We have felt quite unsettled for years through graduate schools, 3-yr posts, and the attempts to find a place to settle instead of looking for places every other year in this expensive coastal city. Years of graduate schools and postdoctoral studies leave us no real savings, and without a very large downpayment it is impossible to become homeowners here.
Last year we thought we found a place that we wouldn't have to move for at least a couple years. The landlord expressed the wish for us to stay long-term, and said he would not increase rent. We therefore invested much to buy the paint, painted the place (see older posts), bought organic products to deordorize the strong dog smell that plagued the place and spent hours and days cleaning the space.
However, we learnt the problems of multiple-unit rental house living the hard way. There are two kitchens in two rental units downstairs. Because all units' heat vents are connected, whatever smell from the downstairs cooking would all drift into our bedrooms, washrooms, and living space. We had to hurry to block the vents, or our towels and rooms would all smell like whatever other tenants were cooking. The house was not designed to be separated, so there was not enough hot water for 3 units to use, and a lot of sounds are audible around the house. During our quiet hours after kids go to bed at 9pm, we could hear the downstairs talk even though they were not loud at all, and they found our kids loud because the floor really did not block any sound. During winter months, low-efficiency heat did not reach the downstairs or upstairs corner rooms, while our kitchen and study were over heated, the downstairs complained about being cold.
Private owner can be great, okay, or just bad. The one we had was nice on the appearance, and quite the opposite inside. He provoked animosities between units as a way to push off his responsibilities and make people pay extra heat charges. When downstairs complained about being cold, he asked us to block some of our vents to make the heat go downstairs, while we paid 50% of heating cost and can't get our corner rooms warm. After we blocked the vents and he set the heat control, when the downstairs complained about being cold again he accused us of not being cooperative by not blocking our vents or changing his temperature control in our unit -- we didn't change it, but the temperature detector read it as warmer when there were human activities in the space. He, his screaming wife (we heard her scream at him before downstairs, at a young tenant before downstairs, and then on the phone to us when other tenants were in our living room) and his dad all came over to ring and made us speak to them and downstairs tenants in order to make it out to be all our responsibilities. When we told him we didn't change the control or unblock the vents, the couple kept pressuring. The downstairs neighbors came to speak to us later to say they understood it's not our responsibility, but the landlord's to ensure proper distribution of heat. When they saw he had no wish to solve problem other than pushing the responsibility on us, they all moved out.
After long months of housing hunting, thanks to my colleagues and friends who provided suggestions and support, we finally found a place of our dream -- somewhere we can afford, and stay long-term, and do not need to worry about scheming and badmouthing landlord, screaming landlady, or downstairs complaints about kids while we could even hear downstairs alarm go off.
This owner couple were very pleased that we left before the contract ended like all other tenants, because they immediately posted the ad and raised the rent by $200. We are very grateful because if it weren't for this horrific experience we would not have found the housing alternative that just works out so wonderfully.
We have lots of transitions -- moving again when we didn't plan to, and transferring kids back to the last school. But hopefully this move is really towards where we settle for a quite long while with kindness and friendship around!
