Apartment Life: The Family Unit

Dear Tom,

I just read through the standard boilerplate for renting an apartment. It clearly says that if a tenant lies on an application and lies on a lease, the landlord has ground for eviction. I spoke yesterday the janitor, and he has seen the Giant Toad boyfriend in the apartment frequently, which means that the mother who signed the lease brought with her two additional children plus the infant of one of the daughters, and now the daughter's boyfriend (or her boyfriend) has moved into the apartment, which is a one-bedroom apartment. If they were clean and quiet, the overpopulation in the apartment would present no difficulty for anyone, but in fact they are neither. The younger daughter has taken to scattering trash on my landing; there are visitors who throw cigarette butts and matches over their landing to fall on the one at my floor.

They are completely inconsiderate, and if the apartment you're moving them into is the currently empty third-floor apartment that shares the landing with Paul in F3, your problem with these people will not be solved at all. Paul detests them. He detests a lot of noise from his neighbors, and they are the kind of people who spread themselves and their things and their noise all over the place, so just expect more trouble.

I think you should evict them. They are clearly in violation of the terms of the lease the mother signed. She's a liar and you shouldn't let her get away with it, especially when their behavior, as a family unit, is very much at odds with what most of the people in this building would prefer.

Carolyn Cosgrove