RUBs - This is a bullshit system to be added to your rent with. This is basically saying “on top of what you’re paying to use, you’re to pay what EVERYONE else in the building uses!” even if it’s divided up. I get fucked over every winter for example, because I use electric heaters in my apartment and nothing gas-related. I’m still smacked with $48 ~ $62 of usage, despite that. This raises my rent up and makes it variable.
No-Bite Management - Management who lets nearly everything go, despite them trying to sound strict. You may be in a bit of a rivalry with a neighbor who likes slamming things or having loud music, obviously breaking lease agreement, who makes you wonder why they’ve gotten away with it as long as they have. You record, you report but management does next to nothing. They tell you to your face that the only way they can move forward, is a police report. Now that kind of thing should be reserved for more escalated and involved cases, not something management could deal with when they were the ones who made up the terms of the lease agreement.
Pets - From experience, people are AWFUL with their pets. Mostly dogs, I’ve never seen anything go wrong with cats, unless the owners don’t care enough to let them run around until they’re kidnapped or ran over. But dogs, they just let them go and go with the barking. Not to mention the dog shit on the ground they refuse to pick up.
The fact that it’s an apartment.
I don’t really look down at anyone for renting an apartment. Owning a house (lol) can have its challenges. I saw everything my father has been through when he was a homeowner. He now owns his home after paying off the mortgage 24 years later. He last told me he was saving up to deal with the chimney. How much is that? North of 5k ~ 15k. Yeah, no thanks.
There is no way I would be able to survive as a homeowner. Sure, the privacy is great and having to do everything you want without anyone complaining and getting in your face about it, is grand. But to me it is just one trade off.
In an apartment, you don’t have to do your own maintenance and maintenance is always on the house. You don’t have to really worry a lot about some things if you truly feel you can’t wing it as a homeowner. I accept that I’m going to be apartment hopping for the rest of my life and with a very soured relationship with my father, there’s no chance I’m getting his home willed to me, not that I’d want it anyways.
The only thing I would want mandated for all apartments to have, is to have all walls completely as close to being sound-proofed as possible. That way, nobody is at eachother’s throats over noise.
It’s also possible to rent a house or own an apartment. Most of those advantages and disadvantages are about the form of ownership.
Apartment hopping is another issue legislation could fix. Here in Germany, it’s really difficult for a landlord to throw out a tenant. You can only do so for a very short list of acceptable reasons, and even with such a reason, it can take easily half a year, if the tenant refuses. 3 months to cancel the contract, and another couple of months to get court approval to have the police throw them out.
You can still do apartment-hopping, if you want to move around a lot. But you won’t be forced to.
Apartments are great:
And if the walls are built well, you have just as much privacy as you would have in a single family house.