landlord entered apartment without permission

[jantunf]

I am supposed to be moving out of the current apartment I am in and moving into another apartment (same landlord) and I have already signed the lease. The other apartment still is not ready for me to move in and I should be moving into it in a few days.

My landlord has been wanting to show the current apartment I am in, and around Friday he asked me if me and my roommate would be okay with him showing it to someone on Monday. We said okay, just give us a call so we can be there. We talked to him several times through voice mails back and forth and at least a couple times I have said, "just give us a call on Monday and let us know when you will be coming over." This is partly because we have a dog the landlord does not know about.

Anyway, today I am at work and I get a call around 11:30 a.m. with a message that says, "I was wondering if I would be able to show the apartment today around 1:30. Let me know" or something like that. I never call back because I am at work and I figure if I don't call, he won't show it because I am clearly not saying that it is okay.

So I head home today and I run into the landlord coming out of my apartment with the person they were showing it to and he said something along the lines of, "I met your dog. I don't think he likes me very much", sort of jokingly and then told me about when I would be able to pick up keys for my other apartment I am moving to.

I feel somewhat violated over what happened because I feel as if I have no privacy. If I am paying for someone to allow me to live somewhere, shouldn't they at least be granting me the privacy that I am paying for? I am also worrying that me having a dog is going to come up even though when I ran into him I said it was my mother's dog.

Any suggestions? How do you even prove something like this? My roommate was still at work even though I contacted her right away to let her know what just happened. Also, there are the calls on my phone that they called but I didn't answer or ever call back.

 

[calalily]

Sounds like a misunderstanding. Landlord needs to rent the place as soon as possible or he will lose money if you move and apartment is empty. Let him know very very politely that because of "your mother's" dog you want to be there for any future showings. Does the aprtments allow dogs and you just don't want to pay a deposite? Find out and pay it so there won't be any trouble in the future.

 

[Cvillecpm]

Providing NOTICE is all most L-T regulations require...you should have had your dog at the "pet salon" if you knew the apt was being shown on Monday....you need to call and APOLOGIZE to your landlord about YOUR misunderstanding and that had you known, you would have been home to take care of the dog.....your BAD for having the dog in the apt in violation of your lease.

 

[brianusi]

You have a dog you aren't supposed to have...nuff said. You really have no recourse, considering you asked your landlord to call and you failed to call back. If you knew they were showing on Monday...why would you tell him it was ok and to call you, when you knew that you would be at work.

Honestly, the dog thing tipped me off. Are you allowed to have animals for a pent rent, or not at all? Either way YOU are breaching your lease agreement.

Brian