Yeah, Sparky gives good advice, especially with specifics, because otherwise no amount of clean is going to be clean enough for your landlord. It is not your fault. But you can agree to what reasonable things you think you can and want to do, and disagree to constant invasion of your privacy. That is totally appropriate.

Thanks, everyone. I just sent an email, saying pretty much what Scrappy said to say.

As for her coming into my apartment, she did have my permission to come in with the handyman to try to deal with the mice, after I first saw the droppings. Then, once she was in, she cleaned the kitchen. I think there's only been one time that she entered without my permission, and she left my a note apologizing for that -- the guys who put the air conditioners into the windows at the beginning of the summer and take them out at the end of the summer had come on a different day than she'd expected, and she let them in to take the air conditioners out of my windows a few weeks ago.

I also have a raging sinus headache today, and my ears are clogged so badly that I'm having trouble hearing, and I've got to deal with one of my most annoying students this afternoon (I am staying several hours late so that she can take an make-up exam which we both know she is going to fail), so it's just all-around a sucky day.

Wait. She cleaned your kitchen?

Wait. She cleaned your kitchen?

Yeah. She said that the mess (some crumbs on the counter, a bit of tomato sauce that had splattered on the stove that I hadn't wiped up, a floor that honestly did need to be swept a bit more often) was what was attracting the mice, so she cleaned it up and scrubbed everything with bleach. She also took the peanut butter jars out of my recycling bin, because she said that there was no way to totally clean them out, and the little bits of peanut butter left in the jar would attract more mice.

I agree with the peanut butter thing--it's often advised to use peanut butter to bait mousetraps.

I think the landlord thinks she's being helpful--Hil was very upset when the dead mouse was in the trap and I am sure the landlord was concerned. The tone of her email seemed to me to be about how she and Hil were going to fight this together. Coming in and cleaning is obnoxious, but I don't think SHE thinks she's being that way. I think Hil needs to make sure she says she's NEVER had mice and to remind her that the previous tenant had a cat. And just reiterating that she is going to do her part to make her place non0-mouse-friendly, and that the landlord needs to do her part--such as regular exterminator visits, etc.

The tone of her email seemed to me to be about how she and Hil were going to fight this together.

I'm not so sure about that. The part about drawing the line here, and about how I need to keep clean wherever I may end up, kind of sounded to me like threatening to terminate my lease if there were any more mice.

The tone of her email seemed to me to be about how she and Hil were going to fight this together.

That's not how I took it at all.

I think there's only been one time that she entered without my permission, and she left my a note apologizing for that --

Case in point. Didn't she just say she was going to come in whenever she wanted to?

smonster,

you know better than I, but do you think you may have something else on top of IBS? Like could you have a bacterial infection in your stomach or something?

These things from the landlady's e-mail:

The line is drawn: no further problems may ensue, after this episode is concluded (I am hoping that another mouse will come forward).

This isn't in your lease. If she's implying that she can terminate your lease if another mouse shows up, she's wrong. I can tell you that without even looking up your state's tenant/landlord laws.

When she says she's "hoping another mouse will come forward," I feel like there's 2 possibilities: (1) she misspoke and left out a very important word -- "NOT" -- as in "I am NOT hoping another mouse will come forward," or (2) she's implying that since "the line is drawn," she wants a reason to evict you.

Honestly, if you have a chance to follow up, I VERY strongly recommend you ask her for crystal-clear clarification on that parenthetical remark. Because unless it's in your lease that even one mouse is grounds for eviction, then she can't "draw a line." She can fucking well pay for an exterminator every month, is what she can do. That's what *landlords* have to do.

If you are phobic, as you assert, the implication is that you will do anything possible to avoid inviting them.

She can't put words in your mouth like that ("the implication is that you will do anything possible"), and, again, that shit isn't in your lease. However, the e-mail Sparky suggested, that you sent, does cover that point -- that you will do anything *reasonable* to prevent mice. But damn well NOT "anything possible."

She really doesn't sound cut out to be a landlord. Or perhaps she's just not familiar with PA's tenant/landlord laws.

I get rage-y over landlords who turn into bullies, because I had a ridiculous problem with a landlady after I moved out of an apartment.

Every other apartment I'd ever lived in, I always got back my security deposit and had glowing recommendations. This landlady told me she wasn't returning the security deposit because "the apartment wasn't clean." Which was untrue. But more importantly, under Ohio law (at least at that time), if a landlord is going to withhold a tenant's security deposit, then at the time that the landlord informs the tenant of that -- and NOT after the fact -- the landlord must give the tenant an itemized list of what the security deposit paid for. The landlady didn't do this, and I told her that because she didn't, she was required to return my deposit. So then she sent me a hand-written list of things that needed to be cleaned, with dollar amounts -- "Dirty windowsills, $50," etc. (hand to god, she did this), and so I told her that (1) any itemized list needed to have been provided back when she first withheld the deposit, and (2) it had to be from an actual cleaning company, not a hand-written list on notebook paper. (Although #1 trumps anything anyway.)

So she told me that she wouldn't return the deposit because of the "filthy condition" I left the apartment in, which is patently untrue. But neither she nor I had photographic proof. And again, I told her about the legal requirement to give me the itemized (official) list at the time of withholding the deposit, and if I took her to small claims court and they found in my favor, she would have to pay double the disputed amount.

She basically told me that she had NEVER had a tenant sue her, and how dare I imply that I would sue her when I was clearly in the wrong. And by the way, I was not getting my security deposit back.

So I ended up having an attorney friend write a letter on her firm's letterhead saying everything I already said, and citing the actual laws, and sent it to her. And then I got my deposit back, with a nasty note saying that she was getting out of the landlord business because of tenants like me, and how I lost money anyway because I had to pay an attorney (which I didn't), and -- I swear she said this IN A LETTER -- she wished she "had known what I was really like" before I moved into the apartment complex I was in at that time, so she could warn them that I would "destroy property and file frivolous lawsuits."

All because the windowsills were dusty. HAND TO GOD.