Is this rental shrinkflation? — OH Landlord rents out garage on the property to a landscaping business even though the family renting the home is using it, and it’s on the lease: 'Some guy pulled into our driveway and unlocked the garage with his own key'

Shrinkflation

Everything is undergoing shrinkflation these days... It's just something we have come to accept.

Without naming names, a very well-regarded and well-liked hand lotion brand my partner and I bought recently changed the design of their bottle. 

But beneath this cool, new, snazzy design, I felt a deeper purpose hid. 

I know, I know, you're thinking, “We came here to talk about landlords, and now we're talking about lotion. What gives?” I guess the common thread between lotion and landlords is that they're both going to try to maximize their profits.

This new lotion bottle design, admittedly, looked flashy. But the price was the same, and its odd-number listed volume of 473 mL had me immediately suspicious that something else was going on here. (Even though it showed a neat 16 FL OZ.) So, the natural cynic in me went home and compared the bottle immediately to the almost-empty one we still had in the bathroom. Unsurprisingly, the old design was even 500 mL, affirming my fears that I had been "shrinkflationed". 

See the photo of my new lotion bottle below, followed by a comparison of the two that someone else made of the same brand that I found in an online discussion. Then we'll get back to talking about landlords.

Is this the rental form of Shrinkflation?

The idea of having your landlord just going around and identifying individual parts of the property that they think you aren't using enough so that they can rent them to someone else is one of those things that is borderline hilarious if it's not happening to you. 

Admittedly, renting a home is already part of, and possibly the origin of, a larger revenue-maximizing trend that dwarfs what shrinkflation ever will be. I am talking, of course, about subscription services. As, through a certain lens of thought, renting a property could be seen as “the original subscription service.” In that you're paying monthly for access to something that you will never own outright. 

Still, employing the strategy of shrinkflation when it comes to a rental property is a bold move. You can't simply redesign a home while the tenant is living in it to make it smaller, and at least during the terms of the initial lease, you can't just go raising the rent as you please. Even after the initial term there are often controls in place regarding how much rent can be raised.

Summary of the Situation at Hand

In this latest online discussion, this Ohio tenant shared their account of the alleged events that took place at a property they claimed to be renting. 

They had been renting a small Ohio house for eight months under a lease that explicitly includes its detached two-car garage. But they were surprised to witness a stranger pull into the driveway of the rental home and walk up and unlock the garage with a key. When they approached the stranger, the stranger identified himself as the owner of a landscaping business and stated that the landlord had rented him the garage to store his equipment.

This, presumably, left the tenant speechless. When they phoned the landlord about it later, the landlord told them that they "weren't really using all of it" anyway and added that the two could play nice and share the space. 

Excuse me, what?

Bewildered, they shared their story with this online community, reaching out to readers to see whether or not they had any recourse for countering the landlord's latest actions. Keep reading to see the details they shared, followed by some of the key responses from the original discussion. 

Afterward, be sure to let us know your thoughts in the comments.

The Original Account of Events

Landlord rented out the garage that's included with our house

Location: Ohio

Story / Strict_Young1546

We've been renting a small house for about 8 months and there's a detached 2 car garage behind it. The lease lists the property address and specifically says house and garage, so we've always used it for bikes, tools, storage etc.

Yesterday while I was watching Kick some guy pulled into our driveway and unlocked the garage with his own key. I went outside thinking he had the wrong house and he tells me our landlord rented him the garage for storing landscaping equipment.

Called the landlord and he basically said we "weren't really using all of it" and there's plenty of room for both of us. Apparently this guy is going to be coming by a few times a week.

I'm pretty annoyed because nobody even asked us. We had already started putting up shelves and organizing everything in there, and now some random person has a key to part of the property we're renting.

Am I missing something here? If the garage is written into our lease can the landlord seriously give someone else a key and rent part of it separately while we're still living here?

Let us know your thoughts on shrinkflation, landlords, lotion, and whatever you can think of relating to this issue.