thankfully he apologized and changed the locks, but I began looking for a new place that night!

My bad landlord story is that after living in a place for a few months my roommates and I discovered a few roaches. Gross. We were vigilant about food, trash, etc., and asked our landlord for help. He, accused of being dirty and "crazy" that we thought an occasional roach was a problem. He then had one of his maintenance guys come in when we were not at home and pour boric acid powder all along the baseboards as his "solution." Not dangerous at all, right? We then sent him a registered letter officially requesting a safe solution, but he never even picked up the letter from the post office. Finally tired of worrying about roaches we called Orkin ourselves and figured we'd just eat the cost. The Orkin guy came and diagnosed the problem as coming from the basement, which was occuppied by, you guessed it, the LANDLORD. This was just one of the steady stream of bad stories that came from that building. A neighbor and all-around nice guy almost came to blows with the same landlord. There was also the homeless person who lived in our laundry room for a period of time and would regularly break all the washers to get out the quarters. For several months we had to go to the laundromat because no one did anything to address the problem.

ugh, living in Vancouver Canada means having tons of weird landlords. the biggest problem seems the almost universal greediness and arrogance, since good apartments are few and far between.
My last landlord was condescending and weird, we weren't allowed to use the fireplace and we weren't allowed to BBQ in our backyard (because we could burn down the house). The renter above us was buddies and made sure he always told her about perceived wrong doings.
While living there she checked on the paint and had us "fix" small damages (the paint was dark red and prone to knicks)
My current land lady lives upstairs and she is fantastic. Not very handy with reparations but easy going and helpful..way more important than having a perfect place.

I had a landlord who lived with in the house next door and was an exhibitionist. I can't even count how many times I saw his naked behind. It was deliberate on his part. Creepy.

When problems occurred, like a leak that caused a waterfall feature down the wall of the bedroom, or the sewer line backing up into the basement, he simply didn't do anything. I would end up hiring someone to fix the problem then deduct it from the rent (I never did get reimbursed for my time). We stayed because the rent was good and we were shopping to buy our house.

While we were moving our boxes out of that place, the landlord dropped by with a real estate woman (not his girlfriend) who was going to rent out the house for him. My husband went back in the house to get more boxes and walked in on them having at it on the kitchen counter. I've had some interesting landlords over the years, but he was the most memorable.

When I was finishing up college, my then-boyfriend/now-husband was working and living in a suburban area. The apartment was above the landlord's house. OMG they were crazy. I moved in with him for the summer, and they charged me a small fortune to get added onto the lease. They collected classic cars, and they would knock on the door at like 11pm on a Friday night to have us help rearrange the cars in the driveway so that they could get them out in the morning. They complained that the TV was loud when we didn't even have it on. I went and laid out on our small patch of grass, with a towel to read, and they called my husband 3 minutes later to complain. We had to tiptoe up the (outdoor) stairs to the apartment because they always said we were too loud. I could not WAIT to get out of there.

Well, there was landlady Beth, who got a friend of her's, Julie, to housesit while i was gone for a couple of months. When I got back, I was told that Julie was now going to be my roommate. And oh, that since there were now two of us, the rent would go up.

At least that forced me to move, and then to buy my own house. Thanks, Beth, even though you suck.

@Fledling: That's a GREAT tip. I'm going to add it. Thanks!

Having been on the other side of the equation...if you chose to rent the apt with those cabinets & they're perfectly functional though not your style, why should the landlord replace them? We used to own a building in a historic area of our city. We owned the building but lived on just the bottom 2 floors and rented the upper 2 apartments. 1 of our renters was awesome. The other was...um, spoiled. She rented the biggest apartment and was thrilled with her low rent. A couple of months in, she wanted new cabinets. They were ugly pine cabinets but perfectly functional (I'd personally lived in that apt when we first bought the building & a renter was still in a lease downstairs so I can say they were 70's ugly but functional) Why should've I replaced them for her?
She would come home in the middle of the night with whatever guy she'd picked up that night and well, I'd rather forget that...that was especially lovely the night my husband had the stomach bug and we were up all night dealing with that while listening to her & her newest friend loudly getting their passion on over our bedroom. YUCK. Then, when we sold the building, she was so mad that we sold it to someone who was converting it into a single family home and she was going to lose her sweet deal on rent that she started throwing all of our mail in the trashcan.

