Advice needed - warning, long post

poseidon · #1 08-11-2008, 06:30 PM

I live in a townhouse. Most of us that live here are owners, but we've got a few that rent out their townhomes.

About a month ago, the townhouse next door had a tenant that sublet to another tenant. He's a 18-year old schmuck.

First week he is here, he is walking the first-story roofs. I see him peeking through my bedroom window. I don't care if he wants to see me naked - that's dangerous for anyone's eyes - but I do care about my wife and her privacy. Also, I don't like teenage boys looking into my home.

Went over there, and nobody answered the door. I tried a few times, nobody answered. So, I told my wife to just keep the shades drawn closed until we could figure out the problem. I should have called the cops on him for being a peeping tom, but I figured it would end at that and I didn't do it - I'm kind of paying for that poor decision now.

Three weeks ago, the kid threw a huge, massive party, loud music, drinking, screaming, etc... My wife went next door to complain to them since I had my knee surgery the day before and was immobile. It was about 1am or so, so it wasn't as if we were infringing on his "right" to have a summer party during the day.

One of his buddies got hammered, got into a car, and smashed through another neighbor's garage door hard enough to push her Jeep (which was parked inside the garage) forward into the kitchen wall, causing a decent amount of structural damage to her home as well as her next-door neighbor's home. We had empty beer bottles strewn all over the complex.

This happened about 3am. Cops were called, and this kid started threatening everyone who came outside to see what was going on. The cops apparently took their sweet time (over an hour) getting out to our complex, despite the fact that the closest sheriff's station is about 5 miles away.

Two weeks ago, I had a chat with the renter who sublet to the kid. She had been out of town and had no idea what was going on until yesterday, when the owner whose garage/car was damaged confronted her (I was there when the confrontation happened). I explained to her that perhaps it wasn't the best idea to rent out to a 18-year old kid since 99% of the people who live here are in their late 30s, 40s and 50s, and perhaps they'd be happier in an environment where late-night parties are acceptable and people don't work for a living (and expect a good night's sleep). She was completely understanding of the situation and apologetic and said she would take care of everything.

That, at 9:15pm, the kid starts ringing our doorbell like crazy. My wife went downstairs (since it would take me about 10 minutes to get down the stairs) and she confronted him (you do NOT want to make my wife mad). He wanted to know where we got off complaining about him to his "landlord." She told him that he is in the wrong on this, and that he should not be ringing our doorbell after 9pm. He started screaming at her when she slammed the door shut on him.

I spoke with the HOA president since I used to be on the board. He called an emergency meeting a few days later and we checked out the bylaws. Unfortunately, there's nothing in the bylaws suggesting that a tenant cannot sublet out their home - this is something that is fairly common in HOAs but apparently was not written into our CCRs.

The HOA essentially came to the conclusion that we should call the cops every time there's a disturbance. I find this unreasonable for a few reasons, the most important one being that I don't want to have calls from this HOA become a "nuisance" to the police and have the police decide after a few calls that there's no real emergency, especially if we were to have an actual emergency situation here.

This past Friday and Saturday evening, the neighbor showed a continual disdain for his neighbors and had some more parties. Friday night's party lasted until 1am. Saturday's party lasted far longer. At 3am I got sick of it and I went next door, rang the doorbell a few times, knocked, etc. The tenant did not come to the door (or check through the windows - shades were drawn shut), but did turn up his stereo even LOUDER.

I was going to call the cops, but figured if he wasn't coming down to at least see who was at the door, then a cop wasn't going to be able to stop him.

This morning, I tried contacting our HOA's management company and asked them to provide me with the phone number of the absentee owner so I could ask her to deal with and/or remove their tenant. The management company refused and cited privacy concerns.

The only other thing I can think of at this point is to go down to the county offices and start researching who owns the property and hopefully obtain some contact information. However, I can't do that for awhile because of my knee (car rides are incredibly uncomfortable at this point).

This was a quiet neighborhood until this moron moved in, and I don't believe it is fair to expect me, a person who owns his home, to simply plan on not sleeping on weekends.

Anyone have any advice? I thought about throwing a brick through his window, but I figured I'd be the one in trouble with the law, and they'd probably show up before the brick even broke glass... so I need something a bit more reasonable.

Thanks,
Jeff

*emeleel* · #2 08-11-2008, 06:38 PM

Doesn't your HOA have limits on parties, noise, etc? I thought that was part of what HOAs do.

Where we live right now (trailer park - property here is *expensive* and we had to move because of DH's job) there is no renting allowed. Obviously, that's already been looked at at your place, so that can't be helped. But there are also very strict rules about times of parties, number of visitors, car noise, etc. And there are no parties AT ALL allowed during finals weeks here, LOL! (College town - I can just imagine!)

