DOH ! My new roommate is a lunatic !!!

[TheBucolicBanana]

As Dr. Nick of the Simpsons’ sez :

Hi Everybody !

I live in a 4-bedroom apartment in Astoria, Queens.

I’m lucky in that I also have access to the backyard.

I’ve been living in the apartment for the last 14 years.

The apartment is the entire 2nd floor of a duplex.

There is a 2nd apartment downstairs on the ground floor.

The landlord has what I believe is an illegal apartment in the basement.

The reason why I believe the basement apartment is illegal is that there are only 2 ConEd electricity and gas meters for the entire building but there are 3 apartments; i.e. : mine (the 2nd floor), the downstairs tenants (the ground floor) and the landlord’s (the basement).

In addition, the landlord has usually made arrangements to pay part of the ConEd bill for the downstairs 1st floor apartment.

Another odd thing is that I am paying for electricity for electrical devices that are outside my apartment.

For example, the downstairs light in the vestibule on the ground floor is on one of the circuits for my apartment. I know this beyond any reasonable doubt because occasionally one of the circuit breakers in my apartment gets overloaded. When that breaker goes out then the downstairs vestibule light also goes out.

It is possible that I’m paying for the electricity for other electrical devices outside my apartment but because I don’t have a wiring diagram for the building I don’t know if this is necessarily true nor do I know what those other devices might be.

I have no lease with the landlord but I have been paying month to month for the last 14 years.

The rent checks to the landlord are in my name.

The gas, electricity, phone, cable and Internet bills are all paid by me and the bills are in my name.

So far as I know, my apartment is neither Rent Controlled nor Rent Stabilized.

I assume that this means that, legally speaking, I am living in what is called “UnRegulated Housing”.

I say this because I live in a duplex that has 2 legal apartments; i.e. : the ground floor and 2nd floor apartments. And, as I mentioned above, there appears to be an illegal apartment occupied by the landlord in the basement.

So, that’s the background information about my living circumstances.

Now, on to the problem regarding my New Lunatic of a Roommate (NLoaR).

My 2 previous roommates moved out before the end of May 2008.

My NLoaR moved in as of June 1st 2008.

He took 2 of the 4 bedrooms (I’m using one of the other bedrooms as an office and the other as my bedroom).

He paid the 1st & last month’s rent and a security deposit equivalent to a month’s rent before he moved in.

In early August he announced that he no longer wanted to pay rent for 2 bedrooms.

He decided that he wanted to only pay rent for the larger of the 2 bedrooms (the larger bedroom is literally twice the size of the smaller bedroom).

I said that if he only wanted to pay for the larger of the 2 bedrooms starting as of September 1st that would be fine.

I reduced the rent he was paying by 25% and told him that I would have to find a 3rd roommate to take the smaller of the 2 bedrooms that he would be vacating as of September 1st.

I also told him that he would have to get all the stuff that he’d left lying around in the living room moved out and into one of the 2 bedrooms that he currently occupies as I would have to get the apartment cleaned up for inspection by prospective 3rd roommates.

He agreed and said that he was actually paying $350 a month for a large storage space and would move most of the stuff that he left in the living room out into his storage space.

I also told him that I would be doing a major clean up of the apartment so that it would be easier to find us a 3rd roommate.

Please note here that I didn’t ask him to participate and help with this cleanup.

My NLoaR is something of a passive-aggressive slob.

He developed the habit of leaving garbage all over the kitchen floor, the kitchen table and the kitchen counters.

I thought this was odd as we have 4 separate trash bins in the kitchen and the maximum distance you have to walk to put trash in one of the bins is less than 6 feet.

Because it was only the 2 of us and he was paying for 2 of the 4 bedrooms I accepted the situation and just picked up the garbage and tossed it in the trash.

By the way, I should also mention here that virtually 100% of the housework in the apartment is done by me.

The only housework my roommate has ever done since moving in on June 1st was that once he cleaned the kitchen sink.

That’s it; all the other housework in the apartment has been done by me.

I should also mention that I pay for all the toilet paper used in the house.