I once had a landlord tell me I owed them an additional $500 (on top of my $650 deposit) for lots and lots of crazy damage. When I got the list and pictures, it was of a different apartment. Of course I had to send my response by mail, and a few months later got a response with a check for about $65. The rest of my deposit went to 'cleaning' mainly the outside communal trash bin.

I could have pursued it but at that point was living somewhere else and didn't have the energy.

@AbbyGrayKit: Good point. I was referring more to barely functioning cabinets, like hanging crooked or with doors that don't close or so on. Nobody should expect upgrades. On the same note, I had a landlord who would fix up every apartment as people moved out. We're talking new kitchens, new flooring -- a HUGE difference. Of course, the new tenants paid more, but he continued to raise my rent to be "in line" with what everybody else was paying, even though my apartment was dingy and not even close in quality. I eventually convinced him to fix up my place too if he insisted on charging me the same rent.

Beware of renting from a first-time landlord! Especially one renting out his own house. When we moved in, we found he had left a car in the single car garage and expected us to store it. Part of the reason we rented the house was for the garage. We argued the point and he finally moved it a month after we moved in. I think he thought he was "letting us stay" in his house so he felt like he could do that. His "handyman" didn't know how to fix anything and when our A/C went out--we live in Central Texas, A/C is a requirement--it took him a week to get it replaced and he acted like we broke the 20 year old system. He did allow us to paint a few walls but prior to moving out, he would not call or email me back about what color to re-paint so we left it. He was so rude about it when we moved out! He kept our entire $2200 deposit and tried to charge us for things that were his responsibility as a homeowner and not stipulated by our lease. Never again.

Our landlord now has things fixed before we even ask sometimes. She also did not charge us a pet deposit and we have 4 cats! She owns several properties so she knows what she's doing. It's refreshing renting from someone who actually cares about her properties and her tenants. I will never rent from someone renting their own home out again!

My former landlord in San Francisco tried to run over the process server (hired to server him some official papers) with his car, when I was suing his in small claims court. The process server (poor guy) would have had him arrested but it was his word against the former landlord. That is San Francisco for you!

"In an ideal world, landlords would do more than cash your checks every month.

Actually, in an ideal world, that's all I want my landlord to do.

Bad landlord that I avoided: Since most landlords I had dealt with in the past generally start advertising their units well before they are vacant, I started looking for a new place a month or two before my current lease ended. When I first called to ask about a 1-bedroom I'd seen advertised, the landlord started ranting at me when I said I wasn't looking to move in immediately. According to him, no landlord would ever take me seriously if I didn't want to start renting their properties until a month later. Right. I did go look at the place, even though some flags were already going up. The apartment was only ok, but the landlord's condescending "little missy" attitude only got worse. When I commented that having the gas furnace in the bedroom closet (less than 12 inches away from the rods for hanging clothing) might be a fire hazard, he seemed to think I was nuts. AND, the best part, when we arrived at the building he let some random girl in the (locked) front door with us. She followed us up to the 2nd floor, and knocked on the door across the hall from the apartment I was looking at. The guy who answered the door didn't know who she was, but let her in when she explained that he'd "called for her." Ick.

Reading this is depressing me because we are dying to buy a house to get away from crazy landlords, but can't afford the high prices here in So Cal.

I've had good and bad landlords; our current guy is not my favorite, but OK. He's a cheapskate, and every time he comes to repair things, his first assumption is that we've broken it. But once he sees it's not our fault (it never is!), he fixes it without complaint. He lets us paint the rooms any color we like, and our rent is very low for our area (great schools, great yard, we can have a dog). But the nicest part is that he has NEVER raised our rent, and we've lived here for four years. So that keeps us pretty happy :-)

@Katydid: Sounds like a pretty good situation to me! If your rent stays reasonable, at least you can spend a little bit extra on fixing up the place yourself. I hear you about buying in SoCal. I lived there most of my life and had resigned myself to renting forever before I moved to Seattle (also crazy expensive, but now I have my husband's income too).

I work for a landlord that at times is all of the above (good, bad, bizarre). It's interesting, to say the least, but some of these stories blow me away!

