[legal Advice-ca] Landlord Wants To Exclude Attic Storage After Lease Has Been Signed

Location: California

ETA: What steps do I need to take to resolve incongruence with lease of property? How long will this take to resolve?

The Situation:

I just signed a lease for a single family home at the end of December and we got the keys to the property a week ago. We are renting it from an owner, but through a property management company. There were a number of items in the home when we did our walkthrough, and we noticed a nice sized attic storage space accessible through two finished doors at ground level in the primary bedroom. During the walkthrough, the closet was locked, but we were able to see it was about 5x5x10 for storage. We asked about it, because storage was an important consideration for our home needs, and the PM said he didn't realize that it was there. We applied for the property and signed a lease a few days afterwards. There was no mention of any attic exclusion on the lease. We have exclusive use of the property.

When we got our keys, we noticed that a considerable number of items still remained on the property (vacuum, broom, cleaning supplies) and items were still locked away in the attic. When we asked for them to be removed, the property management company said they would ask, and then said that the owner was going to continue to have exclusive attic use for their own items. This was never disclosed either verbally or in writing.

I tried to be reasonable, since we literally just started this lease, but they didn't come back with any kind of negotiation. It escalated internally to the broker, but she just want us to sign an addendum to the lease that grants the owner exclusive use and provides notice for entry in case they need to remove items. They also weirdly said that the attic space is not suitable for storage and would need to remain locked, while at the same time saying the owner would continue to use the space for storage (it is not just a crawl space -- it is a finished storage area with doors and wood floors).

I never would have signed a lease under these conditions if I had known. I find it uncomfortable to have an area in my home that is locked away, that I have never inspected, and that is full of items that I do not know what they are. It feels invasive, particularly because this area is easily accessible from my bedroom, not to mention that we did expect to have this extra space to store our own items since there is no garage. I have said that I am not comfortable signing this addendum and I would like the items removed so that the property aligns with the lease that we signed. I haven't heard back. It's only been a couple of days, but I am curious if this has happened to anyone else, what you did procedurally, and how long it took to resolve. Thank you for reading and offering advice. I have lived in almost 20 different rental properties in my life and nothing like this has ever happened to me before.