In other words, well metaphorically at least, he is wiping his ass on my dime for free.

I also pay for all the trash bags and all the cleaning products used to keep the house reasonably clean.

The only thing my roommate has ever paid for is that sometimes he buys dish washing liquid for the household.

One night, in a calm, polite and matter of fact voice I asked him why he wasn’t putting his trash in one of the bins and instead was leaving it lying around on the kitchen floor, kitchen table and kitchen counters.

He immediately replied :

“Well, you leave your dishes in the sink”.

I was a bit surprised by this but I replied :

“Well, if I start washing my dishes more promptly, bearing in mind however, that sometimes I’ll leave dishes in the sink overnight to soak, will you start picking up your garbage and putting it into the trash ?”

I also mentioned (again!) that I needed him to move all his stuff out of the living room and either into 1 of his 2 rooms or into his storage space as I needed to get the apartment cleaned up as I wanted to get started on looking for a 3rd roommate as soon as possible.

What he did next literally left me dumbfounded.

He actually started jumping up and down and screaming. He then stomped off and slammed the door to his bedroom.

What’s even more amazing is that my NLoaR is a 64-year-old man.

His behavior would embarrass a 4 year old and any 5 year old behaving in this way would be ashamed of himself.

Apparently, he was upset because the new roommate was :

“… going to be treated to a higher standard of cleanliness and hygiene than he was and that just wasn’t fair ! “.

I was completely non-plussed by this.

I wasn’t asking him to do any housework I was just asking him to stop leaving garbage all over the kitchen and to move his stuff out of the living room so that I could do even more housework than I’m currently doing.

I just don’t get it.

Won’t we all benefit by having a cleaner more organized and less disordered and cluttered apartment ?

I had that conversation with him in early August.

Since then we’ve hardly talked at all.

On my side it’s because I don’t want to have a repeat of his command performance of jumping up and down screaming .

Not only is all his stuff still in the living room but also things have gotten worse.

He said he was going to move the stuff he had in the living room out into to his off site storage.

Instead, he moved more stuff into the building.

And here’s where things start to get kinda weird.

He didn’t move more stuff into the apartment; he moved more stuff into the building.

He left 3 fairly big bookcases in the downstairs vestibule.

In other words, the bookcases weren’t moved into the apartment, they were left in the downstairs vestibule where they were in the way of the downstairs tenants.

He left them there for about 3 or 4 days.

Now, my landlord is something of an aggressive, abusive bully. His favorite way of dealing with people & problems is to ignore what they say, make up his mind about what needs to be done and then yell and scream at people at the top of his lungs until the cringe and allow themselves to be bullied into doing whatever nonsense it is that he wants done.

I could give you a few examples of his shenanigans but this is already a very long email and, although his antics might be somewhat entertaining due to the feeling of incredulity they might instill in the patient reader of this overlong email they are not really germane to the theme of this email which is what must I do to effectively deal with my NLoaR.

My landlord kind of reminds of what the noted acerbic wit and groundbreaking anti-Semite H.L.Menken, editor of the American Mercury and The Smart Set, liked to say in the 1920’s :

“There’s a simple answer to every problem … unfortunately that simple answer is almost invariably wrong.”

Well, in this particular instance I fully agree with the landlord in that my NLoaR really deserved to be yelled at.

Anyhow, my NLoaR, after about 4 days or so moved the 3 bookcases into the apartment.

From the landlord’s perspective that’s good.

From my perspective what he did was bad. He just added them to the clutter in the living room.

I have the distinct impression that my NLoaR is making a deliberate attempt to prevent me from getting a new roommate by making the place so dirty and cluttered that no new prospective roommate, other than a financially strapped, desperate lunatic and slob would want to move in.

This is particularly bad as there are currently lots of students in NYC frantically looking for accommodations, as school will be starting up in early September.

So far, I haven’t been able to do any looking for new roommates as I’ve had to deal with this lunatic I currently have infesting me apartment.

Anyhow, I want this idiot out of my apartment and I want to get it done as soon as possible.

