From:
Sent: Thursday, June 09, 2005 9:19 PM
To: Gary S. Gevisser
Subject: Landlord Tenant Stuff
As a landlord and a
tenant, but not as a lawyer, I can tell you that in my personal experience the
laws in this state and the interpretation of these laws by local courts favor
the side of the tenant even if tenancy is month to month. If you have a lease
and your payments are reasonably current and your using the place pretty much
as you said you would (no crack kitchens, messy pets or safe houses for illegal
immigrants, etc.) and you are taking reasonably good care of the place,
evictions are extremely difficult to obtain, and there is no need for any
rhetoric. Unless there is something in the lease that would in fact trigger
termination at the sole discretion of one party or the other, your lease is as
good a document as possession from ownership in fee. For instance, notices of
termination need to be in a form and contain specific language. They are
part of a formal process which the courts are very particular about. You need
to be given notice of a deficiency and time to cure, etc. (Tests for criminal
behavior are equally simple, albeit police reports are usually involved.) You
have a right to quiet enjoyment. The remedies available to you include noticing
the landlord of his need to cure, again, formally, sometimes request for
arbitration or mediation which is often provided for in a lease, and some
contracts require this before you can litigate. You could even arrange to pay
your rent into a mediator account pending the outcome of a dispute. If you can
actually make this problem go away with far less time and effort, and restore
your quiet enjoyment immediately just by using the remedies available, you
can’t expect much sympathy for what appears from afar to be a pissing
contest blown way out of proportion. Before you engorge your finger tips with
blood on your computer’s keyboard, take a deep breath. There are such
things as real friends—people who are committed to your magnificence. I
know it seems unlikely. Unconditional love is not what you expect to meet.