I just got a phone call from a person who says she was the sign language interpreter for a deaf person who wanted more information about one of my vacant houses. I am meeting with these 2 people at 1:00 p.m. today.

Have any of you ever had a deaf person as a tenant? If yes, how do you communicate with them or vice versa ?

It will have to be the exception unless you want to run afoul of ADA laws.

I have met with these folks in person and for the most part they can understand you (read lips and gestures) without issue. Many of them can speak enough so that you can understand them too. With a combination of medical science and technology, they can really get along well in the world.

In ontario you would have to "accomodate" this tenant to the point of your personal financial hardship.

I rented my best single family home to a group of deaf Students, going to college nearby. This was a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom home with a heated pool, outside BBQ and plush landscaping.

These students did not read lips so I had to communicate by paper pad or I was able to sign slowly using a limited vocabulary.

Within days of moving into the property, unknown to me, they set up several partitions in the living room and den, making 3 more bedrooms inside and renting them out to other students.

When the newer tenants learned they were paying the same monthly rent as original tenants living in real bedrooms, everyone stopped paying rent and I had to evict everyone.

The cost to remove the internal partition walls and re-texture the ceilings added to my losses.

My mother in law was deaf.

You may need to adapt the house by putting in different smoke detectors and small items, like a door bell. Both will operate with lights and noise.

OK, well my parents had a different experience renting to a young deaf couple many years ago. They still live in the neighborhood but have managed to control their pit bulls.

The problems may have stemmed from the lack of technology to help them at the time, but the problem was their screaming. They talked loud and fought with one another and really were not well socialized as to where garbage goes and when and some other simple social skills.

My parents would have to complain to their parents in hopes of getting the issues worked out. They were in one of the four plexes.

Text and/or write on a pad of paper. No problems with communications.

Some deaf people are loud, but so are other tenants.

Normal screening.

I have had a couple of deaf folks rent off of me. They have special translators that will call you from a video relay service. Basically it a face time phone call from the deaf person to the translator who reads the sign language and speaks to you.

Roy,

Same as renting to Yankee who does not speak Southern.

Interpreter or text.

They usualy have a speaking family member or friend.

Seriously, I got hooked on texting when I hired a deaf painter.

Brad20K,

LOL

HA HA ... we "Yankees" speak too fast for ya'll Southerners! And for the record: It's the "New Englanders" that say they "Pahked the cah in the yaad" not the "Yankees" :)

With all that said - two things: 1. I have had interpreters call me for someone that was deaf regarding apartments that were available. sometimes they would follow-up with an email (or I would to them if I had their email address), etc). I haven't had the opportunity or pleasure to rent to a deaf person (yet). If I do I will keep in mind the "flashing strobe" for smoke and carbon alarms, etc.

"New Englanders" and "Yankees",...what is the difference?

You northerners are all the same to us. The only reason we talk slow down here is so those dam Yankees can understand us. :)

When I was stationed in Southern Spain, they had the same conversation as this post is having about Northern Spaniards and Southern Spaniards. I wonder if the topic is universal?

When I was stationed in Southern Spain, they had the same conversation as this post is having about Northern Spaniards and Southern Spaniards. I wonder if the topic is universal?

The local tax collector official here is and wss deaf and with coke bottle glasses. At one time any reduction in property taxes had to be passed back to tenants.

The buildings were still owned my mom at that point and I was working on them to get them up to code. She gets a notice in the mail that her property taxes were rolled back and she must return x amount of dollars to tenants. Of course this was just before a local election.

So I gathered up three or four years of tax bills which showed that there was NO reduction in taxes and went to see the above mentioned official.

He yelled at me and said that they were not making any changes to their notices but that he would not pursue us to pay the tenant and then waved me rudely out of his office.

The local tax collector official here is and wss deaf and with coke bottle glasses. At one time any reduction in property taxes had to be passed back to tenants.

The buildings were still owned my mom at that point and I was working on them to get them up to code. She gets a notice in the mail that her property taxes were rolled back and she must return x amount of dollars to tenants. Of course this was just before a local election.