So (and, finally !), my question to the undoubtedly sage and intellectually august individuals who frequent this list and, presumably are far more experienced and wiser than me when it come the to obscure lore and intricate arcana of NYC rental law is :

What exactly is the procedure I must follow in order to get this lunatic out of my apartment as quickly and expeditiously as possible and with as little fuss and bother for myself ?

Just to recapitulate, here are what I think are the relevant and most salient details of the situation :

• I’ve been living in my apartment for 14 years.

• My NLoaR moved in this June 1st; i.e. : he has been here less than 3 months.

• So far as I know it is Unregulated housing; i.e. : it is neither Rent Controlled nor Rent Stabilized.

• I appear to be paying for electricity consumption for devices located outside my apartment.

• My landlord appears to live in an illegal apartment in the basement.

• There is no lease.

• The rent checks to the landlord are paid by me, signed by me, and are drawn on a bank account in my name.

• The gas, electricity, phone and cable services are 100% paid for by me and the bills are sent to me under my name at this address.

• My NLoaR gives me checks written under his name to pay for his share of the rent.

It occurs to me that I should also mention that I have no “Roommate’s Agreement” that could have signed before he moved in.

I do, however, tell every prospective roommate that I do have 3 simple rules that I expect every one to follow. And those rules are :

1. Pay the rent on time.
2. Give me at least 1 full month’s notice before you move out.
3. Behave like a reasonable, responsible mature adult.

Given that I believe my NLoaR is a lunatic, I think it is reasonable for me to consider him to be an utter and abject failure with regard to Rule No. 3 .

I just remembered something else.

The phone, cable TV & Cable Internet are all handled by RCN. It costs me about $100 a month.

The previous roommate and I split the cost of these services; i.e. : we each paid $50 a month.

My NLoaR was too cheap to share the cost of these services.

Instead, he opted to use his computer’s WiFi card to access the various unprotected networks in the neighborhood.

In other words, I’m paying 100% of the cost for the Cable TV, the Cable Internet and the phone (my NLoaR has his own cell phone).

The cable connection is in my office. It comes out of the wall and connects directly to a 4-port wired & wireless router.

A few days ago, I looked up at the router and realized that there were 3 computers currently active and physically hooked into the router.

I thought this was odd as I usually have only my desktop computer hooked up to the router.

I was then astonished to notice that there were not one but actually 3 cables coming out of the back of the router.

I followed all 3 of the cables coming out of the back of the router.

As I expected one of them hooks into my computer.

I was amazed to discover that the other 2 cables go out of my office and into my NLoaR’s rooms. I’m assuming here that without my knowledge and without my permission, when I wasn’t in the apartment, he ran 2 cables into my office and hooked them up to my router.

In other words, without my knowledge and my permission, and without helping pay for it he’s using my cable Internet connection to access the Internet.

I’m guessing here that our various anonymous neighbors got tired of providing him with free Internet access and password protected their networks when they realized someone was using their networks to access the Internet without their permission.

Once I realized what was going on I decided that my NLoaR has to go.

I called a carpenter friend in and had him put locks on the all the doors to my bedroom and my office that my NLoaR had unrestricted access to.

Now, other than picking the locks (which won’t work with 2 of the doors as they’re actually padlocked on my side) he can no longer get access to either my bedroom or my office without my knowledge and my permission.

Now, I should also mention here that my NLoaR is an Internet Sales Support Representative for an ISP (Internet Service Provider).

He works from my apartment and he is utterly dependent on both the phone and the Internet to do his job.

If I cut off his Internet access then he can’t work.

If he can’t work then he can’t earn any money.

In addition, I can stop him from having a phone company or a cable company from giving him his own service.

I say this because for a phone company or a cable company to give him Internet service they will have to send a service technician out to the apartment and they will have to drill holes through the outside wall. To do that they will have to get my permission and I have no intention of giving it, as I want this NLoaR out of my apartment ASAP.

In addition, it will take at least a few days before either a phone company or a cable company can get a service technician out here to do the work.

