When a tenant is storing items in common areas like hallways, stairwells, or the lobby, you have the authority to require removal, but the process has to be right: check the lease, send written notice with a deadline, document what’s there, and if the tenant doesn’t act, remove the items and store them for the period your state requires before disposing of anything. Skipping the storage step or resorting to self-help is where landlords lose lawsuits they should have won.
Start With the Lease and the Fire Code
Your lease is the first place to look. A well-drafted lease identifies common areas and prohibits tenants from placing personal belongings in hallways, stairwells, lobbies, laundry rooms, and any other shared space not assigned to a specific unit. If that clause is in your lease, you already have a contractual basis to demand removal.
If the lease is silent or vague, you still have authority. Both OSHA regulations and the NFPA Life Safety Code require exit routes to remain unobstructed and prohibit using them for storage. Objects cannot reduce the width of an exit corridor below its required minimum.1Office of Congressional Workplace Rights. Storage in Corridors and Exit Pathways The International Building Code takes the same position, though it allows non-combustible furnishings outside the required egress width.2International Code Council. International Building Code – Interpretation 06-11
Most local jurisdictions adopt some version of these codes. A bicycle chained in a stairwell or boxes lined up against a hallway wall is likely a code violation, and if a fire marshal cites the building, the landlord is on the hook, not the tenant.
When You Must Grant an Exception
Before enforcing a blanket no-storage rule, consider whether the tenant has a disability-related reason for keeping items in a shared space. The Fair Housing Act makes it illegal to refuse a reasonable accommodation in rules or policies when the accommodation is necessary for a person with a disability to have equal use of their home, including common spaces.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 3604 – Discrimination in the Sale or Rental of Housing and Other Prohibited Practices
A tenant who uses a wheelchair, walker, or motorized scooter may need to store that device in a hallway or near a building entrance if their unit lacks space. Under joint HUD and DOJ guidance, a reasonable accommodation is a change or exception to a rule that may be necessary for a person with a disability to equally use and enjoy a dwelling, including public and common use spaces. The tenant must show a connection between the request and their disability, but you cannot charge extra fees or deposits for granting it.4U.S. Department of Justice. Joint Statement of HUD and DOJ on Reasonable Accommodations Under the Fair Housing Act
You can deny a request only if granting it would impose an undue financial or administrative burden or fundamentally change the nature of your operations.4U.S. Department of Justice. Joint Statement of HUD and DOJ on Reasonable Accommodations Under the Fair Housing Act Telling a mobility-impaired tenant they cannot keep their wheelchair outside their door is almost certainly a Fair Housing violation. Handle these situations case by case, and document your reasoning.
Send a Written Notice Before You Touch Anything
Verbal warnings create no record. Your first formal step is a written notice to the tenant, and it needs to do four things:
- Identify the items and their location specifically. “Your blue bicycle in the second-floor stairwell” is enforceable; “your stuff in the hallway” is not.
- Reference the rule being violated, whether that’s a lease clause, a building rule, or a fire code provision.
- Give the tenant a clear deadline. Reasonable timeframes vary by jurisdiction, but 7 to 14 days is common for non-emergencies.
- State what happens if the items remain: removal and storage at the tenant’s expense, potential charges, or further lease enforcement.
Deliver the notice in a way that produces proof. Certified mail with return receipt, hand delivery with a signed acknowledgment, or whatever method your local law recognizes. A notice the tenant can plausibly claim they never received is a notice that failed.
Removing and Storing the Items
When the deadline passes without action, document everything before you move a single box. Photograph each item where it sits, note the date and time, and keep those images filed with your original notice. That record is what protects you if the tenant later claims property was damaged or lost.
Then remove the items, and here is where landlords most often make a costly mistake: do not throw the belongings away. In most jurisdictions, a landlord who removes tenant property must store it in a safe location for a legally defined period before disposal. That period ranges from about 7 to 60 days depending on the state, sometimes as short as 10 to 15 days and sometimes a full two months.
After removing the items, send a second written notice telling the tenant where the property is stored, how to retrieve it, and how long they have before it will be disposed of or sold. Skip this and you lose your legal footing. A tenant who comes back to find their belongings gone can sue for the value of the property plus damages, and worthless-looking boxes have a way of turning out to matter. Follow the notice-and-storage timeline your jurisdiction requires even when it feels excessive.
Charging the Tenant for Removal and Storage
If your lease lets you charge the tenant for costs stemming from lease violations, your removal and storage expenses are recoverable. Bill the tenant directly for reasonable moving and storage fees, and keep receipts.
If the tenant doesn’t pay, you generally cannot deduct those charges from the security deposit during an active tenancy. The deposit secures end-of-lease obligations, not mid-lease billing disputes, in most jurisdictions. At move-out, unpaid removal and storage charges may be deductible from the deposit if your local law permits it and you follow the required accounting steps. Check your state’s security deposit statute, because the rules on permissible deductions vary.
When Repeated Violations Justify Eviction
One stroller left in a hallway will not get a tenant evicted. Persistent violations after multiple notices are a different matter, and can amount to a material breach of the lease, particularly when the storage creates safety hazards or interferes with other tenants’ use of the building. Most jurisdictions require the landlord to serve a written cure-or-quit notice, giving the tenant a final chance to fix the problem within a set number of days, before filing an eviction case.
If the tenant ignores the cure period, you file in court. You cannot lock them out, cut off utilities, or force them to leave on your own. Self-help eviction is illegal in virtually every state and will produce a lawsuit against you faster than the cluttered hallway ever would. The court process takes time, but it’s the only path that protects your rights.
Why Speed Matters: Your Own Liability
Landlords generally retain control over common areas, and premises liability comes with that control. If another tenant, a visitor, or a delivery driver trips over items in a hallway and is injured, the landlord is the most likely target of a negligence claim. The injured party would need to show that you knew about the obstruction, or should have known, and failed to act within a reasonable time.
Once you’re aware a tenant is storing items in a shared space, the clock starts on your duty to act. A documented pattern of prompt notices and follow-through shows you’re managing the property responsibly. Knowing about the problem and letting it slide because the tenant is otherwise a good renter creates exactly the record a plaintiff’s attorney will build a case around.