You are facing several problems. First, to find out who owns the house, check with city hall or town hall. The owner of the property is listedÂitÂs a matter of public record. I suspect one of two things is going on: 1) The woman above you owns the property but doesnÂt want to pay for repairs or 2) the landlords live in Europe and have no idea that she is renting out part of the space. Second, about the broken toilet. Usually, there are regulations requiring landlords to fix things like this, provide adequate heat, running water, etc. Check your state laws on this matter. Ask her again to get it fixed or tell you how to contact the landlords to get it fixed. If she refuses, contact whatever agency your state/town/city has for tenant problems. Tell the woman that you will do this if the toilet isnÂt fixed in one or two days. Third, about the furniture. You can ask her about rugs again. You can contact the landlords. Or you can move. IÂm suspicious that you may be living in an "illegal" apartment, one that isnÂt allowed by zoning laws or that isnÂt known to the owners of the building. If you push the woman upstairs too much, she may try to get you to leave. Did you sign a lease or are you month to month? SomethingÂs just not right with this picture.

I have no idea if this will ever be read, but I have to get some advice from somewhere. My husband and I are divorcing. My daughter and I couldn't continue to pay the rent where we were and I began looking for a place through newspaper and Craig's list. I emailed and text, call left messages. No response. Finally, I received a reply to an email I sent. So I called her and arranged to go see it. It was lovely. It was an upstairs 2br/1ba open concept living room/kitchen/dining area. I was impressed. It is in an affluent neighborhood with a view of the bay. Beautiful. So my daughter and I made deposit and this is where things immediately turned a very quick corner. The woman told us that once we had given the deposit, we could have the keys and MOVE IN WHENEVER WE WANTED. Her exact words. So we did. I would take boxes over and by the 29th, we were bringing the beds. Mind you this was over a 9 day period of time. Once we had the beds upstairs and set up, the woman comes to the stairs and says that her husband wants to talk to me. He then went into a near furious speech about how we were moving in early and wanted pro-rated rent for 29 and 30. I stated to them that maybe I misunderstood what she had told me. And I apologized. I agreed to pay the pro-rated rent along with my regular months rent. I wasn't disagreeable or hostile. But it gave me a bad feeling. And that feeling was right. My daughter and I were getting settled in and I had gotten some of the wax cubes to melt and make the apartment smell good. Just so happened, on this day(only been there less than a week)the DISH guy came to install our satellite. Already okayed by the landlords. The wires he needed to get to were behind this huge, heavy desk, a leave behind from last tenant. The wax basin was lit on this desk. Just as I went to blow out the tealight, they moved the desk and ended up with wax all over the wall! I apologized profusely. The man said, "don't worry about it. Things happens." But when the lady came up (less than a week remember)she went into this thing about having more problems with us in the one week that we had been there than she's had in the 16 years that she's been renting the place. She said she actually regretted renting to us. I was shocked. I told her I would fix what was my fault. And I did. But since then it's been how they were having trouble adjusting to the noise. My daughter is due to have a baby in March. This woman had the audacity to try to assign our rooms to us. When she showed us the place she explained that where the living room is, directly beneath it is her husband's workshop. Double insulated. He couldn't hear us, we couldn't hear him. I get complaints about my grandbaby running around the living room, but from what she told me, he shouldn't be heard at all. Over the workshop, double insulated remember? But now if anything happens I get a "well that's never happened before". We can't run the water at night at all after 10:15. But even if it's before that time, I'm so scared to run the water. That's not the only thing. She said that we were very loud walking around and it's worse when my grandson comes over. So began a very anxious living situation, I'm in the middle of a divorce...which doesn't help. I dread having to talk to her. I'm afraid to walk from one room to another, do my dishes, take a shower, walk down the stairs, go to the bathroom, get into and out of bed, get into my closet. Constant fear. We are on a month to month lease because the house is for sale. I think she is going to give us notice on 11/1. But I feel she's being unrealistic. Her previous tenants were men. And she makes sure I know that.The previous tenants were both men. One in the military and deployed a lot. The other one was just a regular guy. What bothered them about him was his GIRLFRIEND. I feel discriminated. Uncomfortable in my own home. . Any advice?

If the gate wasn't there at all, how would public works crews get access to the electrical pole? My guess is that it would be through your yard or the the neighbors, but there would be a way. In order to maintain as good a relationship with the new neighbors as possible, I'd go over again and let them know that you are planning on locking the gate, as unfortunately your dogs have escaped through the gate. I would take the approach of telling them this as an FYI, not as if you are asking permission. I would not bring up their workmen or the question of who opened the gate and let the dogs out. Just smile politely and let them know that the gate will be locked shut from now on.

My neighbors abandoned a cat several years ago and I did the wrong thing. I was pretty ignorant about what to do anyway, but I regret what happened. The cat found enough to eat. Turns out she had never been spayed. She had kittens under the house of other neighbors who were out of town for months and I was looking after their house. One day I fetched the kittens and put them in a kitten box the Humane Society provided. When I took them in they asked me questions about the kittens. One of the questions was whether any of the kittens had bitten or scratched. And, yes, two of them had, which I told them honestly. They told me they would have to put down two of the kittens. I was so regretful. I could have caught them in a way where it was impossible for them to bite or scratch had I known my honest answer would lead to that. But to back it up even further, I regret that I did not catch the original abandoned cat right away when I realized it had been left behind. Hope you can figure what to do to minimize any suffering, present or future.