So I gathered up three or four years of tax bills which showed that there was NO reduction in taxes and went to see the above mentioned official.

He yelled at me and said that they were not making any changes to their notices but that he would not pursue us to pay the tenant and then waved me rudely out of his office.

Listen faster HAHAHAHAHA ... that's funny. I took a Spanish class (two actually) just so I could "try" to better understand some things being said (I also love to go to Mexico and have a "daughter" there from a Foreign Exchange Student program years ago) so the more I can grasp the better. Problem is I get so "lost" when they speak because they are so fast. Never thought about the fact that it was me - listening too slow. HAHAHAHAHA

Oh and Ally- holy cow is all I can say. If anyone told me that we had to "credit" the tenants on the tax DECREASE I would surely pass out from shock! Who the heck are they to tell anyone how to run their business?!

Plus - what if you DIDN'T INCREASE their rent (if they were there over a year)?

Roy,

I just realized that I cannot hear a single person on this forum.

I have a friend who's very good with sign language with her hands. I wonder what the sign is for y'all and all y'all?

Ally - NJ

Ally - NJ

I rented to a deaf couple once but they wore hearing aids, so could hear when they wore them. They did tell me that they take the hearing aids out when they sleep as they both worked 3rd shift and needed to sleep during the day. I was concerned about possibly not hearing a smoke alarm or C/O alarm, but had no problems with any alarms going off, thank God. I did use the text message option with most of the communication but could also speak to them when they had their hearing aids on.

I have a deaf tenant in one of my Section 8 houses. Same as noted above except I was required by housing to put in the visual (strobing) smoke detector at my cost, not hers.

I put in two just in case. Home Depot actually sells them.

Texting works fine to communicate, although she will use the call service once in a while.

What is a little tricky sometimes is if we have a repair we need to do and she doesn't always respond via text. In those cases we post a notice on her door in writing that on such & such day & time the repair guy is coming to do xyz.

I CURRENTLY HAVE 2 DEAF COUPLES LIVING IN 2 OF MY RENTALS.

ONE COUPLE HAS BEEN WITH ME FOR 8 YEARS. THEY ARE GREAT RENTERS. THEY ALL READ LIPS AND IF I CAN'T UNDERSTAND THEIR MESSAGE, WE USE PEN AND PAPER. I DO GET MESSAGES VIA TTY AND I CAN ALSO MESSAGE THEM IN THE SAME WAY.

Roy--I'm sure you will be able to do it--either pen & paper, text, computer, etc.

I am a native of Colorado--I don't "think" we have an accent?--do we? just boring ol' no accent. Am I a Yankee?

OK I was looking for another issue with equal access and equal enjoyment issues for personal issues.

One: deaf/hard of hearing are just like anyone else when it comes to renting. Your playing a game of Russian roulette REGARDLESS of who your renting too. Bad behavior and habits or different lifestyles has no known boundaries and is NOT a trait of a specific class of people. There is NO scientific fact that can back up that deaf are worse tenants than anyone else.

Many of the post here saying how it was a nightmare and such to rent to deaf, were describing almost everyone I know to some level. regardless age , sex, race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or sexual gender identity. And NONE of those people I know are deaf or severe hard of hearing. I am But I do not cause most of the ruckus they do.

Point is its a crap-shoot regardless if they are deaf or not, whether they will make good tenants or not. Each person is different and there are no two alike.

The better question you should be asking is what are my responsibilities as a landlord, if I have a deaf or hard of hearing person, interested in my unit or rental property?

Best answer is contact HUD and The ADA hotline. And also ask about the 504 if you received any federal money to build or are currently getting example "section 8".

Your responsibility depending the kind of landlord you are, ranges from providing "reasonable accommodations" Where you foot the cost. Example my landlord has to provide a flashing light signal for the door, that I can see when someone is at the door because my landlord is a section 8 senior/disability high-rise Apartment building. They also had to foot the cost for visual smoke alarm. Under HUD rules, fire code rules.

