Landlords, tenant disputes and happy mediums
By: Shamontiel L. Vaughn
Tags: Lease Agreements, Property Management, Condominiums, Homeownership, Tenant Rights

Landlords, tenant disputes and happy mediums

Lessons learned on the condo board that I wish I’d have known as a tenant

Photo credit: Ketut Subiyanto/Pexels

I wanted nothing more than for this couple to move out. After living in this apartment for six years without any major disruptions and loving life, in year seven, a couple moved in who blasted music at top volume and smoked weed all day long. Call me a prude, but I didn’t want my apartment to smell like marijuana 24/7. The property managers got the first couple to move to a different floor, only for the second couple — new parents — to move in. Within a month’s time of year eight, I pined for the days of contact high from the second floor.

The conflict with the second couple started off small. I noticed the husband and another guy dragging a treadmill up the second-floor steps but didn’t connect that they were going into the unit above me. It wasn’t until I heard what sounded like Barnum & Bailey Circus above my bedroom at 8:30 a.m. that I realized these second-floor tenants thought having a treadmill was a good idea. After a little under a month, I printed out treadmill silencing mats and slid it under their door. It was passive aggressive but hopefully effective.

Her husband came downstairs and asked me did the ad come from me. I nodded. He apologized, saying he didn’t think I could hear their treadmill upstairs. I smiled politely while thinking of how delusional someone could be to not have heard the loud thumping of a treadmill in every single gym in all of the United States of America and beyond. There is no such thing as a quiet treadmill. If you ever want to see someone ruin their “shanti,” try scheduling a yoga class at the same time as a treadmill running class; you’ll never see a yoga instructor lose her shit faster and throw in a couple of “namastes” while cursing out the people upstairs.

Photo credit: Viktoria Slowikowska/Pexels

While I found that to be extremely annoying, it got worse when I found out that this new couple only seemed to like to argue between 4 a.m. to 5 a.m. She would come in yelling. He would scream at her. Then all of a sudden I’d hear something that sounded like bricks or wood go crashing to the floor. The first time I heard this, I wish I knew where the first couple ended up so I could go borrow some of their weed, wholeheartedly apologize and beg them to switch places.

I thought this was the worst of it (after several early-morning arguments and running sessions) until one day I heard the woman let out a blood-curling scream, heard him unleash a list of insults at her, something came crashing to the floor and then some kind of pop sound. As irritating as Treadmill Lady was, I jumped up in bed, wondering, “Did he just hit her?” I reached for the phone when I heard her crying and called the police, reporting the incident above.

By the time they showed up, after I buzzed them in and told them via doorbell which floor to go to, I have no idea what happened next. The next morning, I called the property manager instead of sending an email (my guess is I was at number five or six by this point) complaining about the tenants upstairs. This time though, I said the noise had gone too far and now thought it was a domestic dispute. A treadmill is one thing; getting smacked around the room is a whole other.

“Just put a lid on it,” the property manager told me when I called. “Call the police. Stop contacting us.”

I was dumbfounded. She and I hadn’t been getting along since the noise complaints in those last two years, but I never expected her to shrug off a domestic dispute — as both a woman and as a property manager. I contacted a real estate agent the next day. I had to get out by the time my lease expired. The property manager had already told me she “changed her mind” about renewing my lease after I’d already signed and sent it back.