Renter’s Advice and Resources

You mean that lovely orange sticker on your door isn’t a friendly note from your landlord? Read closer… it’s an eviction notice. You may think that things like this only happen to rowdy college students, but think again, because it can happen to you. The best protection from this harsh punishment is reading your lease completely – especially that fine print. Leases are riddled with all kinds of rules and regulations as well as consequences, so knowing where you stand from the beginning will prevent you from being kicked out into the cold. It’s also helpful to understand the eviction process so if you are served with an eviction notice, you’ll know how to proceed, and what your rights are. Here are a few things to keep in mind about the eviction process.

Imagine: you come home to your apartment after a hard day’s work, ready to kick off your shoes and relax with a beer (or your beverage of choice) and put your feet up on the coffee table. But wait–what’s this? As your turning your key you notice that the door wasn’t locked. Weird–you must have just forgotten to lock it on the way out. You kick off those shoes, drop your briefcase, and head for the fridge. On your way there you notice that half the linoleum tiles are missing from your kitchen floor. Tools and linoleum dust are scattered around your kitchen counter, and your cat is interestedly licking the linoleum dust. "Get out of that!" you yell. The cat obediently jumps off the counter and trots away. You wonder if maintenance is still somewhere in the apartment. That would explain the unlocked door. "Ummm, hellooo?" you call several times, wandering around your apartment and peeping into various rooms for evidence of someone responsible for the destruction in your kitchen (maybe the cat did it–not likely, though). You feel like an intruder on your own home. After determining that no one is in the apartment with you, you look for a notice of entry from maintenance but there is nothing to be found. You call the apartment management and leave a message about the situation. Bewildered, you decide to sweep up the dust and move on with your life.

When you move into an apartment, your landlord will ask for a deposit of some sort. All states allow landlords to legitimately ask for a security deposit to accompany the first month’s rent. A security deposit is money given to a landlord to provide protection against damage to the rented premises or for some other failure of a tenant.