Murine activity

If I were a landlord who started getting Certified Mail paper trail from a tenant, I think my first thought would be: oh no, what's wrong?!

If there's an infestation in the building, and presumably your tenants have complained verbally to you (which I think we can assume is what happened in this case) and you haven't done anything, you're god damned right you're going to get a certified mail paper trail, because a rodent infestation is a serious health code violation, and you were given a chance to fix it.

Certified mail is not something you should get hot and bothered about; stop being a child. Certified mail is used any time you may need to be able to prove that you sent a piece of correspondence. It's not a little tic box on the postal service form that instructs your mailman to "deliver, with insults, a nasty look and a 'GOOD DAY, SIR!' to the recipient." It's a tic box that says "give me some proof you delivered this to the addressed party."

And if it's just to inform me that they have a mouse problem, I'd probably worry that this tenant is either litigious or we needed to establish a better understanding of the relationship.

Leases are business arrangements, not "relationships." Cordial is of course preferred, and that's how mine is with my landlord, because from experience I know that if I mention something's amiss, I don't even have to ask; he takes care of it. But if I find mice hanging out in my bread drawer and mice crap all over my stuff in the basement, and I ask him to call an exterminator and nothing happens for a couple days, guess what? He's going to get something in the mail from me, and two days later, the health department is going to get a phone call.

Landlords are not there to be your friend or buddy. They're running a business, and leasing property to you for which both of you have legal and contractual responsibilities. These laws and codes exist because since the beginning of time everyone's been trying to screw everyone else. They exist for both your protection and the landlord's. If the landlord is not doing what is expected of them, they're already the one abusing any "relationship", not you.

The laws are written such that you have to notify the landlord in writing there's a problem and that is when the clock starts ticking on how long they have to take action. If you find mice and phone up the landlord and they say "oh, we'll get on that right away" and half a week goes by and nothing's happening, guess what? You just wasted half a week. You call the landlord again, and they say "oh, we're having lots of trouble finding an exterminator, they're all booked for weeks", and you notice the landlord comes by and drops a trap here and there and some poison. And a week goes by and there's still mice everywhere, so you call again. And the landlord says, "gee, I put down traps, we'll just have to give it some time." And then another week goes by, and you finally decide to call the health department. They come by, see the mice, notice the traps, talk to the landlord, and he says "wow, we have mice? First I've heard of it! I'm a good landlord, I take care of my property- see, I put out traps, just in case! I have no idea why my tenant didn't let me know before calling you." You look like an idiot- and you are, because you've been living for a month with rodents.

Didn't I say that if things were getting this bad, you'd better be prepared to be looking for somewhere else to live when the lease is up? If only because if you have that shitty a landlord that you need to call the health department on them, you don't want to live there in the first place?

Just backing up the anecdotal evidence with more of my own. I have owned many cats. Never had a rodent problem at any time I owned one. The one time I did have a rodent problem, I borrowed a friend's cat for a couple of days. No more rodent problem. As a side benefit for my friend, his cat got exercise and interesting dinners.

Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com

except with scummy landlords come scummy lawyers, scummy licenced exterminators, scummy locksmiths, scummy repairmen that can tie you up in court just as easy.

Some landlords don't even get a deposit but can simply sue for damages to an apartment.

But Ive seen it the other way as well, with tenents compaining of "bad air" and getting to stay rent free for months at a time.

And these smaller management companies are the worst because they have people with nothing better to do full time than harrass tenents.

Like you said before, you might have to move out, but then its really you losing in the end.