Mine wants me do him. His wife doesn't know.

Every house I've rented except for one has had the owner do the repairs when things break. Some have been qualified tradies anyway so I understand not wanting to hire someone for something that they can do themselves. Most have been upfront about this though.

I've had chatty landlords and even ones that send friends/neighbours to chat to check on the condition of their property. I think it is common for them to want to keep an eye on their investment. I like to get the phone number of the landlord for the ones that have given the friendly introduction. You get things fixed faster informing the owner directly instead of just the real estate agency.

I've never had anyone threaten to evict us over these though.

My experience after renting for 10 years is that the ones that don't want to get to know you are always planning to sell while you are renting so I actually prefer the friendly owner hello.

Honestly its the bad tennants who cause landlords to act like this. Blame them!

Man. I feel sorry for a lot of you, our owners live down the road and have to drive past daily. I have no issues with this, they text if they need to upgrade or fix things and we accomadate. We have fantastic owners.

My husband does any repairs in our houses. We don’t tell them he is the owner (why should we? And why should we pay someone else to do a job he can? )

If I’m in the area and have time I’ll do a drive by as the front of the house can be indicative of how the house is being treated.

Some of the stuff you’ve mentioned seems over the top, but at the end of the day your using their 500k thing so ovcourse they want to make sure it’s taken care of.

I've been on different sides of this.
As a tenant, a selling agent (not the renting agent) had a key to the flat and would call to check when I would be home, then come before I got there and show them around against my wishes. It was creepy, I'd find from my neighbours that they'd shown people through while I was at work without telling me. In the end, I gave notice and complained to the renting agent, who was horrified and hadn't even been notified the flat was for sale. It was awful, especially as a young woman living alone.
Then, as a tenant we had the landlords come and paint and do some yard work while we were in a few times - they were very nice, always lined it up in advance with the real estate agent and only did it when they were in the area for holidays as they lived several hours away. And that was no problem.
Then as a landlord living six hours away from my house, I wish I'd been less professional and at least had the neighbours letting me know what was happening. The first set of tenants were a fantastic group of young people who left the place perfect. But the second lot - a family - did so much damage in six months. I wish the real estate agent had been more on top of it, a three month inspection could have saved me a lot of hassle as unreported water leakage wouldn't have done as much damage for a start. We got some of the bond money, but things we hand't even realised were broken or damaged in the mess were found too late. Low level stuff, so not worth the excess on the landlord's insurance, but annoying! In the end, we pretty much gutted the house - ripped out the carpet, repainted, etc.
I think the key is a good real estate agent will be fair and protect everyone's rights - but at the end of the day, tenants are vulnerable to being moved on and landlords are vulnerable to stuff getting broken.

I had a creepy landlord ask for services for cut rent - DOGZ!

It's THEIR property!! If it bothers you so much, then BUY your own!!
I THINK landlords have not enough rights!

The problem is the government has made housing a commodity so these people aren't kind people looking to help other people up, they are there to exploit tenants. They want you there to fill up their bank accounts, that is all. Ask for too many repairs or fix a rotten deck & your lease won't be renewed. You're expendable. You don't matter.

That sucks!! It is definitely totally unfair. I hope you have the opportunity to buy soon. I’ve only recently bought a house and had been renting for a few years and absolutely dreaded inspections every 6 months.....the rented house never felt quite like our ‘home’

We don’t stalk but we don’t let tenants know we own the property and live close by. This is in fact to protect ourselves as we have had some tenants that turned nasty and threatened real estate agent so why would we tell anyone we own the joint. Also we don’t want to have our door knocked on late at night if a tap is leaking. We pay the real estate to deal with issues and they are set up to undertake emergency repairs on our behalf.

I was a landlord for a couple of years, all contact was handled by the real estate agent (I didn't have tenants email/phone number). We did most of the maintenance and gardening ourselves, but it was always at an organised time. Also we were happy for the house to be lived in, didn't expect it to be a show home. Not all landlords are horrible.

This is a very odd post

They broke the law by popping in for a chat
You should have called tenancy tribunal

How old are you ?

I mentioned to the real estate agent that the owner was doing drive bys and they were horrified. Said they'd talk to the owner and tell him it was illegal and they if he kept doing it we had grounds to break lease.
Never saw him again after the agent spoke to him

I moved out of my last house because the landlord (who was nearly 50, I'm only 25) rang me up going on about the fact that my boyfriend had stayed over on the weekend and trying to tell me that none of my male friends were allowed to visit and I certainly was not to have "male company over night." When I told him that as far as the privacy act was concerned it was none of his business who I had visit he went on to say, and I quote, "well you're such a beautiful and gorgeous young thing, perhaps if you break up with that boyfriend of yours then maybe you and I could come to some sort of arrangement. I'd hate to have to kick a young, single mum out on the street with no where to go." I told him I'd rather live on the street than in his house anymore, this was officially my 2 weeks notice and I would be dropping a letter to the real estate the next day and contacting the tribunal. Absolutely no help off either of them, real estate took his side and tribunal informed me that because ot happened over the phone nothing would happen because it was his word against mine. The real estate also turned up first thing the next morning with an eviction notice with "no grounds" stated as the reason. I put it all in writing and, when he continued to message, email and ring me even months later, I emailed both him and the real estate saying that if I heard from either one of them again I would be contacting a lawyer and suing for harassment. I changed my number and refused to give them a forwarding address to be able to contact me at. Apparently him and my dad were friends in high school but had fallen out, so he then tried contacting my dad and using the "hey old pal" routine to figure out where I was and my dad calmly told him that he would rearrange his face if he ever tried contacting me again. Haven't heard from him since. Also I love my dad lol. Landlords are the worst. I'm now in housing commission and it is 100% worth putting up with the junkies up the street punching on at 2am once a month to not have to put up with landlords constantly trying to drop in and stalking me