Inconvenienced by landlord - is it ridiculous to ask for some money off the rent?

It doesn't really sound like that much hassle to me. You sound a bit high-maintenance. Next time don't take a day off work to "watch over your belongings". Go to work. Let the landlord do what he wants to do - with the roofer, the window people, the plumber. Don't hover. Don't be inconvenienced. Don't be annoyed by the landlord's family (seriously, you need 100% of the fruit on those trees because you pay for the water?!). If you weren't there, you wouldn't be annoyed. So no, I don't think you should ask for money off the rent. You can expect reasonable work hours (say, not before eight in the morning). Did the roofers show up before 8?

am I totally wrong in asking the landlord to take a few hundred bucks off the rent for all this hassle? I think so, yes. I know it sucks because it's all happening at once and it's irritating and interrupting your regular lives and all, but it sounds like he's just trying to make improvements to his property. I would love for my landlord to care enough about his property to install new windows; instead, I've got rattling, leaky windows with plastic over them to keep out some of the cold air. I suspect your heating/air conditioning bills will decrease because of the new windows. It seems like it's just a bad intersection of you and your s.o. having a lot going on, and your landlord sounds like kind of a doofus, and so it's all prickly right now. Hopefully things will calm down for everyone once the roof is fixed. Just try to roll with it until then.

You're annoyed that he's fixing your house? I'm a landlord, and if you asked me for money off your rent in this situation the most I'd do is take off the $30 or whatever for the extra day of window construction. Paying rent on time doesn't make you a good tenant. That's what you're supposed to do. It makes you a tenant. Doing minor repairs is good, but he has no way of knowing that you've replaced an outlet cover or whatever. A good tenant is someone who is understanding and communicative about things like what you're describing, and that's not you. And the roofers generally don't really know themselves when they'll get to a particular job. They finish one as quickly as they can, then move to the next one.

No offense intended, but I think you're overreacting in a way that makes come off as a tad spoiled and entitled. What you describe strikes me as Annoying but certainly not Outrageous. If you're paying the utilities, why begrudge more energy efficient windows, if that is in fact what they installed? Which would you prefer a roof inspection before a leak begins or a roof repair once one starts? And...what exactly is the relationship between intrusive fruit pickers and paying the water bill? You have a very good argument for asking for more courtesy in how improvements are scheduled and performed. As in: Please don't invite the family, please give us more notice, please work with us on scheduling, please remind contractors to clean up after themselves blah blah blah. You don't have a good argument for asking for compensation. Asking for money instead of courtesy seems backwards to me. It may well strike your landlord as um..."self-serving", high maintenance and antagonizing.

ou had the right to refuse the non-essential work, and you didn't exercise that right. I'm pretty sure (not knowing the jurisdiction) that this isn't a right, given notice. The landlord owns the house and can make improvements as they see fit. OP, you're criticizing the landlord for being too active ("They didn't need fixing") and also not active enough ("it feels like it's a little bit of a hassle to get the landlord to act on it".) It seems like you've put the landlord in a position where any inconvenience is a threat to your "sanctuary." The reality of renting is that you don't own the place and thus do not have 100% unalienable privacy rights until you vacate the premises. My suggestion is to either buy a house yourself or re-calibrate your expectations of renting, because any good landlord is not going to put up with a tenant telling them how to mange their investment very long.