But if your a small time landlord that has a few rental properties or units, may not have to foot the cost, BUT may have to allow the renter to install certain reasonable accommodations to which will not fundamentally alter the structure of the property and can be restored to original use after the renter moves out. Like allowing holes to be made to install special Visual smoke alarms in each major room that set each other off wireless. So alarm going off in one rooms goes off in all rooms.

Just so you know, that is the biggest modification they will need to physically do, if they do it. Most alert systems needed by deaf are actually run by devices that plug into the outlet and is portable in nature, to go with us because they are so expensive for us to begin with that we want portability when possible to cut overall costs. no point buying it for every place we go.

The only real issue that might arise is noise level, for simple fact we can not hear as well as you.

There is simple solution for the noise level, if they are a good tenant, then simply letting them know that others can hear them and "when specifically they were heard" That way the deaf or hard of hearing person, then will know what activity they were doing that was too loud and try to lower the noise level. BUT they will NOT do that if you do NOT let them know. We can't read your mind and we can't know how loud we actually are. We can't change our behavior if we do not know if we are disturbing our neighbors. And that is any neighbors regardless if hearing.

But do it in writing, always, as for record keeping in event you wind up with a bad tenant regardless if they can hear or not.

Any issues that arises put it in writing, so the deaf person can have someone explain it to them if they do not understand writing.

Don't ever say no to meeting with an interpreter while employed or are working in official capacity when deaf or hard of hearing is present with interpreter. Saying no to meeting with interpreter while deaf and hard of hearing is considered discrimination against the deaf or hard of hearing. Who pays for interpreter again depends on type of landlord you are.

but in this specific case you don't pay for interpreter, because they contacted you meaning this deaf person was already paying them, or using a service that provides interpreters..

If you do have a trouble deaf tenant that is difficult to communicate with and is causing a lot of problems, hire your own interpreter temporarily and document it. this covers your collective livelihood in court if they accuse you of discrimination.

Note on the good side If you land a good deaf or hard of hearing tenant. You might have a long-term renter and will want to go out of your way to make them happy.

I lived in an efficiency for 8 years, only reason for moving, is new landlord (who bought the property) jacked the rent to double to force me out, so he could remodel and justify a higher rent, than what I was originally paying. I found out after moving, that I had a nickname bestowed upon me by prior landlord and other tenants. "The fixture" due to normal occupancy of efficiency apt. being a year or less usually no more than 2. me 8 years.

that was my first rental at 19 years old.

second time I rented has now been 8 years and counting. Have no intention of moving anytime soon.

It is difficult for us to find the right home, So we want to hang onto it for as long as possible, when we find the right one.

Most of us have some kind of assistance or organizations helping us, especially if your not rich. We can get services that will let us communicate to you like speech to text and vice versus over the phone translators. or another example Minnesota relay service.

Important thing about text to text or writing, is that, it is NORMAL for deaf to NOT write in complete sentences. It is because we communicate differently than people who speak. We are writing in the same fashion we use ASL sign language to communicate in person or other sign language less complete than ASL, not many use english sign language too time consuming everything is spelled out so to speak word for word. . . So to speed up hand communication many words are dropped and facial expressions and body language is substituted. To a normal person this makes a deaf person look stupid or dumb to those that do not understand due to ignorance. Its all perception, understanding and knowledge.

Example:

verbally Speak the letters A through Z, all of them.

To sign in ASL quickly to keep up with spoken speech. You do the first letter "A" sign. Then you slide your index finger to the side and do the sign for "z" You just did the entire alphabet in ASL sign language, but you did not sign every single letter in the alphabet. to do so it would be impossible to keep up with spoken language. So this same shortcut applied to ASL goes to writing as well. Most people write how they speak anyway, regardless if they hear or not.

Just be mind-full that there might be certain steps "extra" that you may need to follow in regards to evictions though. BUT you can NOT refuse rental based on that. Because it would be a disability discrimination issue to do so.

