We just vacated a house that we rented in Hawaii for the past year, to relocate to Chicago. Our cats did some damage to a carpet to the point of needing replacement, which we paid for. Our son managed to snag and tear a curtain with one of his toys, and I replaced that before leaving. Anything along those lines I either took care of before leaving or agreed to pay for repair/replacement.
There is one item though that our landlords are now asking about that doesn't feel like we should be responsible for. When we moved in, our landlords advised us that there was a swinging chair in the garage that we could put up if we wanted to. They'd never used it or hung it up since they only bought the house less than a month before we moved in. I decided to put it up while home one afternoon. Less than 30 seconds after sitting on it both straps at the upper end snapped off entirely, dropping me headfirst on to the floor of the balcony. I weighed 215-220lbs at the time, so not an excessive weight that perhaps should have expected issues. The chair was just flimsy and likely on the old side.
We bought a nice swinging chair of our own to use instead for the remainder of the year, after notifying our landlords of what had happened and storing the old chair in the garage at their request. We opted not to bring it with us given the unlikelihood of being able to use it in a new rental, and when one of our neighbors asked if they could have it at a goodbye party my wife have it to them.
Our landlords are now asking us to either request the return of our newer chair from the neighbors, or buy a replacement chair for them. Is this reasonable? If the old chair had been functional for almost any period of time, I wouldn't have a problem with this. But for something they had never actually tested that broke immediately upon first use and was of unknown age, well, I don't feel like we owe them a new chair.
So, any thoughts or advice about how to respond?
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Do you have the receipt of you buying your own? Does your lease make mention of the chair? Do you have any documentation that you told them it broke to accompany it?
The easiest thing would be to have amazon ship her a damn chair and not jeopardize the reference since we need to rent for one more year, but I really don't feel like this should be on us and paying for it bothers me to a surprising degree.
Realistically though, pay the 43 bucks if you need a good reference.
otherwise it's 1) something you were authorized to use and 2) it broke in the course of regular use. It isn't your responsibility to replace it.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
No, part of the landlord provided fixtures and fittings broke during normal use. It was in fact if anything the Landlord's responsibility to replace it no matter how far into the lease it broke.
If you bought your own one the landlord has less than no claim to it. Is it worth reminding them that you bought it, not them? They might have simply forgotten that the original one broke.
If they're insistent, then yeah a few bucks for the chair is probably a better deal than an argument, but they're utter jerks.
The way the chair broke is under reasonable use. A comparable example for renting is if you opened a door in a normal fashion and it fell off its hinges. The owner would have to repair it.
Saying that. If you need to reference I'd replace it and just feel angry about it in private.
Satans..... hints.....
That said, you've acknowledged you need them or may need them for a reference. Is that reference worth $45? Is the principle of things worth the added difficulty / costs you might face without that reference? Probably not.
So just buy the damn chair, steam about it for a few minutes, and forget it ever happened. It's better than having to deal with bullshit in a year because your old landlord is telling your new potential landlord that you break things and don't replace them.
No, don't do that. If $45 is not a major expense for you, buy and ship it to them and be done with it.
Also welcome back to Chicago!
Thanks, MichaelLC. Currently arranging viewings in scenic Naperville. Uhh, hooray. Or something. All of these little subdivision and apartment community names sound the same to me, making it surprisingly difficult sometimes to figure out whether we've already been to a unit in a complex that has placed an ad.