Janet Schmidt Don't rent from her, she will screw you over. Washington D.C.

Janet likes to first come off as a nice Wisconsin girl who will do favors for you. However, I found that she likes to rescind these offers last minute, just in time to screw you over. I rented a room from her in D.C. during my 6 week internship. She vastly misrepresented the living quarters, however I was happy to have a place since I didn't have much time for my housing search before I had to move to D.C.

During my lease term, she came in my room on a Saturday while I was away and sanded paint off the walls. She neglected to tell me that she would be doing this, or cover any of my belongings. When I got home, all of my stuff (including my professional work clothes) were covered in white paint dust. My toothbrush, my retainer, my dishes, food, dresses, medicines, hairbrush, literally everything I brought to D.C. was covered in white paint dust. When I texted her asking for an explanation, she merely said "sorry."

Further, she had informally promised (not on legal paper but many times verbally to me and to my roommates) that I could live in the living room of the house for the 2 remainig weeks I had to work in D.C. after my lease ended. She could not let me live in my normal room any longer though because somebody else was already set to move in.  We discussed this living room arrangment several (at least 8 times) throughout the month I lived there and even talked about it two days before the term of my lease ended. Eight hours before my lease ended, she texted me saying that I was no longer to stay in the living room and my stuff had to be out within the next 8 hours. She knew that I had never been to D.C. before, knew almost nobody except the people I worked with, and she still decided to wait until 8 hours before the lease expired to notify me that I couldn't live there anymore.

Never in a million years would have I seen this behavior coming, based on how she acted the majority of the time I had communicated. The only advice I can give is: do not live in her rental house and do not trust her.