Be it an apartment or a house, a lease contract includes the maximum number of dwellers for the rented place. For instance, an apartment can only accommodate 6 persons at any time except on occasions - this covers the vacationing relatives, sleep overs and other non-regular stay of additional people. When the maximum number of persons is exceeded, the landlord has the right to penalize the tenant or can be ejected. Some people from the provinces would rent an apartment in the city and later on would have their relatives as permanent dwellers that would reach up to more than 10 people in that cramped apartment which is unfair to the landlord.
My mother has experienced that kind of headache when we used to have our house rented out. Some of the tenants who originated from the province would have quiet a number of their relatives visit their apartment and they stayed there for weeks or even months. It was a headache for my mother especially because of the amount of water and electricity they consume. The house we have been renting out was just beside the house we lived in so it also irritated my mother because of the noise they produce. Some of the tenants who would invite their relatives to stay in their place had the consideration to ask my mother for permission first and were willing to pay for any extra fee but some were inconsiderate enough to just allow theri relatives to come and stay with them for a long time without any form of communication and clarification first with my mom. Back then, my mom didn't see the need for any agreements regarding rentals but she realized the need after a lot of delinquency with regards to the tenants.
In the US the state and local municipalities set fire codes. I know as fact in the state of New York you are only allowed to have two people per each bedroom. The reason this was done (and why it is enforced) is because as New York was being settled families would have all sorts of people staying in a home and if there was a fire or some sort of disease outbreak the chances of a fatality or increase in risk from infection would grow. Today, if we know of a unit that has more then the allowable number of people staying in it, we will call the Fire Marshall. It isn't about being mean or anything like that, it is about protecting the property from undo wear from over crowding, and saving lives should there be a fire or other situation. You as a landlord do have a right to limit occupation, but more importantly you have to follow the code of law for the area. With that being said, if a family had guests for a short period, like maybe a week, we probably would let that go. In my experience the largest issues are with university student. When a semester ends it is not uncommon for the displaced students from the dorms to want to stay with fellow students that have private homes. I remember this one time walking into a unit with painters to find 18 people crowded into a living room. there were mattresses all over the floor and they were all just hanging out. That cannot be allowed under any circumstance. The potential liability to an owner is ridiculous.
The same here. Sometimes there are tenants of a 2-door apartment who would declare only 2 occupants but as time goes by the number of people residing in that apartment door grows and grows. When we rented an apartment, the landlord asked us if there's only the 2 of us (my husband and I) who will reside. The amiable landlord, an old widow with a smiling face, even asked us to be honest with her because if we are more than 2 then that would be no problem. More likely she had already experienced that because when we moved there, one neighbor had 5 children and a sister with a child living with them.
