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No Grill on Deck?!
Akilae729
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So my girlfriend and I just got an email from our landlord saying that we have to remove our BBQ from our deck. Apparently the building owner walked around the building yesterday and told all tenants to remove their grills as this is not covered by the owners insurance.
Well, I just spent $180 on a new grill and having a grilling space outside was one of the main reasons that my girlfriend and I chose this apartment.
There was no mention when we moved in about grills being prohibited and it is not mentioned anywhere in our lease.
Is there anything that I can do apart fro sending a nice email to the landlord asking about possible options? How big of a deal should I make this?
Well, I just spent $180 on a new grill and having a grilling space outside was one of the main reasons that my girlfriend and I chose this apartment.
There was no mention when we moved in about grills being prohibited and it is not mentioned anywhere in our lease.
Is there anything that I can do apart fro sending a nice email to the landlord asking about possible options? How big of a deal should I make this?
Akilae729 on
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You could make a post about it on the Penny Arcade forums.
I'm in a similar boat as our new place has close to 2,000 sqft of terrace space that screams for a nice big grill, but it's against the building bylaws. It's a bummer, but there's not much to be done.
I always find it strange gas grills are considered safer for decks. I suppose in use - gas vs. hot coals, but the catastrophic failure - missing building - is much worse for gas than some hot coals spilling onto the ground.
Just because landlord/tenant law almost universally fucks tenants, doesn't mean it completely universally fucks tenants.
not great for a deck of course, but neither are hot coals landing on it, and that's probably a lot more frequent.
Anyway, the first thing you need to do is go over your lease and make sure there isn't actually a clause about grills that you were just being allowed to skate on. If I'm reading your post correctly it sounds like your landlord/super didn't really care about tenant grills, but the owner thought differently, so ultimately your dispute's going to be with him.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
It depends on where you live, but I'd be surprised if it wasn't legally a fire hazard (especially if the balconies aren't concrete and large)... if you really want to pursue it, it's probably not an issue for your lease but for local fire ordinances. If it's just the owner being annoying you could maybe argue it, but if it's a local ordinance the fact that it wasn't enforced before doesn't really matter - maybe the owner had another property get busted by the fire dept recently, maybe a friend had a fire, who knows, but you won't win that argument regardless of what your lease says
Your local fire department has a non-emergency number, they'll know your local laws regarding grills and apartments and balconies better than anyone. If the fire department says that there are no prohibitions for outdoor grills, go over your lease again, and if there is no language there than feel free to leave your grill where it is.
This isn't necessarily advice, because it's against the spirit of what they're telling you, but you may at least ask if you can store the grill on the balcony without the tank because you have nowhere else to put it and go from there.
Most areas have a 15 foot perimeter around the building because of that. Call the fire department, find out the local laws, write an email back asking where they'd like you to grill on the property (within reason, not 200 ft away by the road obviously should not be the response) and ask why this isn't in the lease at all. Be a dick, but a polite dick.
The only other basis for the ban would be if the location of your grill violated some local law.
Rigorous Scholarship
I am not a lawyer and have no idea whether you are responsible for abiding by building rules not in your lease, but outright ignoring the request could get your landlord fined by the board/management company/whatever
If it's a stipulation of his insurance policy he can 100% by law enforce it even if it isn't in the lease. By law the landlord needs to have insurance therefore, by law, he has to enforce the policy whether on a lease or not.
I get the whole "As a renter you're entitled to everything if it's in/not in the lease". This is an exception to that rule. The landlord can't say to the police if his place burns down, "Well! No insurance!".
It sucks but that's the way it is. Insurance in a case like this mandatory and policies change all the time.
Rigorous Scholarship
It sucks, but it's also surprising you managed to find a place that even allowed grills on rented property in the first place. I've lived in probably 10 apartments over the last decade and I've never had one that allowed grills. I typically just drag mine out 20-50 feet in front of the apartment and grill there so it accommodates the fire code.
edit: best case scenario is that you take this to a small claims court or something and are awarded the right to grill for the remainder of your lease. As soon as you re-sign for the new year it'll be in the paperwork that you can no longer have a grill.
Is having a grill really worth that hassle? Or is it that much trouble to wheel the grill a little further off your property when you want to cook on it?
I've lived in 5 and we could grill on the property, and keep our grills next to the apartment so long as we move about 15-20 feet away when using it. You have more of a chance of a pyro walking up and lighting your apartment on fire than a propane tank blowing up randomly with well maintained valves.