In my experience on both sides of the relationship, and like any other relationship, communication is key. I 100% agree with being straight with the landlord if you can't make rent. And do it BEFORE you're late/short. My boss is much more likely to work with you if you're open and upfront ahead of time, rather than trying to fix things after the fact.

And on the "bad" note...if you feel that you're being taken advantage of, stand up for yourself, but in a calm and rational way, with sources to backup your case. Reason will win out, whereas yelling and screaming are probably not going to get you very far. At least that's the case with my boss--YMMV.

If you discover that your prospective landlord has an alias: Do Not Rent. I don't care if they tell you it's a stage name, an ex, whatever the story is: NO. OK? Trust me on this, please. Cause I've done this twice, slow learner that I am, and those two? They NEEDED two names. Three, in the lady's case.

Oh, man, did this post ever make me happy to be a homeowner at last....I rented for about 18 years, moved an average of once a year, so I can identify with just about every ridiculous story here--except the parrot one, that one takes the cake. My "favorite worst landlord" was a slumlord during college who'd lost a forearm/hand and wore a hook--he liked to show up unannounced, especially during times he thought me or one of my 3 roommates might be showering, just to "fix something" like a loose railing outside the bathroom. He scared the crap out of my roomie one night when he entered the basement and was again "fixing" some unidentified thing without saying he would be there--she thought a serial killer was in the house :) Ah, the memories.

Oh, and as far as the management companies being better than individual landlords, I found them no better--in fact, the last one was so bad (lost rent checks, refusal to do ANYTHING) I swore I'd never rent through another.

My current landlord is pretty good. Not ideal, but pretty good. Our house (we live on one floor of a three-story-plus-basement place that's probably over 100 years old) is his only property, so he's never too busy to look after it. The only problem is he puts as little money into it as possible. He'd DIY everything if he could. Like the time he wanted to replace a major pipe in the basement when it burst and was backwashing used toilet water into the basement apartment shower. UGH!). Luckily, his wife and the basement tenant talked sense into him and he got a professional plumber to do it.

He does mean well though. He mows the lawn/shovels the driveway punctually. He applies a fresh coat of paint to the porch every year (though he really should replace it). He let us dig up chunks of the front yard and put in gardens, was ok with us getting a cat (having hardwood and linoleum probably helped), didn't complain when we bought a counter-top dishwasher and (used) sink-hookup laundry machine, and I imagine he'll be fine with us painting (we've been living there three years now... I think it's time.)

Plus if something goes wrong, he's there as soon as possible. Last fall when a big leak sprung in the ceiling in our bedroom after he'd already patched the leak once, he came over the next morning, offered to replace anything that had been water damaged, and got the roof replaced that weekend. As an apology for us camping out in the living room for a few rainy nights, he gave us a bunch of krona for our then-upcoming vacation in Iceland.

So, pretty good guy. For the amount of rent we and our fellow tenants pay (which isn't a ton, but we live in a pretty desirable neighbourhood, so the same house elsewhere would fetch a lot less), he could afford to be less cheap about keeping the place in good repair.

Prospective landlords, just make sure you respond quickly to your tenant's needs, don't blame them for things that are pre-existing issues in your 100-year-old house, and try not to be too cheap about upkeep (seriously, replace rotting/cracking wood porches rather than just putting another coat of paint on them. The paint is not actually structural...)

I had an apartment in an old mansion in the Midwest that had been divvied up. I planted flowers in the front, herbs along the wall in the back. Kept it clean and weeded. The landlord loved me.
Another apartment, this time in Park Slope, Brooklyn, was above a funeral home. In fact, the landlady interviewed me with an occupied open casket a couple of feet away. At least the downstairs neighbors were quiet! When I left, to move overseas, the landlord and landlady nearly cried. I was surprised, since I had almost no interaction with them after signing the lease. "You always paid on time!" they wailed. That was shocking. Standards are that low?

I love my landlord so much, I arrange for a friend to allow him to adopt her teeny-tiny dog when the situation wasn't working out for her. (He's always wanted his own teeny-tiny dog....and it turned out to be the very best match I've ever seen.) He is truly the best. I've been allowed to paint, and didn't even have to pay for most of it. Last year I got a new A/C and a new fridge. Recently I asked if he would pay for a new floor if I installed it, and he is quite stoked on the plan.

