Is it legal for my apartment manager to all of a sudden block off the rent drop slot in her door?

Question

with no notice to the tenants we are no longer allowed to drop any repair requests or rent payments in the aprtment managers mail drop at her door. I have lived here for 14 months and have always dropped the rent in when I get home after work which is always after hours so now you can onlyn pay rent or request a repair when shen is there which is not often? I am in the state of california if that helps

sory about the spelling errors ! I typed this very fast and tried to edit it but i had no luck in correcting my type-o-s

additional info this is a drop box in the managers front door used for repair requests and rent payments there is a seperate place for mail which is not used to place rent payments and of course all our mailboxes are locked

Answer 1

It's a Federal crime for anyone other than a USPS letter carrier to put anything into a mail box. If your apartment managers been allowing you to put your rent and repair requests into it, she shouldn't have been.

Richard

Answer 2

Check your lease to see if it contains some language about dropping your rent payment in the drop-box, because if it's there, then they need to keep the drop-box open. Also, if there is a management company or owner that is higher up than the apartment manager, you might want to advise them about the situation and ask them to change it (especially if it means not breaching the lease contract).

Answer 3

Yes. You can either pay your rent in person during office hours or mail your payment. It may however violate the lease if the lease specifies the payments can be made by drop slot at any hour.