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by pleaseplease » Tue, 22 Sep 2020 11:27 pm
Hi everyone, seek for your help as my landlady has been harassing me a lot lately
Lease period: 1 Jan-31 Dec 2020
Room: Common Room
Rental: $800/month, $800 deposit paid
Landlord: Single late 50-ish lady very devoted to her faith, retired, stays home 90% of the time and the 10% is her hanging out with her church uncle and aunties
Agent: No rep for both tenant and landlord
Terms agreed on contract: 1) no cooking 2) no visitors 3) washing done by landlord (out of goodwill)
HDB: She has 3 cctvs pointing to the front gate of the house, her neighbour has 2 of their own,
I'm the only tenant living with her in a 5 room block
Landlady seemed pretty nice for the first 3 months, and this was signed with the thought of me spending most of my time out at work/with friends so I didn't think I'd need to cook much anyway, until covid hit us all.
Case 1: Microwave
Was hoping she would be understanding to at least let me save money & cook some instant noodles here and there, but she say no, so i bought quite alot of frozen dinners so i can microwave them... only to find out one day that the microwave oven was gone, and when I asked her why she said she lend the microwave to her neighbours (ridic), and when I pry further if I could get my own she highlighted that I was not supposed to cook, I didn't know that microwaving an overnight bowl of fried rice would cause her so much hassle...
Case 2: Laundry
Specific clause was "Laundry service (washing of clothing except under garment) offered by Landlord without any cost out of goodwill".. I wanted to do my own laundry with the machine the first couple of times but she stepped in saying that she understands that us working folks are busy so she would do our laundry, hang them and collect them for me (basically just doesn't trust me to use her machine). Things started to get ugly in May when I had a load of under garments for wash for a particular week. She took great offense to that and said that I was throwing shade at her and was insulting her by having her to only wash my under garments, to which I ask how else would I be able to do it if she did not let me use her washing machine, and if I were to insult her, why would I load a stash of them in the designated laundry bin which was intended to be washed....she couldn't answer...talked about being petty.
Fast forward to sometime July/Aug, when the microwave incident happen, she was rolling her eyes while answering me to which I questioned why the need to be rude, she got triggered and brought up the laundry issue again and how she even 'consulted' her church friends about this and they all agreed that I was rude with the under garment incident (lol?)
The clause said she would offer to wash out of goodwill but it did not state that I wasn't allowed to use her machine, yet she didn't allow me to so was I supposed to hand wash everything ? To which I actually did hand wash once and she took another offense on me drying it indoors near the washing area....
Earlier in the year she said she would automatically do my laundry once a week, but I've been here for 9 months and there wasn't a single time where she did it when the bucket was full, I literally had to message her once a week to remind her and she would reply saying things like 'weather forecast says it's going to rain' 'i can't work miracles if it's going to rain' to which i say i don't care, why can't she just let me be an adult and do my own laundry...
Case 3: Lights
Landlady is very frugal, never turns on a single lightbulb in the house regardless if she's eating at 9pm or watching TV at 10pm... She walks without a sound and there were many incidents where I was scared to death when I turn a corner to see her walking towards me in pitch darkness, I'm not too fond of complete darkness so I'll leave the kitchen lights on while I'm showering in the bathroom beside it (and only when I'm showering which is like 10mins a day). She would turn off the lights. There was once I left my room ajar and the lights were on too, I came back from the toilet to find that my room lights were switched off...
Case 4: Delivery
While most of the cases described above were petty and something I could live with for the next 3 months until the end of my lease, what happened tonight was the nail in the coffin for me. I was expecting a couple of packages to arrive and out of the blue she just banged on my door without saying a word. Already scaring the living shit out of me, I asked who was it to no reply, so I swung the door open out of fear. She started yelling at telling me how rude I was for not acknowledging her past few knocks last week to collect my packages. I told her I have never ignored anyone of her knocks, I asked her if I was even home? She stuttered and then proceeded to yell at me for swinging the door open. I merely just swing it bigger and faster than usual, causing no damages to the door whatsoever, and she started screaming, spewing clean versions of cusses, banging the door repeatedly and saying that the only reason she did was cause I swing my door 'rudely'
I'm embarrassed to even have to type this out but it just seemed like soap opera when you're reading it from a 3rd person. I've had it with her pettiness and my fear is with her emotional instability, not being able to form sound and logical sentences that I'd one day get stabbed in the back or something.
There were many other petty cases where she'll just nag at me when I'm minding my own business but that would take more than a page to cover. She definitely is not honouring the "to allow tenant to peaceably hold and enjoy said premises without any interruption" clause. I've been trying to record bits and pieces of when she starts yelling at me as backup and proof
What's the best thing that I could do at this point of time? I have 3 months left but the levels of her anger is scaring me, anyway I can move out and still retain my deposit?