I cannot stress enough how important is to read reviews of a potential landlord! I didn't and it was a horrible experience. Poor/non responsive maintenance, roaches, bedbugs, back door missing from the building for MONTHS in a not exactly stellar part of town... the list goes on. I ended up having to sue to get my security deposit back and now the jerk is dealing with judgement against him by ignoring it. Awesome. Also, in addition to the individual having an alias, the the management company has changed names frequently just STAY AWAY.

I live in a MUCH better place now. The landlord may not be amazing, but they're perfectly fine. The buildings are all in good repair and maintenance responds quickly (plus they put in and take out our window a/c units every year).

I had a landlord who I liked very much, for some reason, despite the fact that I was home sick one day and caught him creeping into people's apartments unannounced. Funny thing is, I would find odd things missing. Like a hair brush or grocery bags I stored under my range in the cabinet. Just weird. Since that time on, I never kept anything valuable, important, or telling laying around. I stayed because rent was ridiuculously cheap but bought a house. Will never rent again, never.

My tip is to Google the name of the landlord or property management company before moving in. My friend learned to do this the hard way. She was delighted when she got her first apartment out of college, and thought the place was ideal. The person who showed her the apartment seemed courteous and attentive, but as soon as she signed the lease, he changed his tune. The management company hired another company to come and do repairs, and they would frequently enter the wrong apartment. She was asleep one morning and panicked when she heard the voices of several men outside her door. They couldn't find the bathtub leak because they were in the wrong unit. This happened repeatedly. When she needed a repair she was hesitant to contact them because of how difficult they were to deal with. They would send someone over without giving any kind of notice, and they would enter after one knock, even when she put a huge sign up on the door asking them not to. The owners of the building finally fired the property management company when repairmen entered the wrong unit and frightened a 12 year old boy home alone that day. The boy was so terrified he locked himself in the bathroom and called 911. Four police cars raced to the building. The management company gave no apology and was angry at the kid for calling 911. My friend later Googled the name of the company - RST Management - and found out they had a F rating with the BBB and multiple negative reviews on Yelp. Other people complained of similarly shady behavior.

Gosh I rented a place in San Carlos (SF Bay Area) for 13 years. First 10 years one owner, raised my rent once $50. These wonderful people sold the building as they were getting up in years. They sold to Dale and Laura R. A Dentist in the area and his wife. They raised the rent 50% yes I said 50% in two years. They refused to fix anything, I had mold in the bathroom that could no longer be ignored, they sent in a housepainter, I was like ummmmmmmmmm what the f? I finally called the City Inspector, who came out and said um, no painting won't work. They had someone come and do a bare minimum repair. These people are rude and disrespectful. Needless to say, I decided to move and not because the rent kept being raised, rents have been escalating in the Bay Area, but because I thought why would I continue to give my hard earned $$$ to these people, especially after Dr. Dale R...........told me the mold in my cottage was not the kind that would kill me. Oh ok, thanks medical man. My lab tests confirmed, no the mold wouldn't kill me, but was sure causing some respiratory problems. This is an 11 unit building that was occupied by very long term tenants, 1 of the 11 remains. The turn over has been very fast. Renters are people too, heck they are your customers........... BE NICE! The sad truth about being a renter is, the rug can be pulled out at almost any moment. I did find a beautiful apartment in a neighboring city. It's nice, very nice, but I miss my neighbors and the neighborhood.

The landlord for my first apartment was outstanding and set the bar for everything since.

He had a small collection of walkups downtown and took pride in his buildings. I was looking for a one bedroom but the building I wanted to live in only had a 2 bedroom unit available. We met there anyway since he wanted to show me the quality of the units. It was fantastic. He later showed me a one bedroom unit in a nearby building. It hadn't been renovated quite as much as the first place, but he offered to make some changes - tile in place of the dated lino in the kitchen, etc.

He kept to his word and it was all done by the day I got the keys. He had the common areas maintained regularly and it was obvious he cared about a lot more than collecting rent every month. When it came time for window coverings he wanted to do every unit the same so he paid for half and I paid for the other half. The entire building of 9 units was done the same week and it looked great.

One of my biggest regrets as an adult is leaving that place.