So, it would appear that cutting off his Internet access by disconnecting the cables he ran out and into my router without my knowledge and permission might be an effective way to get him out of my apartment ASAP.

So, I guess the questions I have here are :

1. Am I within my rights to disconnect him from my Internet connection that I pay 100% for and that he is using without my consent ?
2. What are the legal problems that I might reasonably expect to encounter if I cut him off from my Internet connection ?
3. What are the potential legal pitfalls I might reasonably expect to encounter if I refuse permission for any phone or cable company to install an Internet connection for my NLoaR ?

And, here’s my final point :

Tort law.

It occurred to me that my NLoaR is conducting his employer’s business (the Internet Service Provider that he works for) in my apartment.

But, my NLoaR is conducting his employer’s business in my apartment in a way, which is causing me significant harm. Specifically the harm that I’m referring to (and, I might add, experiencing) is as follows :

1. If I can’t rent out the 1 of the 2 rooms that my NLoaR will be giving up as of September 1st then I will be out $700 per month in lost revenue.

2. I’m a software engineer with specialization in the Internet and a language called Ruby on Rails. When I’m working on contracts I usually charge $60 per hour. Over the last month I haven’t been able to take on any contracts, as I’ve been busy dealing with the lunacy created by my NLoaR. That’s about 140 hours of time at $60 an hour or about $8,400. I realize that I can’t honestly say that I’ve spend 140 hours over the last month dealing with this lunatic but I’ve been reluctant to take on new work or look for new work because this whole situation has really stressed me out and I’ve got to get it resolved as soon as possible.

3. This whole situation has caused me a great deal of mental and emotional stress.

So, folks (and, of course, folkettes, no chauvinist me!) it occurs to me that I could sue (or, at least threaten to sue) his employer as he is conducting his employer’s business in my apartment in such a way as to cause me serious & significant both tangible (i.e. : $) and intangible (i.e. : mental & emotional stress) harm.

I imagine that if I had a lawyer draft up a legal letter threatening his employer with a significant lawsuit if his employee (i.e. : my NLoaR) doesn’t clean up his act, or, more preferably just get the hell out of my apartment ASAP and send it to his employer it might cause his employer a considerable and significant amount of consternation upon receipt of such a letter.

It could get my NLoaR fired for his antics.

In the very least his boss would probably call him up and say to him something like :

“What the hell is going on down there ?”.

The truth is though; I don’t want to get my NLoaR fired. I just want to get him out of my apartment ASAP.

So, it might be better to have a lawyer draft up such letter and then I show my NLoaR a copy and say to him :

If you don’t clean up your act, or, more preferably, just get the hell out of my apartment ASAP I will send this letter to your employer and you’ll for once, have to deal with the consequences of your loony behavior !

Furthermore, if you really want to push this and you refuse to leave I will file suit against your employer.

I’ve represented myself a number of times in court and I’ve one every single time except the 1st time.

Your employer will have to hire the services of a lawyer. That will cost him $100 to $400 per hour. Your employer’s legal bill will most likely come in at between $20,000 & $50,000.

I imagine that your employer is going to be pretty pissed at you given that your antics have cost the company this much money.

And, then again, there’s going to be the issue of the bad publicity that your behavior is going to have on your employer’s company.

So, finally folks (& folkettes) I have the following questions :

1. Under tort law am I within my rights to threaten to sue my NLoaR’s employer because of the harm his loony antics have caused me ?
2. If I do so, are there any legal pitfalls I should be aware of ?
3. Is this an effective strategy to use to help me shovel my NLoaR out of my apartment ASAP ?

Well, there you have it.

That’s everything that I can think of that’s relevant to the situation with my NLoaR.

I apologize for the length of this post but I wanted to make sure that I’d included all the relevant details.

And, finally, I’d like to thank everyone who has the patience to read everything that I’ve written and the consideration and compassion to reply to this admittedly massive missive.

I look forward to and I immensely appreciate any advice & suggestions that the immensely patient readers of this forum are so kind as to send me.

Thank you.

I’ve really got to get this lunatic out of my apartment (and, more importantly, my life) ASAP.