What state are you in? The burn ban in central TX is so severe right now, you can't even say 'fire' outside without getting a ticket.
I think we're saying the same thing, I didn't mean my apartment simply wouldn't allow ownership of a grill, but it had to be operated a safe distance away from the apartment. Unless you're saying that your apartment let you actually grill on your property.
I'll also have to check with the local FD about grill rules. I'm currently living in South Pasadena (tiny independent city) so I think I have different laws than LA proper.
If we do have to lose the grill it is actually a HUGE deal and we would probably try to move out of the apartment. We specifically chose this apartment for the out door space and the ability to grill and entertain. We even asked when we moved in about the possibility of having a grill on the deck. Girlfriend just got a new job on the West Side too, so that gives us even more motivation to leave.
My girlfriend's main hobby is cooking and we already compromised on this apartment because it has an electric stove. She likes nothing more than to grill outside and entertain guests and has an irrational hatred of the George Foreman grill. I also am a huge fan of coming home from work and grilling up some corn, veggies, and chicken every night.
Talk about white guy problems. Banana Republic also ran out of Khaki's.
If the lease doesn't specifically say anything about grills, I'd suggest you get something in writing before trying to break a lease early over this.
I know in the apartments I've lived in in Colorado, most if not all landlords have rules specifically against charcoal grills being used at all on balconies. It's not just due to embers and fuel, burning charcoal produces carbon monoxide. If a tenant on a first floor apartment burns charcoal and fumes make it into the upstairs tenants place, very ungood times can occur.
Whereas with burning propane it produces water and carbon dioxide if i remember correctly.
Little bit tangential but yea.
I agree with your GF, George Foremans while convenient, are no replacement for good ole flame cookin'.
http://publicecodes.citation.com/st/ca/st/b300v10/st_ca_st_b300v10_3_sec008.htm
Seems California updated its fire code to bring it more inline with national standards, because we have a similar rule in Virginia.
Here's a .pdf flyer that they probably distributed in 2008 when the code changed:
http://www.unidocs.org/fire/un-090.pdf
And here's some internet ranting about the unfairness of it all:
http://www.residentialfiresprinklers.com/blog/california-renters-have-beef-with-fire-safety-bbq-ban/
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/616023
I think you're out of luck. The property owner let it slide, or was ignorant of the change. Someone noticed it was against code and warned him/her to have the balcony grills removed.
As a general rule don't be "dickish" to people.
As a collary to this rule, don't be "dickish" to people in an email with people that you have a business relationship.
As a more specific rule, don't be "dickish" to people that you are likely to need to ask a favor from (breaking the lease because of the no grill rule.)
And when you are talking to your landlord in a communication, don't be a dick. Just don't. If you're going to create a nice paper-trail for your correspondence, you always want to be able to share it in a proceeding without it hurting you. There is no penalty for being polie.
Ah yeah, missed your post under all the quotes.
Maybe the tenants can come to some kind of compromise and create a grilling space outdoors. I spent some time at a condo that had public grills set up.
You can still be a dick, and considered one, without turning into a raving lunatic and screaming or writing/typing in all caps. I'd consider someone a dick if they told me I was stupid too.
By no means do I mean to be a dick with my landlord and get in her face. She has been super great with us an WAY better than the crazy lady I had when I lived by SC.
By dick-ish I mean that I was going to politely assert that we were not told of the problem before we moved in, it isn't mentioned in the lease, and the ability to grill was a large selling point for us when we signed the lease.
HOWEVER, in light of the CA Fire Code document, it looks like we're boned no matter what.
Perhaps we can keep the grill and just use little tiny propane tanks (which would be lame but better than nothing). The adapters are on sale at the home depot, and I can score flats of those 1lb containers pretty easily.
What a bummer......
Could just move it 15 feet away from the apartment.
Honesty the landlord would probably rather keep you than A) fight it in court and/or
Yeah, were a 3rd floor apartment so we cant get 15 ft from the building. There is an outdoor space back by the pool area that we could probably put the grill in, but the real utility of the grill is making it an addition to the kitchen.
I ask the landlord if the issue is with the insurance policy for the building or following the fire code, and offer the option of us us using the tiny propane tanks that are within the legal limit.
I doub't that it will come to anything super serious cause actually having the grill out there is flat illegal anyway without using the tiny propane tanks. My girlfriend was ready to have a freak out last night though, it was not pretty.