Bad news regarding apartment inspection

[Seshat]

Soap and water and elbow grease, followed up with vinegar to neutralise any remaining urea/ammonia, followed up (once dry) with baking soda.

What I'd do in your situation is hire someone to do the soap/water/elbow grease part (basically, professional carpet cleaners). Then spray it down with the vinegar-in-a-spray-bottle technique. Leave it a day, sprinkle baking soda over the floor.

I'd use the time saved from the using the soap-water-elbow-grease technique on TIDYING. Everything that's not currently in use gets put in boxes or storage containers, everything that's IN use gets given a place to belong. Go room by room. Do the kitchen, laundry, bathroom while the carpet cleaners are there. Do the other rooms before or after.
Be ruthless.

Store the boxed stuff at a friend's place, in an unused room, or something. In a month, go through the boxes again, asking yourself if you really, honestly missed each item.

Give to charity anything you didn't miss.

[poofy_puff]

That is a good point. Use EVERYTHING. Especially if carpeting is affected.

[The Gatekeeper]

I also have multiple cats (fortunately under a dozen right now). Poofy is dead on about the vinegar. I add Tea Tree oil to my spray bottle. It is a natural disinfectant, and smells better than the vinegar.

If the stain is deep down, I have heard one method where you saturate the spot with your cleaning liquid then put plastic wrap over it for 24 hours. Remove it, and carefully dry the area. The baking soda is good for scrubbing and absorbing stuff (liquid and odour).

But using the vinegar and TT oil mix is great for everything, floors, counters, walls.

I have an H20 mop for the floors. Cleans using steam. So much easier for weekly upkeep.

From the sounds of it Kelly, for them to give you a notice of potential health code violation your place must be a little worse off than the smell of some cat pee. I'm not much on housekeeping either, but I know that for my and my cat's health that I need to at least keep it sanitary. Good luck to you.

[Cassandra]

I have to disagree with everything posted for the use on cat smell. Simply because I've tried it all and none of it worked. When kitty decided to make my seat in the car into a potty one summer, I tried everything under the sun to get rid of the awful smell. Then I placed a call to the vet who told me to use....LISTERINE! The yellow, nasty tasting, original formula. It worked wonders! I now keep a bottle of the stuff for emergencies.

I'm getting the feeling that the owners are trying to find reasons to get rid of you, who knows why. But, an apartment has to be in really really really bad shape for them to threaten you with eviction because of it being messy. I mean it would have to be where you couldn't walk for all the garbage on the floor. (My one grandmother kept house like that. Made me into a neat freak) But, I'm sure that you keep up with it as best as you can and I'm also sure that it's nowhere near bad enough for eviction. The owner(s) are just being jerks.

[poofy_puff]

I'm getting the feeling that the owners are trying to find reasons to get rid of you, who knows why. But, an apartment has to be in really really really bad shape for them to threaten you with eviction because of it being messy. I mean it would have to be where you couldn't walk for all the garbage on the floor. (My one grandmother kept house like that. Made me into a neat freak) But, I'm sure that you keep up with it as best as you can and I'm also sure that it's nowhere near bad enough for eviction. The owner(s) are just being jerks.

I agree with this. However, if you have something in your lease that says "no pets without written permission", they can make you get rid of your pets or revoke your written permission and make you get rid of your pets. These places hardly ever want people who pay their rent on time to LEAVE. They just want to control as much of your life as they can, and a lot of people will just as soon get rid of their pets rather than move. It is possible that they want to raise the rent on the place and can only do that if you voluntarily break your lease and they can move someone else in.

I am going to try both the tea-tree oil idea and the Listerine idea. I need all the weapons in my arsenal that I can get. It helps substantially that I have no carpets in my house other than the shredded remnants that still cover the stairs from the main floor to the basement.

[/hijack]

[KellyHabersham]

Well, the "cat piss" smell I can see as being a legitimate complaint from management........granted, I was NOT able to smell it at all, but family members who came over to visit would gripe about it. And because the spot where the "problem cat" likes to go was near the front door, that apparently magnified things. But, since the professional carpet guys were here on Saturday, that part has been removed.

The messiness part though.,.....I have mixed feelings on that. Because my apartment was definitley not to the point where there were roaches or flies everywhere, and I didn't have trash all over the floor. However, since our leases do say that apartments have to be kept clean and sanitary, I think that is where I got "dinged".

