| anyone deal with a neighbor complaint as a subletter?
While I am waiting for my colleagues at lunch...I am the "official subletter" for an apartment in Lausanne (on file with Regie, I pay rent officially, etc). Last summer when I still lived there full time I let a good friend who was down on her luck move in to my spare bedroom for free. I found a studio in Lausanne last fall just before I moved to Zurich so I wanted to get out of Apartment 1, but my friend still had nowhere to go so when I decided to move to Zurich I agreed to sublet "my" studio (Apartment 2) and continue to keep my stuff in Apartment 1 and supplement the rent while I was in Lausanne on the weekends. I keep Apartment 2 because I still dont have a CDI in Zurich and I do not want to try looking for an apartment in Lausanne without a solid job situation if I ever have to go back, and because the original renter is taking back Apartment 1 when school starts in the fall.
The upstairs neighbor "Mad Cow" of Apartment 1 is absolutely crazy, the old subletter warned me and I heard it myself for two years (insomnia, screaming, stomping, drama). Evidently one night, my roommate, the sub-sub-letter asked her nicely to keep it down. I never have complained because DUH IT IS A SUBLET SUCK IT UP, I didn't want to take that chance. The Mad Cow didn't like being called out for stomping like an elephant, and made more noise, at which time my roommate asked again.
Then Mad Cow wrote a letter to the Regie saying that she can hear us fight and make noise while walking. It is a patent lie because she is above us so can't hear us walk, and both of us are only there to sleep on different days. I supsect she is doing it because she knows we sublet. Now the renter is all up in arms and we have to have an intervention and a meeting all four of us this weekend. I did not have plans to go to Lausanne this weekend so I'm quite angry.
I have two problems:
1. Has anyone ever dealt with a regie complaint as a subletter? Mad Cow is completely in the wrong, but I'm wondering if the regie won't use this as an excuse to cancel the bail, which will put the renter in a bad place for lodging his kids this fall. I mean, it is our word against hers even if she is the bad neighbor. Did any of you have a similar situation? My main concern is making sure the renter keeps the bail and I am afraid the friend I tried to help has screwed up 18 years of planning for him by going to the neighbor three people warned her about, even if my friend was in the right.
2. Since Apartment 1 is going back to renter, I had promised to friend that if I got a CDI in Zurich I would be willing to sublet Apartment 2 to her in the fall if she didn't find anything else. Now I am not so sure- I had no neighbor drama in two years (and the former subletter in 12) in Apartment 1 because I knew it was a sublet so I kept my head down and in six months she has already gotten a letter to the Regie. I don't have any need for Apartment 1 any more so I don't care this time (except for the guilty conscience for potentially effing up a cool apartment downtown for my renter's kids), but I do not want her starting crap with Apartment 2's neighbors, because I definitely "need" that apartment. If someone is the "official" subletter, how much leeway do they have in dealing with the concierge, neighbor disputes and all that?
Any success stories in dealing with crazy neighbors would cheer me up.
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