I'm sorry, but when I was reading your list of complaints I thought, "Wow, it sounds like a lot of upgrades and fix-its have intersected and the tenants are really taking stressed out", but I don't think you're owed any money. Let's take it case by case. Roof- you mentioned it has been raining in your area. Given how annoying you found this intrusion, I can only imagine you'd be even more annoyed if the roof was actually leaking. So getting this fixed pronto (whenever they can come over) is good. The fact that the roofers (or the landlord, if s/he knew) didn't call to let you know they were coming over, not so good. Faucet- you said it is difficult to get your landlord to fix things, but it sounds like s/he was being responsive to your problem...and got you a new faucet! If I was the landlord I'd come and hover too, because plumbers can be f***ing expensive. Back yard/fruit trees- You've got a point here, but bear in mind the trees have been growing (if they're fruiting) far longer than you've been watering them. This more sounds like a pile-on (you were already irritated by the intrusion, and now you're extra irritated because everyone is stepping on your toes). You're reasonable in being irritated, but unless this happens again I'd just drop it. Windows- your landlord is upgrading the property. You're entirely reasonable in not wanting him to do it when you're in residence...but you said ok. And it is an old house, the fact that the windows didn't all fit can't be totally surprising to anyone involved. It sounds like they tried to finish it up asap (all in one day). All in all - I'd encourage you to write an angry letter, keep it in a desk for a month and reconsider with your significant other, bearing in mind how much of your time it will take you (and how much it will cost) for you to move from a place that you've been pretty happy, everything considered. I definitely wouldn't ask for a break in your rent.

Not only do I think you should not ask for money off the rent, I think you are really exaggerating these minor inconveniences far out of proportion to the situation. We certainly didn't like the idea of a major renovation occurring while we were occupying the property - it seems that that kind of work would be better suited when a house is vacant Seems hard for your landlord to evermfix the windows, then. You didn't opt to move away at the end of the lease, and you insist on staying home when work is being done, so I don't see how he could anticipate when the house was ever going to be vacant. And many tax breaks require you to at least contract the workers for repairs before the end of the year, which explains him informing you about the windows over the holidays. So, he gave you notice, and you agreed. i'm surprised he has to ask your permission, but if your lease says that, then he followed the rules. He also tried to get the roofing contractors to have an estimate done on the same day. That seems like he was doing his best not to inconvenience you further. Your month-to-month arrangement sounds like a temporary arrangement to me, and I think he is protecting his Investment because he doesn't expect you to be around long and he wants the house ready for the next tenant, whether it's his familyor not. The landlord couple then hovered over the plumber as he worked, and several times they butted in and were practically doing his job for him. As I observed this, ultimately ignored by everybody, as we were just the peon tenants, this was disrupting my S.O. who was trying to work in the room next to the kitchen. It hardly seems fair to blame your landlord and his wife for your spouse not being able to work. The faucet had a leak that needed fixing. That would suggest to me that hey, maybe the room next to the kitchen is not the best place to try to get work done! Also, did you want to have to deal with the hasle yourself? If you want the landlord to handle repairs, why do you care that the plumber dealt with him instead of you? The peons remark is just silly. The noise from the roofers coming early I can certainly appreciate was very annoying, because at this moment I have hammering and stomping all over my roof. This has been going on for about ten days now. it's the price of having a roof fixed, I'm afraid. You get used to inconveniences like this when you have a house. Your roof needs patching, and the roofers are going to be loud. My cats don't care for it, either. Now, since you weren't expecting them, I could see that being a rude awakening. But rather than getting up, going out and yelling at them, I would have allowed them to work, grumbly though I might be for not getting the chance to sleep in, because with a roof that needs patching, the sooner the repairs the better, and who knows when those roofers will be available again? Now you will just have them coming back again anyway. It's not like the holes in the roof are going to go away on their own. Now, the fruit thing--do you maintain these trees? If the lease spells out that they are yours, rhen, and you are the ones who prune them and care for them, you certainly could have stopped the 'fruit plunderers' and taken the fruit from them.. Since you didn't, and you don't seem shy about exercising your rights, I'm left wondering if you really know what your rights are regarding those trees. If you want to stay in the house, you could always negotiate buying it from the landlord. Since you don't own it, though, I think the landlord is perfectly within his rights to have work done. Honestly, there's nothing major here to have you so upset. I think the stress you alluded to between you and your spouse is coloring your judgment.

