# Is my employer/landlord ripping me off?



## IrishinDortmund

Hi guys, I was wondering if someone might be able to give me some advice regarding anissue I have with my landlord/ employer.

I work for a company that rents apartments to international employees. This month they threatened to bring in a cleaning service to each flat (three are currently occupied out of four and there are several empty rooms in the flats).

This, they said, was due to uncleanliness in each apartment which I am aware has been a problem in the past. However,our small group of internationals visit each others apartments and they are very clean from what we can see.

Fast forward to Monday and we were informed that a "cleaning company" had visited our flats during the day and that we would have to pay €75 per apartment for this service.

Naturally, we were all shocked and most of us were aggrieved to have spent our Sundays cleaning the flat. When I arrived home I found that the flat was in the same condition as me and my roommates had left it - it didn't smell like it had been "professionally" cleaned. One of the tenants who happened to be home said that the cleaning people only stayed for around 40 minutes and another person said they did not hear anyone enter the flat at all.

We have read through the contract which stipulates that the company can raise the rent by €40pp for 'nebenkosten' and that they are not obliged to show us bills/invoices.

The company sent us old photos of dirty flats - one of them was a photo that a tenant had sent the management herself complaining about the flat when she moved in! HR sent this as "proof" that the apartments were dirty and needed to be cleaned.

What can we do here? From our perspective, this is a way to raise the rent and nothing more.

At the moment, I have been unable to find a free legal Dortmund and I don't have the money to join a housing association just yet. Is there anything else I can do?


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## Nononymous

The only advice I can offer you is probably not helpful. 

If this were coming from a rental company or landlord exclusively, join the Mieterverein and begin the complaint process. But the fact that it is coming from an employer complicates matters. Could be that you're screwed, so just suck it up, €75 isn't too intolerable I hope. Or you complain to your boss, boss's boss, HR and anyone else who will listen that they are being *******s, and threaten to quit if they don't sort it out. That might not be a smart idea of course. 

One thought - is it possible that the employer has handed this off to a property management company, and is unaware that they are acting like jerks?


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## Tellus

For me it sounds like a bad attitude of the management.
But you get it in your hand..really in your hand, use your GSM, take picts of your work.
Place things like a hair or a €-cent at hidden spots to proof work.
If a professionel clean service did its job, you than can proof it or not.

On the other hand its time to look for another job and flat.
Guess the situation will not change..
If you 're not bound to Dortmund, Schleswig-Holstein could be a good spot for experienced personel in gastronomy, F&B, hotel etc.. 
Actually there are 90% workload and many jobs for young people.


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## Easington

*Rental rights*

You need to have your rental contract checked with the Mietereverein, Citizens Advice Office or solicitor (Rechtsanwalt), then in normal circumstances a landlord must provide evidence of "Nebenkosten" and secondly a landord is not allowed, except in an emergency, to enter a rented dwelling without the person or persons renting the dwelling being present.


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