[Treehugger339]

I live in an apartment complex in Washington State in whichsubleasing is prohibited. At one point, a couple of years ago, I hada problem with my next door neighbor. His snake (not allowed underoriginal lease) got into my apartment somehow, scared the ***! Out ofme, and amongst the hubbub it was discovered that he was living thereunder an illegal sublease. He was served with a three-day evictionnotice and the original renter was sued by the corporation (the snakewas never found, so I lived in fear for quite a while).


Now it seems thatanother renter has been subleasing illegally, and one of his rentershas abandoned at least one non-driveable vehicle in the parking lot.Two vehicles are not claimed by anyone. I witnessed one brought in bytow truck, accompanied by two people whom I think were subleasing anapartment for a few months, or were the guests of a man subleasing,but I have not seen them since shortly after the vehicle was leftthere 2 1/2 months ago. They were definitely living in the apartmentthat, according to the landlord's description, belongs to a person Ihave rarely seen in the five years I've lived here. The extravehicles have made an already tight parking situation worse.


Additionally, thelandlord handles the water/sewer/garbage situation by applying aformula that divides the total charge for the complex by the numberof people living in each unit, among other things. That means that ifone person officially rents it but four people live in it, therenters in the other units are paying for the extra W/S/G used orgenerated by three people that management doesn't know about.


Landlords may havethe most straightforward recourse in dealing with illegal subleasing,but the other renters suffer, too. What can those of us who arefollowing the stipulations of the leases we signed expect landlordsto do to protect us from these situations? What is our legalrecourse?

[joypulv]

You can look up the W/S/G law for WA, online. Where I have lived, it was illegal to make tenants share utilities by dividing undivided bills. If there is too much to read, call the state or the nearest tenants' rights group.

You have no legal right to enforce landlord policy on others. Your recourse is with the landlord. You need better proof than you have mentioned here, which is pretty much guessing, no matter how well.
The usual steps start with written, not spoken, details of what you believe is going on.
Second you enlist as many other tenants as you can to operate as a group, especially easy if they care about the tight parking too.
A proactive idea would be to propose assigned parking, with numbers painted on the parking lot.

Proving subleases is difficult in big complexes. All they have to do is say they are sharing, and federal law trumps landlord policy about the number of tenants. Unfortunately the law doesn't allow landlords to evict people not on the lease (except in smaller buildings in which the owner resides). This came about because of lead paint laws and single mothers with babies who couldn't find places to rent.

[ScottGem]

Are parking spaces assigned? How do you know a vehicle is abandoned? Does the landlord use a management company? If so, is there an office on site?

As Joy said, you have no recourse but to report the matter to the landlord or management company. It appears, from the snake incident that they do enforce the lease if they are aware of the situation.

As Joy suggested, organize a tenants association.

[talaniman]

You report suspicious activity and let the landlord deal with it, or a cop, or your local code enforcement if the landlord cannot/does not. I caution you to use discretion as being considered to be a busybody, or troublemaker has it's own consequences. Talk to your neighbors and see if they share your concerns as the others suggested.