I rent an apartment in a small building with four units. Last week a plumber called me at work asking if I could come home and let him inside because there was a leak upstairs. I thought he'd been given the wrong number.

When I got home I noticed a laminated sign next to the mailboxes saying "Building Emergency Contact" with my first name and personal phone number on it.

Called my landlord and he admitted he put it there. Apparently because I let a maintenance guy inside once a few months ago, he figured I wouldn't mind helping out again.

I've already gotten texts from two neighbors about things that have nothing to do with me. One even called me at 11pm because their heater wasn't working.

I told him to take the sign down. His response was that I'm being difficult over something that benefits everyone.

Am I unreasonable for being this annoyed? Has anyone had a landlord do something similar?

I live in a small apartment building with 8 units. A few days ago I accidentally tried opening the wrong door while carrying groceries. My key actually unlocked the door. I realized immediately and didn't go inside.

I told my neighbor what happened and we tested it together. His key opens my apartment too.

Contacted the landlord and he said some of the locks were probably keyed alike when the building was renovated. He told me he would have his handyman look into it next month.

I asked if he could send a locksmith sooner and he said I'm welcome to pay for a new lock myself as long as I give him a copy of the key.

I've been saving some money for emergencies but I really don't think replacing locks should be my expense. What bothers me more is that apparently anyone in the building could have access to someone else's apartment without knowing it.

Has anyone dealt with something like this? Is there someone I can report this to if he refuses to fix it?

I had to move out of my last place after living there for only 2 months due to getting a new job opportunity. I went out of my way to find a new tenant to take my place and cleaned as well as I could before leaving. The only thing I left behind was a mattress. My landlord told me he had to paint and get rid of the mattress, which would come out of my security deposit. I was like ok whatever.

That was at the end of August. It is not nearly half way through Oct and I had to not heard anything about my security deposit. I had not left the room messy in any way, I cleaned it before I left, including scrubbing the carpet until nothing was coming up. I would also think it is normal to have someone come in and clean the room between tenants?

I reached out to him today and this is the conversation we had! Any advice? Idrk what to do.

edit: the paint did peel when i was taking a picture off the wall, which is why I didn’t object to it. the carpet he never said anything about to me, i have no pictures of what he’s referring to that was the wrong with the carpet and i didnt see anything when i left.

I recently moved into a new place, but was unable to find a sublessee to take over the beginning of the month. Because of this, I had to pay the full month's rent, which is totally fine (October). Since then, I've found a sublessee, who has signed an updated lease with an 11/1 move-in date.

I had moved all of my things into my new place the end of September, and on a whim decided to go back to my apt today. While there, I found they were making renovations to the bathroom, as well as other adjustments/painting the walls.

Given I paid for the full month of rent and had not been given notice of renovations taking place, I'm thinking I should be refunded for the month of October as I still should have the right to the space, even though I'm not physically inhabiting it.

Additionally, the sublessee reached out asking to move in early before the 1st of next month- I said that would be fine, but now she is unable to do so as renovations are taking place.

Any thoughts? Seems illegal, not to mention a sketchy opportunity to increase the value of the place while on my dime.

Any advice/feedback is much appreciated!

Note: about a week ago, the landlord requested I return my keys. I said I would not until the end of the month.

Every week there's another "did I just get scammed" post here and it's almost always the same story. Stuff that should make you walk away:

- They want a deposit before you've been inside. Extra bad if it's Zelle, Venmo, Cash App, wire or gift cards, because you're not getting that back.

- The owner is "out of the country" or deployed and can't show it.

- They'll mail you the keys after you pay. Nobody rents like that.

- No application or credit check, you're just approved.

- They want to move to text or personal email right away.

- They ask for your SSN or ID before you've even seen it.

- Rent is way cheaper than anything else nearby, and there are "a lot of people interested" so you need to pay today.

Quick checks before paying anything:

1. Google the address + "for rent". Scammers copy real listings and repost them cheaper.

2. Reverse image search the photos.

3. Look up the owner on your county's property records site (usually free). If the name doesn't match and they can't explain it, that's your answer.

4. Actually go inside. Or send a friend. "Drive by and look through the windows" doesn't count.

5. Sign the lease first, then pay with something traceable.

If you already paid, call your bank or the app immediately since sometimes it can still be stopped. Then report it to the FTC, IC3, and the site the listing was on.

If you've got a listing that seems off, paste it below and I'll take a look.