Anyhow, I do expect that they wil be back for a return inspection tomorrow, and hopefully all will go well........in the meantime, I'm very much looking into affordable condos in the area, and if I've not bought one before my lease is up in December, I'm moving back in with my mom. (Not so much because of this situation, but I've not been happy with renting in general, and because getting rid of any of my three cats is NOT an option, I need to do something else)

[BethB]

Dang! If only I lived in your neck of the woods. I love Love LOVE to shampoo carpets. I know...weird but I feel accomplishment when the carpets no longer have food stains and smell of clean. Makes it all better. And I'd do it for no charge...just supply your own cleaning solution.

[ApolloSZ]

The messiness part though.,.....I have mixed feelings on that.

Personally I'm about to bite snarl and growl at the property manager for the flat I live in. They tried this point on the last inspection, how the bedroom is 'cluttered'.

My comment to my flatmate? - "F**k'em. They aren't my Mother, and have no say in how I live in my room. They could get in, inspect the place, and get out without issue."

When they fix the Den, y'know, the room thats had a leak for TWO YEARS (which, it turned out, lead to the wall and floor becoming SEPARATED) and I can use it to put stuff in, then maybe I'll listen.

Hope the re-inspection goes all well!


Edit - I got Ninja'd by BethB there, and when I saw

...just supply your own cleaning solution.

My first thought was "Fire?"... now I know why I scare people

[jnd4rusty]

I have never rented a place where management was free to inspect my living quarters! I find this a bit disturbing to say the least!! I certainly would never sign a lease if it states that the managers can come and inspect..honestly I don't think it is any of their business, I am an adult and I expect to be treated as such! I have a professional management company that runs my complex and there is nothing in the lease that says they have a right to come in and inpect my housekeeping skills. Check your state laws, because what they are doing may not be legal, unless you live in low income housing and then I think they may have a right to inspect but that is usually the people from the low income housing place that does that and usually only to see if the place in livable before they agree to pay for a part of the rent.

[KellyHabersham]

I have never rented a place where management was free to inspect my living quarters! I find this a bit disturbing to say the least!! I certainly would never sign a lease if it states that the managers can come and inspect..honestly I don't think it is any of their business, I am an adult and I expect to be treated as such! I have a professional management company that runs my complex and there is nothing in the lease that says they have a right to come in and inpect my housekeeping skills. Check your state laws, because what they are doing may not be legal, unless you live in low income housing and then I think they may have a right to inspect but that is usually the people from the low income housing place that does that and usually only to see if the place in livable before they agree to pay for a part of the rent.

I'm honestly not sure what the purpose/intent of the inspections were - all I know is that my lease states that management can enter apartments to inspect as long as they give at least two day's notice. And since this (and last month's notice) didn't give a reason for inspections, I can only assume that it was for non-emergency purposes, and not "really" necessary.

And I do have to say that frequent inspections were not an issue until this new property management company took over last December.......the most we had before were the yearly property inspections from the mortgage company, and with those, they only gave notice to everyone because they didn't have advance notice as to which apartments the mortgage people would want to see.

[blas]

My lease says the same and I have some real winners for a property management company, but even they have enough common sense to only inspect apartments once per year, knowing hardly anyone would rent from them if they tried to constantly check up on us.

Of course, this year they got sneaky and did it right in the earlier stages of spring. When the average person's living space is not the most clean or sparkling.

I personally felt that they had no right to scream at me for having a few light bulbs out or the fact that it was a little messy (not freshly vacuumed or swept).

[Seshat]

Australian law states that the property owner or manager has a right to come and inspect apartments a set number of times per year (I think 2, possibly 4); with sufficient notice. (I think about a week)

What they're allowed to look for is whether the property needs maintenance, and whether the residents are doing their part in the maintenance of the property - ie, not allowing rubbish to gather, keeping it reasonably clean, notifying the property manager of problems that are his to fix, dealing with problems that are theirs to deal with. That sort of thing.

They can also notify the police if they see stuff like a meth lab, of course. :P

They're NOT allowed to complain about basic clutter, religious symbols contrary to their religion, or anything else that's lifestyle-based. ONLY things that affect the building and/or furnishings (if landlord provided); or that affect the neighbours' right to "peaceful enjoyment".

The landlord is also not allowed to interfere with the tenants' "peaceful enjoyment"; except in the inspections-with-notice.

It's been (oh wow) about five years since I was last renting, and my last landlord would do an occasional drive-by, see that we were still tending the garden nicely, and not bother coming in: so it's been a while since I actually had to review the laws. (I LIKED that landlord.)