Dumping Them Out: AITA
Welcome back to another episode of Dumping Them out. Introduction over.
2 years ago I moved to New York City (technically Jersey City, but real New Yorkers will tell you that living in Jersey City is the same thing). Before that I had lived my whole life bouncing around from different places. I lived in Texas for a bit, followed by Los Angeles, followed by my parents house back in my hometown of Bowling Green, Ohio (because I ended up homeless in LA), followed by Columbus, and now finally New York City (again.. it's technically Jersey City but everyone knows Jersey City is literally the exact same thing as NYC and all real New Yorkers will agree with that. I mean I can get to Times Square in 30 minutes flat using only public transportation. You mean to tell me someone who lives in deep Queens is more of a New Yorker than me? Please.)
Anyways, when I first moved to The Big Apple, I signed a lease for 2 years. Last weekend I made my first move within the city. We upgraded from a 4th floor walkup to a ground floor apartment with a backyard. It only cost us an extra $400 in rent. Sure, we no longer have central air, control of our heat in the winter, a dishwasher, laundry that doesn't require quarters, or a microwave… but we do have the yard. And we have 2 dogs so having the yard is huge.
Except my landlord told me the stupidest thing the other day. Tell me if I'm being the asshole here. I'm pretty sure I'm not, but if you think I am I'm open to hearing you out.
We've had the same landlord ever since we moved here. It's just one dude who owns a handful of properties in Jersey City. We rented from him at our first place, and at the end of our lease when we learned he had another open apartment with a yard. So we jumped on that. He hasn't been perfect, but he's doesn't care that we have pets (at least the 2 dogs he knows about, he's still in the dark about our cats), and he leaves us alone. And it's not that easy to find a place with a yard for a reasonable price around here. So we figured we'd stick with him.
But a few days after we moved, we met up with him to do a walkthrough of our old place to go over any damage to our old place. The walkthrough went fine. But as we were leaving he just casually threw out there, "Oh yeah, and make sure your dogs don't go to the bathroom in the backyard because that will kill the grass."
Naturally, as a person who avoids all sorts of conflict or difficult conversation by any means necessary I said, "Sure man, no problem."
Tell me if I'm The Asshole (TM) here… but that's an insane thing to ask of a tenant right? Especially considering the amount of times we told him how much we want a yard for our dogs. Like, what do you think we want the yard for? So they can get some fresh air?… well yes… I guess we want that too.. but 99% of the reason is so when it's 10:30 at night and I want to go to sleep, instead of having to put on their leashes and walk them around the neighborhood, I can simply open the backdoor.
It would be one thing if he told us that ahead signing the lease. If he's so worried about his beautiful yard that he couldn't possibly have 2 small dogs peeing in it… I would still think that's fucking stupid… but it's his yard and if he doesn't want dogs to pee back there that's his right. But to tell us that after we'd already signed away a year of our lives. That's r
Even though we said it was fine in the moment, I'm pretty sure he could see the look on our faces, so then he told us, "Well it's ok if they poop backyard.. just don't have them pee." Like we can control our dogs bladder. But honestly I shouldn't even be complaining. None of it even matters. I'm still going to have my dogs pee in the backyard multiple times per day. But that just seems like a crazy thing to ask.