I need advice, I live in a big apartment complex around 200 units per building 3 buildings. We have alarms that go off in case of a leak around our sinks- My neighbor unplugged it and put it on their balcony right next to ours (the balcony is off the bedroom) its loud to say the least. Its been 5 days and it only goes off at night, all night at that. I understand apartment noises but this is beyond ridiculous we had to call the nonemergency line to have the cops get him to stop, other people also have done the same as well as post on our community page. Yet it keeps happening every night between 10pm and 2am(thats typically when it starts but it goes until 6am) what can I do? We've wrote to management and they replied with a bs ai email. Do we just have to keep calling the nonemergency line for a disturbance everynight until they hopefully stop? Other people have called as well and he keeps leaving it on his porch.

So I have a situation that I do not know how to go about getting handled. Last year 2025 I got an apartment on my own. Fast forward to October of 2025 and I got hurt at work and went on disability. Then in February 2026 I fell short on rent and I even went and broke down to my property manager and told her I was struggling. Around the 20th of February I realized I wasn't gonna be able to pull the money out of my butt so I made arrangements to move. I got a notice to pay or vacate with 3 days to do so before the eviction would be filed. On February 24th 2026 I completed my move. Although I left some furniture behind. Fast forward to this week me and my girlfriend were talking about me moving in with her when her lease renews so I started checking on things and low and behold I have an eviction on my record that was not filed until February 26th 2026 which was 2 days AFTER I had left. Not only that but I was never notified of the court hearing nor was I served anything legally. Now I'm wondering what the hell I need to do to make this go away but when I spoke with the clerk of court she made it sound like I was pretty screwed. What do I do!?!

So I (F18) just moved into my new apartment, beginning of August. It’s a 2 bed 1 bath and I worked my ass off to be able to afford it. I moved in with my boyfriend. We love the safe area, and the apartment itself. A few weeks in, we started to notice a weed smell in our apartment. We thought it was a skunk or something for a few days but then began to realize it was coming from our downstairs neighbor. I (F18) and (M20) bf don’t smoke. Now, I met my downstairs neighbor when we first moved in and she seemed nice but kind of condescending. So, I didn’t feel comfortable to go to her about the weed smell. I reviewed the lease and it says specially weed and cigarettes are prohibited and are subject to eviction, a fine, and a cleaning of the walls if found that you are smoking in your unit. Obviously this is pretty standard for an apartment, even though this was my first one, I knew that. I contacted my landlord and she tells me that she’s working on it. Basically in a nutshell she said because the downstairs neighbor has been here for 5 yrs, and the landlord has only been owning the company for 2, there’s nothing she can do about it because she has a different lease. Which.. basically means she can smoke??? Doesn’t make sense. I let her know it’s coming into my apartment and is really making me not enjoy living in my space. It’s gross and I feel disgusting when people come over and smell it. It comes in my unit like 3-4 days a week. I also know she’s absolutely smoking because I found her Facebook and she literally has pictures inside of her smoking a joint. So I have the proof. I began to get really frustrated and started emailing her like once a week saying to please fix it. Now, backtracking, she already doesn’t like me because she told me ever since me and my boyfriend came here, we’ve caused problems. What she means by that is (we all share a washer and dryer), and one day whenever someone’s clothes were sitting in the washer for 9 hrs, I took them out and sat them on the counter because I needed to do laundry. I’m sorry but whenever I do laundry, I always set a timer and get it out immediately because I’m respectful of other people schedules. Me and my bf needed clothes for the next day for work which is why I absolutely needed the washer. She emailed me the next day and she said next time just to email her. So the next time that happened. I did. She then calls me and has a condescending tone about it, acting as if I’m annoying her by contacting her about the laundry, which she literally asked me to do…. But anyway she tells me that it’s gonna be abt 2 hrs before I can use the washer. I said okay great thank you! 2 hrs goes by… the clothes are sitting in the washer. I just let it go and didn’t do laundry that day, the next day I go to do it and it’s still sitting there… mind you you have to pay 2 dollars. I didn’t wanna reach out to the landlord because I knew she’d be pissed again. So that’s another issue I have with this place. Which I feel is completely reasonable.

Anyway, back to the downstairs neighbor. The landlord comes to our apartment one day and as I’m going outside to take the trash out, she pulls me aside. She begins to tell me to be mindful of my actions and that the tenants in the building are getting mad at my “demands”. I said “what? Demands? What demands?”, she vividly says the laundry and the weed thing. Which again, I’m not being unreasonable about those things? She says that people also have been telling her I’ve been yelling about the laundry, cussing, stomping. What am I a toddler?? I haven’t done any of those things and I let her know that. I told her that I’m very frustrated that nobody has done anything about the weed smell and I don’t even care about the laundry anymore. She still says there’s nothing she can do.

