Glenn

City: 
Modesto
Residence Type: 
Single unit
Landlord Type: 
Private Landlord -- No Rent Control

I lost my home of 15 yrs in Ceres in 2008. Moved into a rental in Modesto,Ca. till March 2011 when the landlord foreclosed on the home while taking rent from us. We had to move. My wife and I with our two sons, entered a rental agreement of a 3 bedroom,2 bath home in April 2011 in Ceres,Ca. from a senior couple. Those familiar with the public school system,in order for my kids to remain with their classmates, we have to live in a certain district. So this home was in the district we needed. A very nice home in a court.1100 deposit, 1100 per month. THe red flag was the fact that the landlord and his wife, both retired, lived next door. My wife, in love with the home, and the fact that she always wanted a house in a court would be nice.The couple seemed nice, said it was their first time renting a house. He walked us through the house, the carpet was disgusting, another red flag, lots of blue ink stains? in alot of the rooms, only the kitchen seemed to be painted.Unfortunately we naively didn't take pictures of the house before moving in in hindsight. The first couple weeks we noticed the shower would soak the carpet, and drywall. It appeared to have been simply painted over the rot on the drywall but clearly still moldy and causing the linoleum to start to peal up on the corners where the moisture built up. I notify the landlord, and fortunately it was covered under a warranty he purchased. He declined the repair and told me to "not splash so much". Subsequently, the water heater went out, and got the same reluctance to repair anything, and he became increasingly more resistant to respecting our privacy and less friendly. THen at about a year into renting, he began entering the house through the back yard, and into the garage then into the house. My family and I would be eating dinner and suddenly he would be standing in the dinning room completely un- announced. I would be in my garage, and feel someone watching me, spin around to see him standing there!It began to get annoying, and starting arguments with my spouse over letting her talk me into moving next to our landlord.He started to yell at my kids about the height of the grass not matching his.My youngest is autistic, he would never speak or look at my land lord again.God help me I wanted to put hands on him. It came to a head on June 23,2014 when he caught me on a bad day from work, and I told him he is to never enter the house but through the front door. Two days later, I got a note on my door from Woodside Property Management saying they were taking over the property, and that they were Evicting me! I called them and asked them why they were evicting me, and that I have no signed contract with them. So my wife and I futility go to the landlord to ask why they were evicting us,and that we had till Aug. 31st to be out or they would file an unlawful detainer. They said it was because of what I said, and that "we thought we were friends." they said. So I told them we were not going to stay any longer than physically possible. We immediately began to pack up to move our belongings into storage with no place to go but out by the end of July. I declined to pay rent as we are a single income family, and would need a minimum of $3,000 to move by the end of the month. By July 14th, 17 days after my 60 day notice, my former landlord, not Woodside, filed for "Unlawful Detainer" Turns out my former landlord has a criminal record, and his some who stayed with them frequently, is also a registered sex offender,which might explain why I kept catching him looking in our windows at night and which might also explain his immediate lawyer up when I said I was going to call the police the next time he trespassed.He said he "will throw us out on the street" He got "the best eviction attorney in Modesto" We were out by July 28th, signed a lease on July 30th, but reluctant to return the keys till our trial date. I called around trying to find an attorney that would help a tenant. One attorney told me to turn in the keys to the house immediately. So I did on Aug. 16th. Our court date was on Aug. 26th. Stipulated that the landlord initiated a breach of contract under California Civil Code 1927 peaceable enjoyment, I call him on it, and he retaliated by evicting a PAID tenant which is California Civil Code 1955 sec (F) It is unlawful to evict, or discriminate or retaliate against a tenant for pointing out the violations, not to mention his reluctance to repair the house. Now, I lost the case, I have a bill from the courts for $2138, and another from Woodside Property Management wanting $5076 payment for erroneous charges like $375 for window cleaning, $871 for "touch up painting labor" $770 for paint, $475 for carpet cleaning, nevermind that we had receipts to having the carpets professionally cleaned. And an itemized list of all the things I complained about the landlord refusing to pay to fix, I am now expected to repair. What happened to reasonable wear? We spent a week straight cleaning everything in that house, even left the new dishwasher we installed as the original leaked and didn't want to bother with tightwad. So, in summary,this is my second rental in 20 yrs, I now owe over $7,000, my credit is going to take a hit,which will negate our planning on buying a house in Jan. to get out of this renting fiasco.We will be red flagged to property management companies thus limiting the places we can rent. All because I got tired of catching my creepy felon landlord walking into our house repeatedly, and spying on my boys undressing in their rooms, and confronted him on it.Many life lessons learned. One of them, there is no justice for tenants.Why? Because there is no money in it. Money buys justice. There are no attorneys for the tenant out there, and no you don't have a right to privacy. How many more victims with this rental property will there be before the judge would agree there is a problem with having the owner of a house living right next door. Sounds like a perfect set up for a pedophile. Hey, he got away with it right? That man will find a renter that will be far less tolerant of his behavior and he may get himself hurt, or even shot.Just remember, you think you know somebody, but just because a person is old, doesn't mean they aren't still shady, sneaky, with vendictive and evil qualities. Those kid of people get old too, not everyone grows up to be a nice grandpa.I want to appeal the case, but I need an attorney that will fight for what is right! but using that sentence with the word attorney in it is hard to do. There is my frustrating story. my head is spinning with feeling violated, not to mention the stress my family has gone through. I can't imagine how it has affected my kids approval of me as a providing father and husband. I pray for Karma to even the score at this point. Signed, your bitter guest-Glenn-

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