[TenantNet]

Any chance you could boil that down to 1-2 paragraphs. I will not read anything that long.

[TheBucolicBanana]

Ok, here’s a shorter version :

I live in a 4-bedroom apartment in Astoria, Queens.

I’ve been living in the apartment for the last 14 years.

The apartment is the entire 2nd floor of a duplex.

The rent checks to the landlord are in my name.

The gas, electricity, phone, cable and Internet bills are all paid by me and the bills are in my name.

So far as I know, my apartment is neither Rent Controlled nor Rent Stabilized.

I assume that this means that, legally speaking, I am living in what is called “UnRegulated Housing”.

My New Lunatic of a Roommate (NLoaR) moved in as of June 1st 2008.

He took 2 of the 4 bedrooms (I’m using one of the other bedrooms as an office and the other as my bedroom).

He paid the 1st & last month’s rent and a security deposit equivalent to a month’s rent before he moved in.

In early August he announced that he no longer wanted to pay rent for 2 bedrooms.

I said that if he only wanted to pay for the larger of the 2 bedrooms starting as of September 1st that would be fine.

I also told him that he would have to get all the stuff that he’d left lying around in the living room moved out and into one of the 2 bedrooms that he currently occupies as I would have to get the apartment cleaned up for inspection by prospective 3rd roommates.

My NLoaR is something of a passive-aggressive slob.

He developed the habit of leaving garbage all over the kitchen floor, the kitchen table and the kitchen counters.

By the way, I should also mention here that virtually 100% of the housework in the apartment is done by me.

One night, in a calm, polite and matter of fact voice I asked him why he wasn’t putting his trash in one of the bins and instead was leaving it lying around on the kitchen floor, kitchen table and kitchen counters.

He immediately replied :

“Well, you leave your dishes in the sink”.

I was a bit surprised by this but I replied :

“Well, if I start washing my dishes more promptly, bearing in mind however, that sometimes I’ll leave dishes in the sink overnight to soak, will you start picking up your garbage and putting it into the trash ?”

What he did next literally left me dumbfounded.

He actually started jumping up and down and screaming. He then stomped off and slammed the door to his bedroom.

I was completely non-plussed by this.

I had that conversation with him in early August.

Since then we’ve hardly talked at all.

Not only is all his stuff still in the living room but also things have gotten worse.

He said he was going to move the stuff he had in the living room out into to his off site storage.

Instead, he moved more stuff into the building.

But, he didn’t move more stuff into the apartment; he moved more stuff into the building.

He left 3 fairly big bookcases in the downstairs vestibule.

In other words, the bookcases weren’t moved into the apartment, they were left in the downstairs vestibule where they were in the way of the downstairs tenants.

He left them there for about 3 or 4 days.

After that, he just added them to the clutter in the living room.

I have the distinct impression that my NLoaR is making a deliberate attempt to prevent me from getting a new roommate by making the place so dirty and cluttered that no new prospective roommate, other than a financially strapped, desperate lunatic and slob would want to move in.

This is particularly bad as there are currently lots of students in NYC frantically looking for accommodations, as school will be starting up in early September.

So (and, finally !), my question to the undoubtedly sage and intellectually august individuals who frequent this list and, presumably are far more experienced and wiser than me when it come the to obscure lore and intricate arcana of NYC rental law is :

What exactly is the procedure I must follow in order to get this lunatic out of my apartment as quickly and expeditiously as possible and with as little fuss and bother for myself ?

It occurs to me that I should also mention that I have no “Roommate’s Agreement” that could have signed before he moved in.

I do, however, tell every prospective roommate that I do have 3 simple rules that I expect every one to follow. And those rules are :

1. Pay the rent on time.
2. Give me at least 1 full month’s notice before you move out.
3. Behave like a reasonable, responsible mature adult.

I just remembered something else.

The phone, cable TV & Cable Internet are all handled by RCN. It costs me about $100 a month.

The previous roommate and I split the cost of these services; i.e. : we each paid $50 a month.

