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I wouldn't pay him any rent. You have plenty of reason to move. He even suggested back in Dec that you find a new place. So, I think if he sued you, you could prove your case easily. In fact, perhaps you should sue him now. You are incurring all sorts of unexpected expenses because of his plumbing neglect. I think he owes you compensation.
Last edited by JanND; 02-18-2013 at 06:33 PM..
Reason: edit text
I don't know if I'd want cupcakes coming from your household, for a long while... Just saying.
Have you checked to verify if the apartment is even legal yet? Your lovely LL might end up owing you all your rent back. (not familiar with Idaho state law)
Have you checked to verify if the apartment is even legal yet? Your lovely LL might end up owing you all your rent back. (not familiar with Idaho state law)
This scenario of a tenant recovering back rent by dint of living in an illegal apartment pretty much never occurs in any state. If you have links to cases where this actually happened it would be interesting to see them as this is a very common misconception.
This scenario of a tenant recovering back rent by dint of living in an illegal apartment pretty much never occurs in any state. If you have links to cases where this actually happened it would be interesting to see them as this is a very common misconception.
Yeah, I highly doubt we'll get back ALL of our rent; we are going to file for the 15 days the apartment contained various amounts of sewage water (we even got solid chunks of feces and toilet paper for the entire last week!) as well as for the rest of the month after our lease ended. Luckily, our new apartment opened up a bit early and we didn't have to live with it.
We sent him a 3 day demand to rectify the situation and, while he did have the plumbing company clean out the pipes after a few days, he just let the sewage water sit and, as far as I know, it's still sitting there. Now we're just waiting to see how the deposit goes! He already asked us not to clean the unit since it is, you know, full of poop.
Alright, update time! We moved out of the unit on the 9th and our last official day at the place was on the 17th. We returned the keys, left the place (still with feces on the floor) and are done with that part of the business!
Now we have a new problem: The landlord is claiming 1) the washer in the room with the drain backup problems is leaking and 2) that there is water damage to the wall in the bedroom. He claims we simply neglected to ever mention these problems during our tenancy and, due to our supposed negligence, is going to charge us for repairs for both from our security deposit. We know he's fabricating damages to keep the security deposit: now we have to prove it somehow.
We didn't use the washer since the first of the five drain backup incidents on February 2nd, and it was working without issues at the time. There was never water damage on the wall but some paint did come off randomly in October of last year and we called to tell him about it. He said it was no big deal and asked that we just paint over it; unfortunately, the paint that was left behind that supposedly matched the wall was darker, so there are two darker painted spots on the wall. How do you suggest we prove a negative, i.e. that these problems did NOT exist? We took video of the state of the entire apartment which shows the condition of the walls in the bedroom: it has two darker paint spots but it doesn't look water damaged. There could have been water damage behind the paint but we were not aware of it if there was. The washer, on the other hand, we did not run in the video due to the continuing plumbing issues and may well have had issues we were not aware of. Any suggestions there?
Whenever you have maintenance/habitability issues you must put them in writing and not just call. This can't be stressed enough and failure to do has inspired countless threads on this forum. I realize this isn't of much help to you in this particular situation but is something to bear in mind for the future. Read what your state landlord tenant laws (probably linked in the first "sticky" on this page) says about the procedure the LL has to follow in returning your security deposit and the timeline involved. You might be stuck on this one since it may come down to his word against yours. Good luck.
Whenever you have maintenance/habitability issues you must put them in writing and not just call. This can't be stressed enough and failure to do has inspired countless threads on this forum. I realize this isn't of much help to you in this particular situation but is something to bear in mind for the future. Read what your state landlord tenant laws (probably linked in the first "sticky" on this page) says about the procedure the LL has to follow in returning your security deposit and the timeline involved. You might be stuck on this one since it may come down to his word against yours. Good luck.
That makes sense and, if we need to pay for the repainting, that's just fine. My main issue is that neither of the maintenance issues he is claiming existed during our stay. Either he's making them up (my suspicion) or they appeared during the twenty or so days we no longer inhabited the unit. I already know all of Idaho's codes regarding returning the deposit, I'm just trying to figure out a way to prove he's making things up.
I'd *like* to think that if you had to go to court the judge would look at the mountain of evidence on your part regarding the landlord's neglect of his responsibilities and laugh at whatever absurd niggling things the landlord is trying to charge you for. That said, shame you don't have that other stuff in writing. I just suffered through an unpleasant LL situation involving a deceased LL and his step-daughter. She thought she was going to charge me thousands of dollars for mold damage in the basement. I forwarded one email from two years ago in which I warned the LL that I saw what appeared to be foundation problems (that he never fixed) and she didn't have anything else to say on the subject.
I'd *like* to think that if you had to go to court the judge would look at the mountain of evidence on your part regarding the landlord's neglect of his responsibilities and laugh at whatever absurd niggling things the landlord is trying to charge you for.
I agree.
If you have need to speak to the LL about this, borrow what is now a famous phrase....
"Bring it on"
Do let him know you are totally prepared to go to court.
If he persists, make sure you have all legitmate related costs figured out, some you may have decided you weren't going to bother with (belongings that were contaminated that you may have thrown out or incurred costs to sanitize, costs incurred in moving,for instance)
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