Due to a current situation I ended up having to take in mother's dog (she is ill) for a week. Well, sure enough, the leasing office found out there was a dog in my apartment. They created a bogus maintenance request to enter my apartment and check things out, then the nasty letter came. A second time that week, someone had entered my apartment when I was not home. The dog went to her new home on Tuesday (she was only here for a week) and the property management company has been in my home twice while no one was home (always know when they have been here because they apparently double lock the door).

I spoke to the property manager and told her the situation, the dog was going, and wrote a letter stating I had no problem with them entering my apartment but would appreciate it if they left a notice they had entered and the reason why. Nope, they still keep coming in and checking, no notice. This is now 4 times in 2 weeks, which is kind of irritating considering the dog is gone and I am not violating my lease. I had called a local non profit neighborhood advocacy group to find out that is IS legal for a landlord to enter any time they want if they think I am in violation of my lease. Hopefully this will be it and they will stop coming in. But I do have to wonder where you draw the line between invasion of privacy and the right to quiet enjoyment. Needless to say I started contacting mortgage brokers this week!

The irony of the situation is, when you call maintenance to fix something they always seem to lose the request and it usually takes several calls to get them in here. But if they think you have a pet that is not on the lease, they come in right away to fix something that was never broken. How ironic!

Hello Angelic:

Most state landlord/tenant law requires that the landlord give reasonable notice before entering, unless there's an emergency. Without knowing where you live, I'll presume that your state has the same provision.

Therefore, write your landlord a letter. Send it certified, return receipt requested. Tell them that they are in violation of paragraph # ---, and state law number ##, paragraph ##. If they do it again, you will sue. Simple, straightforward and truthful. The courts in most jurisdictions, by the way, consider reasonable to be at least 24 hours.

excon

PS> You can find your states landlord/tenant law at the top of this forum in a sticky note.