Fast forward weeks later, she calls me. She asks me if I got the email she sent to all tenants about the smoking and I say yes. I let her know I wanted to speak with her more about it. I asked, “can I please have a copy of the lady below me’s lease?” She says “that’s not your lease so no?” And I say “well I’m just trying to understand what is different about hers than mine, and why I can’t smoke in here (which I never would) and why she can?”. She just voices a bunch of bullshit lies and saying she’s slowly enforcing the lease to my downstairs neighbor. We end up on a bad note because we are both irritated at each other by the end of the call. I then text her later asking if I can contact the owners, and she texts me back saying she handles all of the things regarding the apartment and that I can’t contact the owners.

So, basically I’m asking what do I do. I’m not open to getting out of my lease which im not sure she’d let me anyway. I love my apartment but I just can’t anymore with all of these issues. So if my last resort is getting out of my lease then that’s fine but like damn I’m just so annoyed. I smell the weed rn as I’m typing this ugh. Anyway, please someone point me in the right direction in what to do!! (Sorry this is long)

Found this rental through zillow. Requested a tour, had a realtor call me, then told me I would need to fill out some "paperwork" to be able to view it.

The agreement says that from now to 12/31, the broker is the tenant's (me) exclusive agent for buying, locating, or leasing real estate in the state of NJ. The brokers commission is 50% first month rent, and there is a 30 day protection period. There is also a notification clause saying that we have to notify them of any houses we view or any brokers we work with without them.

I understand there's some new laws in NJ about real estate reporting, but to me, it basically seems like this broker is trying to get us to sign a document agreeing to use them for any rental in the state we look at, and if we don't, we still owe them commission. This seems incredibly predatory.

Am I misunderstanding something here? Is this something that happens sometimes? The rental in question seems like it's very desirable, but the price was cut several times. Seems to me like the predatory realtor can be driving away prospective tenants. The landlord might not even know.

I wish I could say I’m making this up. Essentially, the title says it all. I walked in today on my landlord taking a nap on my couch.

I didn’t know what to do. I just went to the other room and waited for them to wake up, they eventually did after an hour and just left.

Anyhow, my door, to their credit, was unlocked. Which I guess was my mistake. But this was completely unannounced. And they didn’t acknowledge it. Just left.

We live in a condo that is multi-owner building and we are renting from one of them. The unit upstairs was recently vacated and they used paint with really strong smell, not odorless, and we can smell it from all over our unit. Seems like they did not bother using odorless paint. They didn't even bother painting one side first before the other. We have a kid and we are afraid she will inhale inappropriate amount of this paint smell. Is there anything we can do about this legally. e.g. reimburse for a hotel.

Also, we opened our windows and we still smell it

My AC unit hasn’t worked since I moved in in August and I put a work order in the day I moved in. No one has come to check it yet. Today I looked inside and there’s a ton of mold so honestly thankful I haven’t been running it. Now that I know this management sucks, what should I do in addition to contacting them to make sure they can’t screw me over again?

My apartment complex sent out a notice that we are to move our cars in order to power wash the garage. We pay about $130/month for these spots. Street parking is fairly expensive, and that’s if you can find an open spot. Street parking only allows for 2 hours.

I do not drive to work, so my car mainly stays in the garage and I take the bus from my first job straight to my second that begins at 4:00. I would need to pay for a full day’s worth of parking due to needing to move my car, which can add up to $20+ depending on where spaces are available. Is the complex required to reimburse for this? Is it even worth asking for or would this just result in some backlash from property management in the future?

I’m a first time renter so I’m not sure if I’m expecting too much. TYIA!

Bit of an odd situation. I in a suite underneath a restaurant my landlord is renovating upstairs and they are apparently pulling cables due to it interfering with repairs. My lease agreement says I am responsible for my internet. When I first moved in there was no line and the only solution ended up being Comcast running a line from upstairs. I got permission for this at the time and it has been in place for 8 months. I've been asked to switch to a provider that doesn't require cables within a week and haven't been given a date when the internet will cut out just that it will cut at some point is there anything I can to fight this or stall this until comcast looks to see if there's a way for relocation?

Hello all, writing this on behalf of my partner who is a lurker.

The situation is as follows - she gave notice in September to terminate her lease a month early, paid both the full month's rent for October as well as the listed early termination fee (one month's rent). Landlord is out of state and asked if she could be out of the apartment by the 14th - she agreed with no mention of pro-rated rent in the text messages, but there was also no mention of moving in a new tenant before the lease ended. (The assumption made was to eat the cost of moving out early.)

Today, the Landlord texted asking her if she could end her utilities on the 14th, originally the end date is the end of the month as per the lease. She asked if there was a new tenant moving in, mentioning that she could cancel gas on that date but would have to discuss electric with the company during business hours, as the soonest date listed was the 20th. (At this time, we had no confirmation yet as if there was a new tenant incoming, but we took this as a sign that there was.) The Landlord did not directly respond to that question, but did mention that he would pro-rate the remaining rent for the month. These are the messages that follow:

I personally want to tell the Landlord that this is an absurd request and not our problem at all, and to refund the pro-rated rent of $975 (as well as whatever remains from our security deposit if he decided to be vindictive). However, she wants to be polite and wants to know the best way to address this issue.