Depending on your local noise ordinances, if you don't want to get the police involved too often (and I certainly understand your reasoning on that one!) perhaps you (the collective neighbors) could get some sort of legal injunction on him? Some sort of cease and desist, etc.

poseidon · #3 08-11-2008, 06:49 PM

Nope, there's nothing in our CCRs about times of parties, disturbances, etc. Our builder wrote the CCRs, looks like the only thing he really took the time to put in there was protecting himself from lawsuits.

magenta321 · #4 08-11-2008, 06:56 PM

I think I would proactively ask the police what you can do. You are being reasonable, and I understand you not wanting to put a strain on them or be a nussance. However, you have rights, I'm pretty sure. Maybe they can make a suggestion about the documentation needed for the police to step in.

Good luck. We had something similar across the street from us when I was a kid. High School aged kid that owned (yes, owned) a home across the street from us. He and his friends would ride their dirt bikes through the woods at all hours, throw insane parties, and just be terrible neighbors.

Every weekend someone would call the police on him, and every weekend kids would scatter into the woods. The police would leave and the party would resume. It was a nightmare.

Nothing ever really took care of the problem, until he had a little more maturity and the parties became only on special occasions instead of every weekend. Eventually it stopped completely when he sold his house.

I will be grateful now for the neighbors I have!!!

**mjfrombuffalo**[$] · #5 08-11-2008, 09:11 PM

Time to form a bylaw committee.

Our association bylaws include a catch-all that residents cannot cause nuisance for other residents, and that the owner of the unit associated with creating nuisance for others can be fined by the board. When we have a renter causing a problem, we notify the owner and outline what the fine will be for it happening again; on a second incident we fine the owner what we said we would. Bad tenants get kicked out pretty quickly after that.

Your bylaws should at least give the board the right to write reasonable house rules and establish a fine schedule. Our board is able to do this without having to have the house rules voted on by the members or any other procedure, so writing and publishing the rules and fines involved can be done quickly. House rules can include parking rules, rules about loud parties, etc., and don't have to be by-laws if they don't contradict conditions already in the bylaws or restrict inalienable property rights. Our noise rules, for instance, are based on the same quiet hours as the village in which our building is located.

**thinkerlady**[$] · #6 08-11-2008, 09:17 PM

Jeff--
Does your township or municipality have any noise regulations? My township has an 11 PM on weeknights and 1 AM on weekends--you can continue your party, but music/loud noises etc have to cease at that time.
I would agree that you should call the police, especially since the kid has been at your door. They should be able to advise you what to do, and if all else fails, they can probably get in touch with the owner. I should think this punk tenant who doesn't own the home, cannot rule the neighborhood!!!

**jgibson2**[$] · #7 08-11-2008, 10:32 PM

Jeff,
The owner of a home is a matter of public record. In Maryland, you can view the tax and assessment records on-line. This also contains the home ownership and most recent sales data. It's easy in MD, because it's a state function. After searching a while, I came to the conclusion that in Colorado this is a county function and some counties give you access to more info than others. You may have better luck searching than I did, but if you want to PM me more information about your location, I can use that to search more thoroughly. I know I can find information about any property in Maryland on-line. I'm less certain about Colorado.

I'm still not sure about finding the info on-line, but if you use Zillow.com you can find helpful information like the parcel number which allows you to search in different ways for the owner of properties.

Magick1 · #8 08-11-2008, 11:16 PM

Video tape all of the instances with date stamps.

Put together a good string of events together. Take copies of this to the HOA and involve local law enforcement (local and county if possible) and try to get the law enforcement to provide a reasonable course of action.

Around here, parties happen and the police come out, bring their noise level indicators, and cite the people for noise ordinances, each and every time it happens.

It's a pain to call, but it's a bigger pain not to call. Good luck.

poseidon · #9 08-12-2008, 09:36 AM

Quote:

mjfrombuffalo said

Time to form a bylaw committee.

Our association bylaws include a catch-all that residents cannot cause nuisance for other residents, and that the owner of the unit associated with creating nuisance for others can be fined by the board. When we have a renter causing a problem, we notify the owner and outline what the fine will be for it happening again; on a second incident we fine the owner what we said we would. Bad tenants get kicked out pretty quickly after that.

Your bylaws should at least give the board the right to write reasonable house rules and establish a fine schedule. Our board is able to do this without having to have the house rules voted on by the members or any other procedure, so writing and publishing the rules and fines involved can be done quickly. House rules can include parking rules, rules about loud parties, etc., and don't have to be by-laws if they don't contradict conditions already in the bylaws or restrict inalienable property rights. Our noise rules, for instance, are based on the same quiet hours as the village in which our building is located.

In Colorado, if they're not in the bylaws or CCRs, the "house rules" aren't worth the paper they're written on. A few years ago, Colorado passed SB101 which essentially gutted the power of HOAs - some of the law was good and some of the law was very, very bad.

poseidon · #10 08-12-2008, 09:38 AM

Quote:

Magick1 said

Video tape all of the instances with date stamps.

