Apartments and landlords

So we’ve looked at 3 apartments so far, and I HATED 2 of them. They were both in the same sketchy area of town, for some reason neither of them have lights (you have to use your own lamps and stuff) in the bedrooms or living rooms. And they’re tiny.

The one we looked at yesterday was awesome though! It costs exactly the same as the other two, but it’s a 3 bedroom with a huge kitchen, washer and dryer in the apartment, and lots of space. And it’s in a really nice neighborhood. We turned in our application right away.

So now we wait. They have to do a credit check and rental history check. I’m nervous, because I know our current landlord will give us a great reference, but I have no idea about our previous landlord. Our old landlord, Brent, was seriously certifiably crazy.

He liked us a lot right up until we let him know that we would not be renewing our lease, and then he made the jump from annoying to downright freakin’ crazy. The whole time we lived there, he made us a bit uneasy because he seemed on the edge of having a breakdown and flipping out and shooting everyone or something.

He got it in his head that we had a cat (we didn’t), and would stop by unannounced late at night so he could search the place for a cat. He of course wouldn’t find one, but would act like "ok, well you got rid of it in time." It’s totally illegal for the landlord to stop by unannounced (they’re required to give 24 hours notice), but I know if we had refused to let him in, he would have assumed we were hiding something, so it was just easier to let him look around.

There were other things along those lines, but then when it got to be around lease renewal time, he got all friendly again and wanted us to stay. We of course told him we were moving out (we didn’t tell him why), and that’s when he went crazy. If we had gone more than 4 days (literally) without mowing the lawn, he would leave notes on our door threatening to evict us. The cat obsession started up again. And when we moved out, he claimed that we left the place in bad condition, and ended up keeping our whole security deposit.

We decided it was worth the cost of the security deposit not to have to speak to him again, so we didn’t fight it, but it was so unfair. He charged us $40 per hour (??) for his "labor" in doing things like dusting the light fixtures (he had an itemized list). He claimed it took him over 10 hours to clean the place, even though we thoroughly cleaned it before turning in the keys. We didn’t think to take pictures, so we didn’t have any proof that he was wrong.

I wasn’t sure yesterday when we were filling out the application and had to give his number as a reference if we should explain about Brent. I wanted to just let the guy know that Brent was slightly crazy, and would probably have bad things to say about us, but then I thought that might come off wrong. So we didn’t say anything.

We should find out monday or tuesday whether we got the apartment. I guess if we don’t get it, I can ask why, and if it’s because of a bad reference, then that might be an ok time to tell him about Brent. I don’t know.

Just really keep your fingers crossed for us that we get this apartment.