I have had really bad luck with renting over the last few years :( I have been a renter for 18 yrs. I've had some creepy landlords, etc but the worst was a few years ago. Moved to a small town from the big city cause I had just had my second baby. The house was a very cute 1950s 2 story on a huge lot surrounded by newer monster homes. This house was one of the few original houses left in the neighborhood. I soon came to find out why the others had been razed. . .

I knew it needed some cosmetic TLC before moving in, I had no idea it was falling apart literally. It literally rained in the dining room when we'd use the upstairs bathtub. I think the drainage pipe was broken and it became obvious after the first couple rainfalls that the damage had been patched and painted over, but not actually fixed(?) There was a broken toilet seat, a backdoor that just opened into empty space 4' above ground level, laminate floors were peeling up and a tripping hazard, wasp nests all around the house which was especially troublesome cause the window frames were the original wooden ones, which were not airtight and were cracking and allowed all sorts of insects to be let into our home :( Including several wasps. We never even unpacked, I noticed the bad details right away. I had initially said yes to the house after a 5 min tour. I had done tonnes of research on the neighborhood, so was sold before I even walked in the door. What a mistake! It took the threat of a city inspector, who I had actually booked to come in, before the owners let us out of our lease and yes, even returned out last month's deposit! They had initially yelled and freaked out on us when I had complained about the state of the house and said we wanted out.

From there we had to find a new place quick, and got one that would be ready in 2 weeks from the end of the month at the falling-apart place. So for 2 weeks we were nomads, that is my husband and I, a toddler and a baby. We put our stuff in storage and stayed in a hotel for 5 days, and camped out at a friend's cottage for the rest. The new place was wonderful! But after the first year, we were told they wanted to sell so had to find a new place :( Another move :( We found a house one street over but for non-landlord reasons have to move out again after just 6 months. .. I am really sick of being a renter.

When my (now husband) boyfriend and I were in college, we lived in what we thought was a great apartment in the middle of town with great access to bars and the campus. The landlady turned out to be PSYCHO and hated women - something I realized after finding out that the rest of the tenants in our building were only male, and a neighbor commented on his surprise that she "let" a female move in to one of her properties.
There were two locks on the door and she only gave us the key to one (she only HAD the key to one - can you say code violation?!) I got back from visiting my family for my birthday in the summer to find that my friend had locked both locks instead of the one (he came by to feed my snake, ignoring my repeated warnings about the lock) and I was locked out with a 7 week old puppy whining in the car. I ended up having to call the fire department to get me in because the landlady, who lived one town over, wouldn't take my frantic calls as the hours ticked away. The firemen had to take a screen off our fire escape because the window was half open, and they didn't want to break the door down - one of them knew the landlady and didn't want to incur her wrath. Guess who the lucky one was that got to shimmy through the window because they were all too *ahem* large...not that I wasn't still extremely grateful...but it was a mortifying as a 21 yo having your posterior just hanging out in the breeze as you frantically try to scissor kick your way inside, knowing 3 firemen are staring up at you. (The snake was fine and the puppy was grateful to finally be let out of the car.)
When the door on the back porch blew out after a powerful thunderstorm, she blamed me. (Not my husband. Me. The only female living there. I didn't even have access to that door. We lived in the front of the house on the 2nd floor.) And of course, when the time came to move, she tried to keep all of our security deposit plus charge us extra because it wasn't "properly cleaned." Luckily, by that point we were wise to her shenanigans and took pictures of ourselves in the act of cleaning the place. (Something we ALWAYS do now!!) The funny part was, she tried to bill us for a maid service for 10 hours to clean this tiny little 1 bedroom apartment (under 600 sq ft)...and did the math WRONG!! I could go on, but those were the most memorable incidents.

The best way to judge a potential landlord is to look for safety issues or anything that might not be up to code when you're being shown the unit. Point out the issue (inadequate lighting in hallways, carpets that need cleaning, icy outdoor stairways) and say that if you signed a lease, you'd expect it to be fixed within a reasonable span of time. If the answer is no, you don't want to deal with this person.

If yes, say that you'd like the repair mentioned in a rider to the lease. If that's a no, then this might be a landlord who promises to fix things without following through. If yes, then sign away; you're dealing with someone who understands their liability and that keeping their buildings safe and habitable is in their best interest.