Some landlords tend to have very strong feelings about who owns the house. Thus, they have no problem picking fruit from their tree, replacing their windows, or overseeing the plumbing done on their faucet. In other words, they see it is their home that you are a guest in. I have experienced this several times in the 20+ years I've rented various places. In my experience it tends to happen the most with small-time landlords, particularly those who own a single rental property but also with the occasional hypervigilant soul whose empire consists of a few houses or a couple of small apartment buildings. One guy rented us his late mother's house right up the street from him, then proceeded to stop up whenever he wanted to "chat", mow the lawn at ungodly hours, and coming up with his family to pick blueberries off the bushes that bordered one side of the house (which I had plans for.) He was indignant when the blueberry issue was brought up because they had been "picking those berries for 20 years!" One batshit-crazy landlord of a told us up front about all the scummy tricks she used to get around Equal Opportunity laws. We were very young and desperate at the time so we rented from her anyway, but I guess we shouldn't have been surprised when she also used scummy tricks to avoid giving 24 hours notice before coming over to look around our apartment to see how we kept house; to try to dictate that I could not babysit a mixed-raced baby in my apartment because she doesn't want "them" in here; and to start some shit between us and our neighbor so she would have a reason to evict us. The worst was when we rented half a double house where the landlord lived in the other side. They were constantly bothered by our noise (as if they couldn't have anticipated this before renting to a family with a 3-year-old and two teenage boys?) The husband was constantly coming over to fix little things (not that we told him anything needed fixing, I guess he had made a list in his head in between tenants or something.) He saw we had installed a hook-and-eye lock on the bedroom door and blew his stack over the tiny holes that would be left in the woodwork. The hands-off landlords have been the ones who had a bunch of places and didn't have time to be a pest. Major renovations were only scheduled if they were fixing the place up to sell or wanting to raise the rent significantly. I don't think you've got much chance of getting a rent reduction, at least not without creating serious bad will with your landlord. You might try discussing with them the following: that they give you a certain amount of notice when repairs are to be done, and that your understanding is that you rented the property including the fruit trees, and you would appreciate them not helping themselves to your crop. (Would they raid a garden you planted in the backyard?) But really, I'd be prepared to look for a new place in the near future, because if my experience holds consistent, they will be indignant and unreasonable about being told what they can and can't do with "their" property (never mind that you are paying them money for exclusive use of that property.) Also, unless these are just the most super-responsible, anal-retentive types who just get off on taking super-good shiny care of everything they own, I'd be saving up money to move because chances are they are getting ready to sell the house out from under you.

I agree with those saying annoying but reasonable. I also agree with the voices saying that some landlords really don't think of the house as someone else's home and that is a crappy thing to deal with as a renter. However, new windows are not a major renovation. Knocking down a wall is a major renovation. Tearing out the bathtub and leaving you without a toilet for a week is a major renovation. Replacing all the cupboards in the kitchen, likewise. The faucet and roof repairs weren't renovations of any kind, they were repairs and, presumably, necessary. Repairs are inconvenient, sure, but that's life. It's totally reasonable for the landlord to be there with the plumber. He's the one paying the bill and it's his property. Possibly he thought he was doing you a favour by meeting the plumber and letting him in. As far as the roofers are concerned, I've never dealt with a contractor who made appointments. They come when they are available, and building trades usually begin work at 7 a.m. Again: a pain the ass, but totally reasonable. Neither of these things are grounds for asking for a rent reduction; your landlord is doing his job as a landlord. So: you were inconvenienced for two days for a small renovation. Add up the total number of hours of inconvenience, determine what portion of the month's rent that represents and ask for that back from your landlord. Were they in your home for two eight-hour days? Sixteen hours = 2/3 of a day's rent. If 2/3 of a day's rent = several hundred dollars, then by all means ask your landlord to take that off next month's rent. If, on the other hand, your rent is, say, $3,000 a month, then you should ask yourself whether it's worth your while to bring this up for $67.