My NLoaR was too cheap to share the cost of these services.

Instead, he opted to use his computer’s WiFi card to access the various unprotected networks in the neighborhood.

A few days ago I was amazed to discover that without my knowledge and my permission, and without helping pay for it he’s using my cable Internet connection to access the Internet.

I should also mention here that my NLoaR is an Internet Sales Support Representative for an ISP (Internet Service Provider).

He works from my apartment and he is utterly dependent on both the phone and the Internet to do his job.

If I cut off his Internet access then he can’t work.

If he can’t work then he can’t earn any money.

So, I guess the questions I have here are :

1. Am I within my rights to disconnect him from my Internet connection that I pay 100% for and that he is using without my consent ?
2. What are the legal problems that I might reasonably expect to encounter if I cut him off from my Internet connection ?
3. What are the potential legal pitfalls I might reasonably expect to encounter if I refuse permission for any phone or cable company to install an Internet connection for my NLoaR ?

And, here’s my final point :

Tort law.

It occurred to me that my NLoaR is conducting his employer’s business (the Internet Service Provider that he works for) in my apartment.

But, my NLoaR is conducting his employer’s business in my apartment in a way, which is causing me significant harm. Specifically the harm that I’m referring to (and, I might add, experiencing) is as follows :

1. If I can’t rent out the 1 of the 2 rooms that my NLoaR will be giving up as of September 1st then I will be out $700 per month in lost revenue.

2. I’m a software engineer with specialization in the Internet and a language called Ruby on Rails. When I’m working on contracts I usually charge $60 per hour. Over the last month I haven’t been able to take on any contracts, as I’ve been busy dealing with the lunacy created by my NLoaR. That’s about 140 hours of time at $60 an hour or about $8,400. I realize that I can’t honestly say that I’ve spend 140 hours over the last month dealing with this lunatic but I’ve been reluctant to take on new work or look for new work because this whole situation has really stressed me out and I’ve got to get it resolved as soon as possible.

3. This whole situation has caused me a great deal of mental and emotional stress.

So, folks (and, of course, folkettes, no chauvinist me!) it occurs to me that I could sue (or, at least threaten to sue) his employer as he is conducting his employer’s business in my apartment in such a way as to cause me serious & significant both tangible (i.e. : $) and intangible (i.e. : mental & emotional stress) harm.

I imagine that if I had a lawyer draft up a legal letter threatening his employer with a significant lawsuit if his employee (i.e. : my NLoaR) doesn’t clean up his act, or, more preferably just get the hell out of my apartment ASAP and send it to his employer it might cause his employer a considerable and significant amount of consternation upon receipt of such a letter.

It could get my NLoaR fired for his antics.

The truth is though; I don’t want to get my NLoaR fired. I just want to get him out of my apartment ASAP.

So, finally folks (& folkettes) I have the following questions :

1. Under tort law am I within my rights to threaten to sue my NLoaR’s employer because of the harm his loony antics have caused me ?
2. If I do so, are there any legal pitfalls I should be aware of ?
3. Is this an effective strategy to use to help me shovel my NLoaR out of my apartment ASAP ?

I’d like to thank everyone who has the patience to read everything that I’ve written and the consideration and compassion to reply to this admittedly massive missive.

Thank you.

[TenantNet]

You've got to be kidding. 1-2 paragraphs please.

[dealing3000]

Are you sure you don't write dictionaries and not software? I kid.

Of course you can turn off the internet to his room. You pay for it, not him. Internet is not the equivalent of heat/hot water/electricity.

Tell him you want him out. Give him 30 days and try to be nice about it so he does not freak out.

Getting him out might be tough. It may be worth just moving. Why do you need so a big place all for yourself? Get a smaller and more affordable place just yourself. Living with 64 year old freakshows set in their lunatic ways does not sound like fun to me.

He is your roommate and you want him out. He has no agreement that I can see. Everything else in your post is immaterial. Search the board for evicting a roommate without a roommate agreement. You will need to give him 30 days notcie in writing.

[Landlord's Boy]

He could write a book - or a movie script.