For this to be effective, read up on renting laws in your area. For example, all Chicago tenant/landlord regulations are available online. If I hadn't read them before apartment hunting here, I wouldn't have known that all bathrooms are required to have ventilation in the form of either a window or an exhaust fan. When I saw a unit where the bathroom had neither, the landlord argued with me when I said it wasn't up to code. Pass.

If you don't notice a safety issue, then try your luck with a cosmetic one just to gauge their reaction (Can he replace the peeling linoleum? Can you do it and deduct materials from your rent?). Ask how they handle repairs or urgent problems (Is there a handyman on staff? If a pipe bursts at 2am, who should you call?). A bad landlord might be evasive or just find your questions annoying, good one will have answers to everything, and a great one will have the answers and think that you'd be a wonderfully responsible tenant.

@Wistful Dreamer: My last landlord did the same thing when we moved out. I spent two long days and nights scrubbing that place from top to bottom, repairing every nail hole and even painting an entire wall where we'd accidentally marred the finish in one small spot. We offered straight away to pay for new carpeting on the stairs, because my cat had torn up the top step. And then this guy had the gall to call my husband to discuss how filthy we'd left the place. He claimed that he'd had to pay a cleaning service for several days of work (the place was small, too!). The only thing I hadn't done was self-clean the oven because it was crazy hot out, and I'd also cleaned it fairly recently. I didn't take photos but sure wish I had done so, because we lost our $1500 security deposit, in addition to paying for the carpet. All the while he kept complaining about how expensive it was for him that he had to find new tenants after just a year (we were able to buy a house sooner than anticipated but never told him we were staying long-term). Two years after we moved out, the guy called me to tell me we hadn't paid our last gas bill and it was now a lien on his property. Uh, good luck with that buddy!

Years ago my husband and I lived in a small rental house in Kansas City; the landlord was a 90 year old man who was friendly, but not intrusive. When my husband, a member of the military, was transferred to a ship far away, I remained in our home. The landlord found out he was gone and decided I needed company; he began giving me cheap toilet water and making vague suggestions about spending some time together. After I found myself walking very quickly ( he was too frail to go any faster) around the kitchen table to keep away from his grasping hands, I decided enough was enough. I moved. We also once rented a farmhouse in Virginia; the landlord was an older woman who wanted us to bring the rent to her home instead of sending it through the mail. I usually took it, but once my husband volunteered to go. The landlady met my husband at the door clad in only a see through gown, grabbed his shirt and tried to haul him to her bedroom while exclaiming that she really needed someone and he would do. obviously, I went back to taking the rent. Goes to show that you can never really tell what you are going to end up with.

(Just so it doesn't seem like I'm shirking my responsibilities as a former tenant, I should add that I'm not even sure the landlord was telling the truth about our bill not being paid; we transferred utilities to our new house, and I am nearly certain the bill was rolled over to that account. Plus, two years later?)

I love reading all of these stories. :) Hopefully those with horror stories will be able to look back and laugh someday.

I once had a wonderful landlord...a guy in his 90s. I think maintaining the rental property was keeping him alive. I always felt bad about asking the little old guy to fix things, because he would heft his giant toolbox up the stairs, and walked unbelievably slow. But he let us make improvements, and even though the weird old house had a lot of problems, he was very responsive. And had a cool collection of historic artifacts in the basement; I later found out the building had major historic significance. The problems came when he got even older and stopped screening new tenants so thoroughly. We would have stayed for many more years if it hadn't been for the neighbors.

When I lived in an apartment on the beach our landlord seemed to match the laid back beach motif. If you had something you needed to talk to him about you had better being a towel because you knew you would be meeting with him by the water. He was always out there. But he always listened and took care of what needed to be done.

Plus he threw great bonfire parties for all of the tenants.

I've had mostly great landlords; the two exceptions were a management company (AMLI, never again) and one small-town slumlord who tried to get us to pay a repainting fee when we moved out - but our roommate worked for a realtor's office and knew the guy had just filed for permits to demolish the house after we moved out and sell the empty lot. Needless to say, we did NOT pay him a "repainting fee."

