My dollars are being washed away in the dishwasher.
About a month and a half ago, my roommates and I heard an annoying clanging coming from our dishwasher. I know, “A dishwasher? And you’re a student?”
The short answer is yes. The long answer is we pay for it— in our not-so-cheap-Toronto rent.
Before anything caused the dishwasher to break, we filled out a maintenance report, as we had done before with any previous concerns. Because the property is not ours, we should not attempt to fix any of their property (this was confirmed by someone who works for the company that owns my building). Usually, a maintenance repair person appears at our door a day or so later and soon thereafter the problem is solved.
This time, someone from the front desk come knocking, along with someone who appeared to be another maintenance worker.
When the dishwasher was opened, it was discovered that a piece of our vegetable steamer had fallen down under the spray arms.
Nothing in the dishwasher was broken nor needed repair. Our minds—and ears—were put to ease.
A week ago we got an invoice in our mailbox. My apartment building wants $70—the cost to pay for the “dishwasher specialist” to come in and look at our machine.
I couldn’t believe it.
When I questioned them on this fee, I was told that because the object was “foreign” to the dishwasher, it was our responsibility to pay for the repair.
Foreign? A vegetable steamer goes in the dishwasher.
Repair? Nothing was repaired. I would have gone into the dishwasher if I knew it was going to save me $70. But, I was under the impression that it was my landlord’s responsibility to look into the problem and, ultimately, not my right to repair their property.
A couple of posts ago I calculated that my roommates and I have paid a total of $36,000 in rent to date. We haven’t been a problem for the building on a single occasion. To be honest, I’m a little offended that this fee couldn’t have been absorbed by my apartment building. I have tried to get the fee revoked, emphasizing that we were merely being “proactive in our efforts to prevent damage” (Nice, eh? I managed to come up with that one during one of my discussions), but my defense fell flat.
I also asked if tenants could be warned of the possibility of such a fee in the future. I was told that this would also be difficult because, until they start the process, they don’t know if a fee will be in place.
Sadly, the fee remains and I’m a couple bucks poorer.
This, though, has sparked an interest in renter rights. They vary from province to province. While I hate to be Ontario-centric, this provincial site outlined some rules for me. I’m sure there are similar sites across the country.
Apartment hunters can also read reviews online about apartments they’re looking into. This site isn’t Ontario-centric and seems to have lots of apartment reviews. Mine was listed and, so too, is a new post from me.
I’m not saying my apartment is entirely a terrible place to live (my review wasn’t all that bad). I’m just a little frustrated…
How about any of you? Any frustrating fees?
Comments (1)
I recently moved out of the apt I was sharing with a friend in Halifax. We were not in a lease at the time, and I went directly to the office and explained that I was leaving, and that the roommates b/f was moving in in my place. I asked how to go about stopping the automatic payments from being taken from my account and get them taken from his account instead. The person who was in charge of subletting told me that I should just go ahead and call my bank to make a stop payment on the rent and that everything would be fine as soon as they got a check from the new tenant. I might add that this was the second time I had to go to the office to straighten out this matter of getting my name off the apt and putting the new tenant's on, because they told me one thing, and then told the other guy something different.
Anyways, I went ahead and called my bank to put a stop payment on it, as I was directed to do so by those in charge at Transglobe. About 3 weeks after I moved, my old roommate called me and told me that she was being charged a NSF charge by Transglobe because there was a stop payment for my portion of the rent. Even though they received their rent money from the other tennant. So, even though THEY were the ones who told me to do it, they still charged me for it.
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