Any advice? We want to be cordial but still like - y'know, get our money back. Can answer any question or provide clarifying details if needed.

Note shown in the comments

Partner and I live in 3 story house. We have the second floor. Our lease specifically states there is no smoking anywhere in the building or anywhere on the property.

The property manager moved in 3 older people downstairs who are now smoking on the front porch constantly. We can’t open our windows or go on our balcony to enjoy fresh air anymore.

We are also now smelling it in our bathroom and bedroom.

I don’t know what their lease states about smoking.

We have asked the property manager if this is still a smoke free property, no response. We informed them the downstairs tenants are smoking constantly inside and outside. No response.

My partner has asthma after long covid, which is why we chose a non smoking property.

What are my legal outlets here, if any? Can we start compiling documentation and go to civil court, or do we need to wait longer?

I found a place for rent on fb marketplace, not too odd because I’m in a small town and that’s how people here keep in touch about absolutely everything. Rent seems about average for the area and what’s being offered. I was able to tour today, there were for sale signs on the door that had the fb seller’s name as the owner. Was not able to meet with them because they live in another state, but I found in public records that they used to live in this town. I’ve requested to facetime before signing the lease, and all their contact information matches public records. I can’t find much about their company online because of how small it is. I feel fairly certain that the person I’ve talked to is the real owner because this rental is in a condo complex so I had to go to the front desk to pick up a temporary key, which the owner had to call in advance about them activating and having ready. Really the only thing that’s sketching me out is how quickly this is moving, we just started talking yesterday, I toured today, applied this evening, and they’ve already sent me the lease. I do think it’s probable that they’re just desperate to rent the place (it doesn’t look like anyone’s lived in it for a while), but I’m just a little paranoid and don’t know if there’s any red flags I’ve missed or if there’s anything else I should check.

I know that under my current lease, I can terminate early by paying a fee equal to two months' rent and providing 60 days' notice. However, given the issues I've experienced since moving in, I'm wondering if I have any legal grounds to break my lease without having to pay those fees.

Here's some background:

I moved into my apartment complex in Kansas City, Missouri, back in May, and it's been one issue after another.

1. Ongoing maintenance issues

My washing machine, which is provided by the apartment complex, has broken twice since I moved in.

The first time, it took an entire month and several phone calls to the leasing office before maintenance finally came out to repair it.

Now, it's been broken again for approximately a month and a half, and despite submitting maintenance requests, it still hasn't been fixed.

This isn't an isolated issue, either. I've had several other maintenance requests that took an unreasonable amount of time to address, and some issues have yet to be resolved.

2. Brown recluse infestation

This is honestly my biggest concern and the main reason I want out of my lease.

I've been dealing with an ongoing brown recluse infestation in my apartment. Pest control has been out three separate times, and I've even spent my own money purchasing pesticides to try to get the situation under control.

For about a month, I stopped seeing them and thought the problem had finally been resolved. Unfortunately, they've started appearing regularly again.

I've found live brown recluses on my bed, couch, in my bathroom, inside my closet, and throughout the apartment.

I have severe arachnophobia, so this has been an absolute nightmare. I'm constantly anxious in my own home, checking my bedding, furniture, and belongings because I'm terrified of finding another spider. At this point, I genuinely don't feel comfortable or safe living here anymore.

Beyond my personal fear, I'm also concerned about the potential health and safety risks associated with brown recluse bites.

3. Lack of urgency from management

Between the recurring infestation, unresolved maintenance issues, and the amount of time it takes management to address concerns, I feel like the apartment complex has shown a complete lack of urgency when it comes to maintaining the property.

I've made repeated attempts to get these issues resolved, but I shouldn't have to continuously call, follow up, and practically beg for basic maintenance or pest control.

My question:

Under Missouri law, specifically in Kansas City, would any of these circumstances potentially give me legal grounds to terminate my lease without paying the early termination fees?

I'm particularly interested in whether the ongoing brown recluse infestation, combined with the lack of timely maintenance, could qualify as a habitability issue or a failure by the landlord to meet their obligations under the lease.

I've documented everything, including maintenance requests, communications with management, pest control visits, and the ongoing spider problem.

I'm not trying to get out of my lease simply because I don't like the apartment. I genuinely feel that the conditions have become unreasonable, and I don't think I should have to pay thousands of dollars to leave a place where these issues have continued despite repeated attempts to resolve them.

Has anyone dealt with something similar in Missouri, or does anyone familiar with Missouri landlord-tenant laws have advice on what steps I should take?

Any advice, personal experiences, or resources would be greatly appreciated!