I hate my landlord, can someone help

[Letterbox Mike]

I would be curious to see where they are required to notify you. Did you notify them that you had equipment that was sensitive to the power being turned off? That would make a difference.

It's been in every lease I've ever signed (usually 48 hours, sometimes 72 hours notice). I was actually able to break a lease because a landlord came in our space multiple times without notice while we were not present. I'm under the understanding that it's a legal requirement, at least in Ohio (maybe I'm mistaken, but I've heard it from more than one real estate agent that it's a requirement). The way it's always been described to be is basically, unless there is an emergency, what's inside those 4 walls is your property, not the landlord's, and they have no legal right to enter the premises without your knowledge or consent. If you're not doing anything illegal or against your lease, you should have no reason not to allow your landlord in, but this is a perfect example of why they should also let you know they need to be in there while you're on vacation and what they'll be doing.

Had they informed the OP of their plans, my guess is he would have made it clear that his equipment cannot be without power for an extended period of time and he wouldn't be in the situation he is in.

Even if it's not in his lease, I still think the landlord is liable, there is no reasonable excuse for leaving power turned off to a tenant's space for a week, knowing the space is full of computer and printing equipment. Hell, I'd be angry as all get out if they did that and the worst that happened was our fridge and freezer defrosted and leaked on the carpet. That alone is a violation by the landlord, shutting down equipment for a week is absurd, especially for work on or replace an HVAC system, for which the power shouldn't need to be out for more than a few hours.

 

[signage]

For replacing heat and Ac equipment does not require turning off the power to the whole rented space! The HVAC should have its own breaker, this is required by the NEC! So the landlord has no reason to have the power off fr a whole week. Evan if they needed to pull a circuit it wouldn't take a whole week. This would be like saying to put in a new lighted sign you would need the power off for a whole week, just is unheard of! That shoud have only been a couple of hours at the most to terminate the new circuit or install the NEC required disconnect!

 

[Techman]

It's been in every lease I've ever signed (usually 48 hours, sometimes 72 hours notice).

Every lease (more than 10) I ever saw had provisions that allowed the land lord to enter at any time to protect or maintain the premises.
I lived from Florida, to Louisiana to Texas up to Michigan.

 

[Latigo]

Our Family owned recording studio is in the mountains west of town, so we belong to the Flathead Electric Co-op. Without fail, it there's a scheduled outage, they call us the day before and tell us.
Not too cool to be in the middle of a session using expensive 2" tapes with all instrument tracks already cut, the singer singing her little heart out on the best take of her career and......... dead silence.
I vote for "He should'a told you".

 

[Letterbox Mike]

Every lease (more than 10) I ever saw had provisions that allowed the land lord to enter at any time to protect or maintain the premises.
I lived from Florida, to Louisiana to Texas up to Michigan.

Mine have always said they can enter without notice in the event of an emergency only.

In the instance I mentioned previously in which I was able to break the lease, my alarm was set off in the middle of the night because the landlord decided he wanted to go in and snoop around. The police came and arrested him for breaking and entering. Even though he was able to prove he owned the building and entered with a key, he admitted it was a leased space and he did not notify me he'd be entering it, and they arrested him for that because he had no legal right to be in there. I chose not to press charges, but it happened again and our attorney said it was a breach of the lease and we were legally not obligated to honor it.

In the case of the OP here, it may be somewhat of a gray area he's in. Technically the landlord should have given him notice, but it's also not like he was in there snooping around, he did have a reason to be in there. The verbiage in his lease will be the deciding factor I guess, it may be in his best interest to consult his attorney if he racks up some expenses due to this.

That is, of course, unless the landlord did tell him he'd be in there working while the OP was vacationing, and the OP just forgot to mention not to kill the power for two long...

 

[HulkSmash]

I agree with insignia....

There have been times where my landlord has turned off the water, or even the power.. but they always let us know at least a WEEK in advanced. Heck, they even let me know on Thursday that they were repainting all the buildings this coming week, and i might want to move some stuff or not park against the buildings so paint wont get on it.

It's in our lease that they cannot enter our building without consent, only in case of an emergency, and in which case they will try to contact me first. They also have to let us know if any outages they will cause..

 

[Salmoneye]

We always try to give tenants their privacy and respect them, that being said our leases state that we can enter at any time. Power companies are required to give notice as they are governed by the PUC, we however are not. I switch off power and water all the time without notice but it is never for very long. I knock on doors to let whoever is there at the time know. Depends on if this was long planned or spur of the moment. I would definitely want to know if a tenant had equipment sensitive to that type of thing so that I could deal with it effectively. We don't have enough info here in this thread to judge if it was appropriate or not.