Renting a House?

[GipsyQueen]

SO REALLY wants to moving into a bigger place than we have now. We love our apartment, but it seems to be popping out of all it's seams. Anywho, there is a small house up for rest one street over which seems perfect (except for the creepy looking attik door in the bedroom.). We are going to take a look at it tomorrow.
What questions do I need to ask? What are things I should look for. I know what to ask when renting a apartment - but a house is a whole 'nother story.
Some data:
It has 3.5 rooms in total (2 bed), 1 full bath.
small yard
built in the 1940(ish?)
900sf

 

[Kilter]

Ask to see the utility bills to get an idea of that cost, if it's not included. Ask how long the landlord has been a landlord and if you can talk to some former tenants of his. With the dogs, make sure that damages to the yard/house are agreed on. Check the fences and so on and ask about repairs if that applies.

We had one place that had no insulation in the attic, which didn't alarm us till we realized it was too hot to live upstairs in the hot part of summer, and the basement got too cold in the winter to hang out in.

Our last landlords were goofballs and drove us nuts with dumb things. We rented the house, they wanted to store things but not reduce our rent. They sent complaints about the dogs that weren't true at all - dogs were with us out of town for the weekend, but apparently barking all night in the yard loose, or dug a hole and got dirt on their sidewalk somehow yet were in the dog run the whole time on the other side of the yard and no hole on our side of the yard. Couldn't fix a light because it was too cold - too bad, it's Canada, suck it up. Did not miss them....:rofl1:

 

[Shai]

Kilter has good suggestions. Also check to see who is responsible for various levels of repairs (from lightbulbs to a flooded basement or broken-something-critical, like say a toilet or fridge). Are there neighborhood rules you need to follow? Example: we found out our first winter in our rental house that sidewalks had to be shovelled within 8 hours of a snowfall. We lived on a corner lot so lots of sidewalks. Made things fun when hubby was out of town and I worked a 10-12 hour shift at night and discovered I needed to shovel everything before going to bed and had a nastygram because we were already "late." Surprise!

If you don't know for sure, drive by the house at various times of the day to see if neighbors tend toward parties or have exceptionally annoying kids or pets. Don't find these things out when the neighbor's unsupervised 3 year old climbs the fence into your yard to "Pet da doggehs!"

Get a copy of the rental contract/agreement and go over it carefully, asking questions as needed. Assuming there is a security deposit, make sure you understand if you can/how to get it back. The less subjectivity the better.

Check if you need/want renter's insurance (you may already have this for your apartment, I don't know) and factor that into your budgeting.

 

[release the hounds]

It shouldn't really be any different. Lawn and snow removal should be spelled out, if it isn't, I'd assume YOU were responsible for it. Mechanicals are always the responsibility of the owner/landlord. others like lightbulbs are the tenants. Deposits should all be handled the same. If a pipe breaks or basement floods, of course they have to fix it. If your stuff is damaged, you should have renters insurance because the landlord isn't going to be held liable in most cases unless you can prove they came in and willfully did something like that to damage your stuff. you're going to be expected to hold coverage to protect YOUR things against damage and loss.

otherwise I'd treat it like any other rental. Check on neighborhood, utilities current condition things like that.

 

[GipsyQueen]

THANK YOU!

The neighbouhood shouldn't be an issue, since with live just down the road right now anyways. We live in the town center and the house is literally like 3 walking minutes.
Since we are currently dogless it shouldn't be a problem, though it's deff. something that needs to be asked, since we are considering one in the futur.