If people, I am NOT referring to deaf or people with disabilities here, were good in general, you would not have to deal with HUD, ADA, 504, etc. Don't make the problem worse just because they are deaf. If you do and many other landlords do as well, the leaders that are and to be, may decide to get tougher on you about the "exclusion".

Example making you foot all the modifications and costs needed for safety.

@ Ray-N-Pa [PA] I don't mean to deflate your bubble in thinking that you bought an expensive upgrade, the actual equivalency in doing its job, of what you bought, is 1/2 or less of the existing auditory system that was present prior to upgrade. 37 dollars are the extremely cheap Alert alarms and may not actually be bright enough to wake a person from sleep. If they are battery operated and hooked up to AC as well. THEY WILL NOT ALERT a deaf person if Electricity is lost, as it is often the case in bad fires or power outage. The strobes in the AC/battery units don't have the capacitors to handle the strobe on the battery DC slow trickle current only. They will only beep for hearing people only in those cases.

I highly doubt they are interlinked by built in wireless system either.

If anything your just begging to be sued by the family of a deaf person, who dies by smoke inhalation, for failing to put in adequate alerting system. They might actually win if it can be demonstrated that it did not do what it is suppose to do. That is actually alert a deaf person when there is no electricity AC.

A proper system for a deaf person is one that can strobe at full brightness for 5 minutes or more. by ac or battery or both. in the event that electricity is lost, like when power is out, due to bad weather and candles are used for illumination. The 5 minutes of flashing, is because the brain won't wake up on one or 2 flashes for the average person. In college I did not wake till like 4-6th flash, but then that was the ultra high end alarm system for the deaf, which the entire building was rigged for at NTID. On top of that the resident advisor had to go and check every room to ensure everyone was up and leaving. The beep was of lower DB and about 100 to 110DB loud might even be higher. People who could hear well do NOT live in this building since 110db can cause loss of hearing. Anyone who could hear plugs their ears walking by the alarm. We usually had one alarm once a week up to 3 times in a week.

Audio alarms still work for hearing people when electricity is lost due to battery running the sound beeper. (see what I am getting at? The deaf renter is NOT getting the same enjoyment as your hearing counterpart and that is the crux of the discrimination. Hearing people hear alarm when no electricity AC. Deaf can't see alarm without AC because it fails to flash if there is no AC) Not equal.

The expensive Strobe smoke detectors are in the $1000 per unit or more range, for the individual home or apartment, because they are built to strobe by the power in its capacitors. The ac and dc is there to recharge or maintain said charge for when its needed. Plus said smoke detectors speak to each other through wireless connection. one goes off they all go off I am NOT talking about the one main detector sending a signal to the multiple strobes throughout the living space. One detector defeats the purpose. if the fire happens in another room where the detector itself is not present. every strobe has to have a detector in the same room as the flasher to work right.

couple of other reasons for high price, they will most likely be medical rated devices, and its a specialty niche

I am not talking alert alarms that warn you if your burning something on stove or toaster, which puts out a super fine particulate matter. Which is what you actually bought.

I am talking about an actual "fire alarm" that goes off by heat sensor or large particulate matter or both, that actual fires put out when burning, like carpet fire.

I actually went to a seminar on the difference between alert alarms and actual smoke/fire detector alarms and how they differ on what the occupants of the space are actually alerted for. How in most cases the alert alarms fail to notify people of actual fire and smoke inhalation that can cause severe harm or death.

In 1979 I rented a 3 bedroom house with a heater pool to a "group" of three deaf people. They were nice, one was still in college. I know some basic sign language but was advised to write down communications on paper instead.

Two year later they stopped paying rent. They had put up a divider in the living room and den, making 3 more places for people to sleep, like bedrooms. They took in roommates without my permission and had been renting out three additional spaces. They got into a fight and left the place a mess.

This is not to say your experience will be negative. But the ruined the cottage cheese ceiling texture and all of the interior needed new paint and carpeting.

My first rental and the second tenants were deaf, dirty and did not confirm to a hearing person's lease. They thought they were entitled to do what they wanted to bring in money to pay the bills.