Neighbors rally together against the new building owner when they start enforcing new, fake building rules: ‘Now, apparently, doormats are a fire hazard’

"New owner bought our building and suddenly we're all "violating" rules that never existed"

"Our building got sold about six weeks ago, and the new owner wasted absolutely no time making it worse. For years this place was old but manageable. Nothing fancy, but people mostly kept to themselves, paid rent, and figured stuff out. Then the sale happened and within maybe ten days we started getting these mass emails about "community standards" that nobody had ever seen before."

"Now apparently doormats are a fire hazard, bikes on patios are a lease violation, window AC units need "review," and people can get fined for leaving anything outside their apartment door for more than one hour. One of my neighbors got a warning for having two potted plants in the hallway outside while she was sweeping. Another got told his grill cover was "visually disruptive." That is an actual phrase they used, which still makes me insane."

via 9VortexScribe

"The part that really gets me is how selective it is. They are targeting the long term tenants way more than the newer ones, and it feels very on purpose. A bunch of us are below current market rent because we've been here a while. So now every week there's some new notice, new inspection, new weird little threat dressed up as "policy enforcement." They even put up signs about towing guest cars before they had given out updated parking permits. Real cool system."

“I know landlords pull this kind of c**p all the time after a sale, but I am so tired of being treated like a problem because I have lived here long enough to not be profitable enough. Has anyone fought back on this sort of slow pressure campaign? I feel like they want us all stressed, isolated, and scared to push back."

via 9VortexScribe

Justice doesn't often come knocking at your front door, but it can come swarming into your email inbox. Either way, when this community was rocked by a new owner, something had to give. Luckily, the kind strangers online had lots of good advice to share, pointing an angry mob (and their torches and pitchforks) in the right direction to get some real change going. The beacon of unity was lit in this commUNITY, and the people weren't going to go down without a fight, defending their tenants' rights and digging their heels into the apartments they'd lived in long enough to see rent control come and go.