Crazy Landlord Fights Heat Wave With Air Conditioning Ban

An Oregon landlord refuses to let his tenants install air conditioners because he thinks they "look tacky." Tenants of the Arbor Creek complex in Aloha who choose to sacrifice aesthetics for comfort have ten days to correct their mistake before facing eviction. One tenant's kid already landed in the hospital thanks to heat stroke.

"They sent me notices telling me if I did not take it out I would have a ten day period to get out of my apartment," Frettim said.

"As a matter of fact, on these notices it says ‘for the benefits of the residences,'" Frettim added. "I am wondering how that ‘benefits the residents' when they can't have air conditioners. How does that benefit us? Our kids end up in the hospitals or they end up sick."

A check of the rental agreements and property rules supplied by tenants by contained no mention of a ban on A/C window units.

http://consumerist.com/5328398/crazy-landlord-fights-heat-wave-with-air-conditioning-ban

This is nuts! I hope something can be done. Some people really need AC in this type of heat.

mikey_the_rat

Boy last time I was in Oregon it was pretty far from the south.

Pay attention.

so...

is just outside of Portland, which is northern Oregon.

I used to live in that area, you really don't need A/C more than a week or two, tops, in most years. This is far from a normal year. My family still lives in the area, the region just set a record for number of days straight of 90 degree or over temps (12, at last count).

Many people have cars without A/C, you just roll down the windows, and at highway speeds, we called it 4/55 air conditioning (4 windows down, 55 MPH). That's not going to work in the current temperatures.

This asshat landlord is asking to be dealt with by frontier justice in this heat.

and let the weak die of heat stroke. Weed out the excess population. That's the ticket!

Try reading the OP before posting. :eyes:

I'm a busy man

Maybe you should just stay busy.

:eyes:

"An OREGON landlord..."

You're apparently not too busy to post a snarky response to something you didn't read, and not too busy to come back with an absurd defense.

How about just a simple, "Oops, I fucked up. Sorry." for your next try?

I apologize for nothing

Fucking amazing. You obviously can't read.

:shrug:

Congrats!

:shrug:

is really a Democrat or a Libertarian? or is that libertine?

Surely you bookmarked all the really "dumb" ones.

:-)

and there are plenty of lawyers who like to make examples out of people like that (especially when they have money to be taken).

who thinks its still the middle ages and his tenants are serfs, he should be charged with child endangerment

-- in light of the fact that no mention is made in the lease of "no A/C units," the landlord has absolutely no legal ground to evict anyone for that. I mean, he can't say a tenant was in violation of the lease or anything. In order to legally evict a tenant, a landlord must state a reason in the paperwork. It is a legal process with rules to follow, involving court clerks who administer the papers and sheriffs who serve them and then, if necessary, enforce them. A landlord can't just kick people out with his own hand-scrawled "eviction notice."

Unless the written lease says it is a year to year lease, leases in Pennsylvania are month to month. In any month to month lease the landlord can evict an tenant at the end of any month for any or no reason (Except for illegal reasons, race, sex, handicap etc discrimination, having a A/C unit is NOT being a member of a protected class). Under the law in PA, the landlord must post a 15 day notice (Can be hand written) to the door of the rental unit on or before the end of a term of the lease. At the end of that 15 day period, he can go to out local Magistrate District Justices (use to be called District Justices and before that term Justices of the Peace) who must have hearing within 10 days. In that heading if the above has been done the Landlord gets his eviction of his tenant in about 15 days afterward.

near absolute power in the hands of the landlord. We have had some really terrible people as landlords and never a good one. Great reason to buy your own house.

mark

Every lease I've ever signed at an apartment complex has a clause stating what can go in the window, and that usually pertains to the blinds, including what color they can be.

"Better to keep your mouth closed and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt"-Unknown origin.
Last time I checked, NC isn't all that hot. Come down to Oklahoma and we'll show you some heat.

Seems they ought to be able to return them for indoor models.

(or someplace to move the heat to) otherwise they're just dehumidifiers.

(as long as it's legal, obviously- and A/C generally is.)

FYI, a fact check on this story shows the Consumerist published its article 3 days after the local professional outlet, KATU, published this:

On Thursday, a spokesperson for the management company in Dallas, Texas said it was all a misunderstanding over a policy decision that was not communicated to local managers. No one will be evicted, which was certainly good news for the tenants.

http://www.katu.com/news/specialreports/52127337.html

The heat wave in the Pacific Northwest right now is nasty, and a major health hazard, but considering how few cooling days there normally are in a year, it's not to be expected that an apartment complex landlord to pick up maintenance costs for A/C, or be liable for any damages an improperly installed unit incurred. The tenants, however, had options for working with the landlords about alternative methods, such as indoor units, which I mention in another post up-thread.