Put together a good string of events together. Take copies of this to the HOA and involve local law enforcement (local and county if possible) and try to get the law enforcement to provide a reasonable course of action.

Around here, parties happen and the police come out, bring their noise level indicators, and cite the people for noise ordinances, each and every time it happens.

It's a pain to call, but it's a bigger pain not to call. Good luck.

I'd have to borrow a video camera... but I am putting together a log of everything that is going on.

**jgibson2**[$] · #11 08-12-2008, 11:55 AM

Jeff,
I was able to locate the real property database for Adams county. All data, including mailing addresses of absentee landlords is on-line for that county. I'm not going to go through the state alphabetically, but if you tell me which county, I'll see if I can find the database for yours.

**mjfrombuffalo**[$] · #12 08-12-2008, 12:35 PM

I would still look for the nuisance clause in the offering/bylaw paperwork, it's pretty much boilerplate and shouldn't have been negated by change in Colorado law. I'd also get a bunch of neighbors together to encourage the board to have the condo attorney look into what recourse you have.

poseidon · #13 08-12-2008, 01:14 PM

Update - I met up with one of my neighbors this morning while walking Sam who actually knows the owner and was more than thrilled to give me her cellphone number. I did have to leave a voicemail, but now I have a name and a number.

poseidon · #14 08-12-2008, 01:14 PM

Quote:

jgibson2 said

Jeff,
I was able to locate the real property database for Adams county. All data, including mailing addresses of absentee landlords is on-line for that county. I'm not going to go through the state alphabetically, but if you tell me which county, I'll see if I can find the database for yours.

Judy,

Thanks, see post immediately above.

Jeff

**jgibson2**[$] · #15 08-12-2008, 01:35 PM

Well, I'm glad it was relatively easy. I'd bet that the lease to the subletting tenant has a clause in it which can help you out. There are a few rental properties in my neighborhood and the one time someone sublet, the subletting tenants were gone within a week after I called the landlord. The fact that they were probably illegal may have been a factor, but I've kept tabs on her rental properties for years. If the tenants are good, she doesn't hear from me. If they're causing trouble or doing things that could damage the properties, she gets a call.

She's much more interested than the police in what's going on in her houses.

magenta321 · #16 08-12-2008, 08:19 PM

I am having condo problems too. I swear this is a nice place. Just, not too nice lately.

First it was the drug sting that Kevin and I accidentially walked into.

Next it was the underaged drinking on the playground and the 25 yr old resident that was supplying the teenage girls with the beer.

Then there's always been the kids hanging out late at night. The security guards go home at 8 pm I think, but the kids are out at 11:30 when Kevin walks the dog. I'm guessing they are out there much later... we're just asleep.

Lately there are dime bags on the lawn outside my door.

We're also seeing drug deals in the parking lot.

Two more residents were arrested last week. The 18 yr old driver was speeding. The cops tried to pull him over and he fled the scene. His 42!!! yr old female passenger had marijuana and drug paraphenalia on her.

We don't talk to the security guards. We're afraid that if someone sees us talking to the guards, they will take it out on us.

When we witnessed drug deals, we're afraid to call the cops because the people selling will know we're the ones who just walked by.

I really don't know my neighbors, nor do I know when there are condo association things. Plus, I'd be too afraid to say anything for fear of retribution. It's a sucky cycle.

mtbat · #17 08-16-2008, 09:30 PM

The renter is acting unstable by showing up and yelling at your wife, you that late at night-CALL THE COPS-don't deal with this guy on your own.

poseidon · #18 08-18-2008, 10:10 AM

Hey... I actually got to SLEEP this weekend. Imagine that!

I talked to the owner of the townhouse last week. I explained the problem, and indicated, "I think we can work this out between the two of us, I don't really see the need to call the cops in on this... yet."

She asked if I have tried talking to her tenant. I explained that yes, I had, at 3am on Sunday and they weren't interested in talking. I then said, "You know, this tenant is causing quite a bit of trouble here. He's trashing the outside of your place, if it were my property, I might want a peek at the inside..."

Anyway, it was a mostly pleasant conversation, I indicated that I don't mind her tenant having a party or two, but she should inform her tenant that about 11pm, it needs to quiet down.

He had a party on Friday, and right at about 11, the music stopped.

Magick1 · #19 08-18-2008, 12:45 PM

That's a plus. Let's hope it continues!

**jgibson2**[$] · #20 08-18-2008, 10:55 PM

Owner-landlords can be amazingly helpful when it comes to problem tenants. I'm sure she must have reminded the tenant of clauses in the lease that allow her to evict him if he doesn't toe the line.

**mjfrombuffalo**[$] · #21 08-18-2008, 11:04 PM

Quote:

jgibson2 said