The first apartment that my fiance and I rented out by ourselves was when our daughter was about 4 months old and we needed to get out of his parent's house. We found the neighborhood we wanted and we found a decent sized apartment with what seemed to be good landlords (they lived right next door in a custom-2-lot house) so we assumed they would be on top of fixing things. WRONG.

They never wanted to fix anything that was broken in the apartment, even small stuff like a leaking faucet or a faulty shower head. The apartment was pretty old and had stained carpets, and they hadn't painted it in awhile - the white paint was more of a yellow... The old woman who lived below us never left her apartment and her son who lived with her smoked - even though it wasn't allowed - and since the apartment was old the smell leaked through the floors up to our apartment. They ONLY way we could get rid of the smell was to leave our windows open all the time. Which doesn't really work in Chicago year-round.

The landlords were Italian and every Sunday they used a kitchen space in the APARTMENT building basement to cook huge amounts of food. Not a bad smell but they blocked up the entryway into the building with their chairs and when you have a mansion right next door, do you really have to be using the apartment building?

We ended up leaving after only living there 5 months (we were able to leave because they never had us a sign a lease), and there was a huge amount of trouble trying to get our full deposit back because they said we didn't give back the keys on time so they were charging us for living there a couple days after we moved out and they were arguing that the carpet was too dirty and now they would have to replace it and that would come out of our deposit! We should've taken before pictures, but eventually we got most of our deposit back.

Our current landlord is better, but not by much. But we can't leave because we need to stay in this neighborhood and the rent is cheap. Sigh...

Good landlord story. When we moved in to a place in London. Boiler broke down, no hot water /heating in London in winter! Took a while for boiler to be fixed. I suggested he couldn't charge us full rent for a nonfunctiong boiler-so we lived rent free for that period. Things always fixed on request. But don't get me started on the other landlord I had in London, whose primary income was, I suspect, ripping off unsuspecting Australians. Charging 100s of pounds for small scratches on paintwork etc...

i've had good and bad landlords (the worst being the landlords who didn't think mold growing on our ceilings was "all that bad"), but our current landlord has me mystified. we rent a condo, and the whole building is managed by a company that won't speak to us as renters - only to our landlord. which is annoying when you have to go back and forth on an issue instead of just directly explaining something to someone. our landlord also is super nice, and is more than willing to do stuff (or reimburse us if we do it ourselves), but doesn't follow through very quickly. we moved in on december 28th, and we're still waiting for someone to come fix our porch door lock, which has never worked. i don't know how often i can email and say "please get this done?" and it's kept me from telling her about a couple other small issues (i've mentioned once that our toilet is running, our gas isn't hooked up to our fireplace, and our icemaker doesn't work but makes all sorts of weird noises). does anyone have any advice on how to gently remind her that we'd like these issues taken care of? we have a pretty long lease, and love the unit/building/neighborhood, it's just a bit annoying to not have anything fixed.

Love this thread, and really want to hear others chime in. Should the landlord be responsible for caulking/recaulking? I've been in this unit for five years and have recaulked the tub myself once. It needs it again, and I've asked my landlord and received no reply. Isn't this just basic maintenance?

Wow where do I begin? My landlord uses the side of my house as his dumping ground. Doesn t give a shite that I have to stare at it out my windows or that it enables possible break ins. Recently I received a rent increase letter. It was the second year in a row I received such a letter. Only problem it was for a higher percentage than the law allows. One time my landlord asked if he could use my washer n dryer because his was broken. I told him I was not going to be home and I had a load running at the moment. When I returned home from the beach, I found a pair of his jeans folded on top of my dryer. He had let himself in without my permission. Recently he was remodeling the house next door and using my electricity for his power tools. I could keep going like the time I almost shot him when he walked in while I was sleeping. He said he didn t think I was home because my car wasn't in the driveway. Why haven t I moved, you ask? I 'm scared the next landlord will be worse.

I've had some TERRIBLE landlords. I consider them pre-karma for the one I have now - the best landlord I've ever had. He's next door, fixes EVERYTHING, doesn't care what I paint, loves my garden (lots of which is in hanging pots on the porch), lets me use his grill, and even took money off the rent when I fixed up the old workbench in the basement so I could use it. Recently, he came over to tell me he was having a band rehearsal and let me know that I should come over and tell them if it was too loud - and then I got fantastic music through the shared wall all afternoon, at a perfectly reasonable volume.