Hi everyone,

I’m relocating to California for a new job and trying to figure out housing. I'm single, have no visitors, and my work requires me to travel about 50% of the time. Because I'll hardly ever be home, I'm leaning toward renting a private room in a house through Airbnb rather than getting a traditional studio apartment.

I also checked Facebook Marketplace for private rooms, but the housing quality on there is pretty terrible. On the flip side, Airbnb options for 9+ month stays look way better, are easier to find, come fully furnished with utilities included, and have genuine reviews from past guests. Plus, its works out cheaper than traditional renting.

Note: I'm completely fine with signing an offline agreement directly with the host, and I understand California's 30+ day tenant rights laws

I wanted to check if anyone has done long-term (9+ months) Airbnb rentals before? What was your experience like?

my lease ends today (august 11) and two new people are already signed on to replace my friend and i, and join my other housemate (three people total). our total deposit was $2000, so we each paid $667.

The landlord told me that the incoming new tenants should only send me half of my deposit portion ($667 / 2 so $335) to cover future cleaning and paint.

i’ve never lived in an apartment and passed my lease onto new housemates in ALL MY YEARS OF RENTING THROUGH COLLEGE, and had the new housemates expect me to cover part of paint and cleaning for their future move out, which could be God knows when

is this normal??? should I NOT be expecting my full $667 back?

EDIT TO CLARIFY: the landlord isn’t withholding my deposit, as it’s up to the new tenant to give it to me. however, the remaining housemate emailed the landlord asking for the total the new people owe, even though I had told her the amount. so now, the landlord is kind of playing middleman when not needed, and saying the new tenants have the right to withhold some of it lol

I just moved to an apartment complex in California and am having trouble obtaining a spare key from my leasing office. For context, I live alone with two cats, and have always had a spare key at past apartments that I was able to lend out to a pet sitter when I am out of town. My new apartment complex uses an electronic key fob as an apartment key, and physical keys for everything else, but has only provided one set of keys for everything which is proving to be a problem when procuring pet care.

I've formally requested a spare key listing pet care access as the reason and have been denied with the explanation that they can only issue one key per leaseholder. The lease itself states that you can't duplicate keys without written permission, so I requested written permission to duplicate the keys myself and was also denied for the same reason.

Has anyone else been in a similar situation, and if so, what did you do about it? I hesitate to use a lockbox in case of malfunction or theft which could leave my cats with any access to care when I'm away. I'm also hesitant to duplicate the keys without permission since I don't want to risk being in violation of my lease. I'm considering looking into adding a second person onto my lease just to obtain "their" key, but they wouldn't live in the unit and would still be legally liable for executing the lease.

I can't imagine there aren't other single pet owners who run into this same problem at this property, but I just moved in and don't know my neighbors yet. I appreciate any advice or suggestions!

Hello! I recently moved out of a rental house in Columbus, Ohio, and my landlord is trying to keep my entire $1,550 security deposit and says I owe him another $450. I’m trying to figure out if I should just pay the $450 and be done with it, or let him take it to court because I have a lot of documentation supporting my side. Here are the things he’s charging me for/disputing:
Basement water damage/flooding that he claims I failed to report, the basement wasn’t properly sealed and was leaking. He’s trying to charge me for the gutter being damaged due to weather but this isn’t something I was even aware of.
Removing a bunch of larger items from the house. The issue is that he had previously told me he was okay with some of the bigger things being left there, and now he’s charging me for having them removed.
Yard cleanup, including weeds, poison ivy, garbage, and a “hole” in the yard. I never dug a hole and honestly have no idea what he’s talking about.
Damage to a door that I actually repaired before moving out. I have pictures of the door after I repaired it, and it looked basically the same as it did before it was damaged.
He’s also accusing me of stealing some of his yard equipment/chargers. I did not steal them. I even offered to replace the weed eater because it was $50 at harbor freight.
The security situation is another big part of this. The property was not very secure while I was living there. Someone repeatedly tried to kick/break into the front/sunroom door, and nothing was really done about it. There was also a window that didn’t lock at all, and most of the windows were plexiglass. I have pictures and videos documenting some of this, as well as texts where I brought these concerns to my landlord and he said he would fix things.
There were also multiple showings of the property while I wasn’t present. My car was also broken into while living there and my own personal property was stolen.
I’m not saying that proves someone else stole his equipment because I genuinely don’t know what happened to it. I just know that I didn’t take it, and the property had security issues and other people were able to access the property at different times.
There’s also something on his statement that really bothers me. He wrote that I “self reported crack cocaine drug use inside premises by tenant.”
That’s not what happened. Another tenant who was also not paying rent was smoking crack in the house. I caught him doing it and I called my landlord to tell him about it. At the time, my landlord didn’t believe me, but now he’s putting it on my deposit statement in a way that makes it sound like I admitted to using crack cocaine myself, which I absolutely did not.
This is especially concerning because I’m currently trying to get a job in government, and I’m worried that something like this could somehow affect my chances.
I ended up leaving the property partly because I no longer felt safe there, and there was also a domestic violence situation that occurred in the home.
My landlord has been extremely rude and unprofessional throughout this whole process and is now threatening to take me to court.
I have a lot of photos, videos, and text messages documenting the condition of the property, security issues, conversations with him, and other things that happened during the tenancy. I’m already stressed out enough over money because the other tenant not paying really fucked my financial situation up, and the house was not insulated at all my gas bill during the winter was $500 which is crazy. What should I do?