What hours do you let landlord show your apartment?

amother

Magenta

Sun, Jun 26 2016, 10:36 am

To prospective tenants, specifically, though I guess to prospective buyers too if that's any different. We told the landlord 6-7 one weeknight and a couple of hours around midday Friday (Israel, so that's the weekend). I will not show strange men into the apartment when dh is not home- we had someone who was clearly mentally unstable come to see an apartment we were in a few years ago and I'm sticking to my guns. 6 is just doable if dh goes into work early and leaves early, but not earlier than that. After 7 I need my baby to wind down and start bedtime by 7:20 or so.

If you're sensing antagonism on my part, we almost had an electrical fire in the kitchen recently because our dunce of a landlord thought a 10A outlet was adequate for a refrigerator. Other points against him- the roof leaked all winter and he doesn't care; the apartment is on a high floor with no way to keep kids from falling out the windows; we're in one of the hotter areas of the country and there aren't so much as screens on the windows, let alone air conditioning (and there are plenty of birds and insects who consider an unscreened window an open invitation); there are exposed wires in most of the rooms.

Oh, and we're leaving a month and a half before our lease is up and said we would obviously continue to pay rent for that time or until he found a new tenant. I said leaving? Yes, we're moving in a week. The house is full of boxes, laundry, mess. I haven't cleaned thoroughly since Pesach (crawling baby who's a light sleeper- can't make noise while she's napping, can't ignore her awake in the playpen for more than 10 minutes at a time to get small tasks done, can't use bleach on all the mildew at any time because I don't want to expose her to the fumes and did I mention no screens on the window to ventilate properly!)

Another point- we are tenants number 5 in 5 years. I am not the only one who has been unable to stand these conditions beyond one year.

So am I really supposed to drop everything and show people around at whatever hour they feel like dropping in all week? It's not like anyone's going to take the apartment if they ask me anything- I'm not going to lie about all the issues we've had, if I can hold myself back from saying them before asked. The extra week or month of rent is worth it for sanity right now, even if the first person who comes were interested in taking it. Oh, and the rent is as low as it gets for this area- that's how we got suckered in- so I expect plenty of people will come just to check it out who won't ultimately be interested in this slum.