I'm a leaseholder-renter in an apartment with two spaces for rent — one for a roommate, one for a self-contained WFH office. Relocation, new mates or jobs, etc. mean that I end up having to rerent one or the other space practically every year. I've developed a set approach to doing this, which gets me good renters whom I like, and vice-versa. But when they decide to move, most of them forget that I requested six weeks notice, and only give me a month's notice instead. Practically speaking, a month is not a whole month. Typically, most replacement renters only actively seek space for the first 2-3 weeks of the month, and by the last week or 10 days, they've either found something or are waiting till the next month. That means if I don't succeed in rerenting a space in that relatively short window, I have to pay rent on two spaces, rather than just my own. (This is where all my savings went during the pandemic.) Can you help me think out ways to get six weeks notice instead?
I should say I've been on both sides of the equation within recent history: leaseholder-renter and roommate-renter. As roommate-renter, I would never consider places with a roommate lease. I also walked away from places with a million rules.
On the flip side, I don't want to use a lease with my roommates, and I don't really have any rules at all. I seek considerate, smart, responsible types, who keep shared spaces neat, pay their rent on time, and don't cover their rooms in grafitti. To that end, I have great pictures of the apartment, and I show it very clean and neat in a way that matches the photos and illustrates that this is a grown-up apartment worth the market-rate rent.
But cleaning on so little notice is a problem too. As it turns out my last two roommate-renters never cleaned their rooms or bathrooms, possibly ever. The bathroom tub, therefore, was full of mold, the curtains in their room were dirty, the woodwork dusty, and so on. The attached garden (exclusively theirs) usually needs lots of attention too — and I'm getting a little too old for this kind of mad dash.
Please don't discuss my moving into a single (not going to happen) or using leases (also not going to happen). Note also that practically speaking it's tough to talk too much about the end at the beginning when oral agreements are being made. All that said, I've reached a point where I want to take money out of deposits if folks can't give me a workable amount of notice. So my question is: How do I do that? What script do I use? |
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