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My boyfriend and I started a lease April 1st 2016 with a family friend of his who is a rather widespread ilandlord. Here are some of the issues we have been dealing with:
1) Despite our lease starting April 1st, we could not move in until April 27th. The property was being renovated, but we would check in and nothing at all was done for two straight weeks, verified by his crew. We did not have a floor or anything. This put us in a situation, as he refused to keep us informed of the situation or the date we could move in until the very day it was completed. This put us at a serious financial impass as we suddenly had 4 days to move all of our stuff. We had to take days off work, and pay people to help us as we could not arrange friends in that short amount of time. Additionally we made an agreement with our previous landlords that we would be out by April 10th so we only had to pay half a months rent. Because we could not adhere to it, we were taken to court by our old landlords and made to pay late fees for every day past April 1st.
2) I have a service dog. He went behind my back and told my boyfriend he had to pay an extra $200 deposit for the prescribed and licensed service dog. When I confronted the landlord about this, I was lied to and informed the deposit was because the site was renovated. Which is extra BS, because many things, including broken and splintering floorboards, are still not fixed. Also it's the worst paint job I've ever seen in my life.
3) He did not pay the trash people so the cans were seized by the company. We went ten days without outside garbage cans and had to pile our bags in the stairwell (we are upstairs). The smell is still lingering and atrocious.
4) We did not have a mailbox until June 4th. I missed important paperwork from my job and got in trouble for it. The landlord was repeatedly asked and kept saying "ill be there tomorrow" in response. He never came. We had to buy and install it ourselves.
5) We do not have essential smoke alarms in two places; the bathroom and the stairwell. We also do not have a CO detector anywhere in the apartment,
6) Our landlord redid the roof after we moved in. The debris is filling our driveway, boards with nails sticking out is among the debris. It is on all side of the house. It's been there for 35 days now, and he refuses to comment on when it will be cleaned. We have had to park in a neighbors yard. Our yard is also completely inaccessible due to the nails and dangerous debris.
7) When I confronted the landlord and informed him that these things were unacceptable and if not corrected I would be speaking with a legal aid, we were blatantly threatened with eviction.
8) The stairwell wall was not finished or properly sealed, so bugs are coming into our apartment in drones. We have many spiders a day in our apartment, bees, and moths every night. It's disgusting.
9) Everything is so overwhelmingly terrible that I've been spending my free time at my mothers house. Our apartment is hardly even inhabitable. My dog is going to cut her feet on the boards in the den or something in the yard and the thought terrifies me.
We are at such a loss for what to do. This is no way to live, and we are stuck in a one year lease. We've been living there for a month and a half and all of this has happened. I'm having panic attacks thinking of what will go wrong next and how long it will go unattended. Please help me figure out what to do.
Call your local code enforcement office and local health department. If they find the unit uninhabitable, you will need to move out within a couple of days, but you will no longer be tied to the lease.
Call your local code enforcement office and local health department. If they find the unit uninhabitable, you will need to move out within a couple of days, but you will no longer be tied to the lease.
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