RPA Tenant Rights Blog » Apartment Complaint

Is the landlord responsible for thse repairs?

John Reyes — Sun, 26 Apr 2015 00:30:41 +0000

Hi, i live in Lowell,ma. I was wondering, my kitchen counter is falling apart its splitting has a bow in it from water damage he never sealed around the sink.

Is my landlord req by law to fix this issue?

I call and call he tells me we will get to it tells me a day he will send someone in and then nothing.

Also i know if he provides a fridge he has to repair it if it breaks but, is it the same with an a/c? The a/c is built in to the wall and mine broke

i ask him to repair it and gives me the run around and the paint job is horrible he did not repaint after the last tenant left.

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I renewed my lease, but I want out.

Raphael DaCosta — Wed, 22 Apr 2015 23:36:27 +0000

Hello,

My lease will be up on January 18th of 2011 and I made the mistake of signing the new lease agreement. My wife and I have decided to rent a house, so I spoke with the property manager that I no longer want to renew my lease. According to her, once I signed, I am responsible for paying for the 6 months (Lenght of my renewed lease) in order to move out without any penalties in my credit. I am extremely disappointed by the fact that I have been a tenant there for over 4 years. the day I notified her still within the 60 notice to vacate, but also, the property manager states that it no longer applies to me simply by the fact that I am still living on the same apartment and that I already signed the new lease agreement. Also, the lease is on both my name and my wife’s name, but I am the only one who signed it. I live in a 2 bedroom 2 bathroom aptartment and need to move to a house so I can accomodate 10 people, which I know that the apartment will not allow.

Am I really entitled to this new lease even tho I haven’t moved in?

Thank you in advance,

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Can My Landlord Do This?

Tamara — Tue, 21 Apr 2015 23:18:51 +0000

So I rent from a landlady who has a 20+ yr old delinquent daughter. The landlady cannot (or does not) want to deal with her daughter’s problems so the landlady moved her daughter right next to me and my fiance in our complex. This daughter siphons electricity and cable from the other tenants and from the building itself; she smokes so much inside the apartment that the smell creeps into our apartment either through vents or through the attic and makes our entire apartment smell like an ashtray; she feeds, coddles and lets stray cats into her apartment but refuses to take any responsibility for them when they become troublesome; she is constantly spilling trash that is left out in her front hallway and due to the wind tunnel we have through our complex, the trash ends up in front of our door; she wakes us up at all hours of the night because she has drunken fights with the random men she brings home; and just this morning, my fiance and I were woken up by the sound of a dog barking and loud yelling, we go outside to see what was going on and there were cops swarming the complex and a K-9 unit forcefully removing one of the random guys she brought home! This was scary as he**! Our landlady knows that these things happen either because I tell her or they have happened before. So the landlady does nothing to improve the situation. She even bad mouths her daughter to the tenants, shaking her head and rolling her eyes at us because she’s heard it all before! Now my situation is even WORSE because the daughter cracked a vertibre because she was chasing 1 of the stray cats up on out roof. Well now that her back is hurt, our landlady has decided to become Mother of the Year and yelled at me for coming to her with a problem regarding her daughter! I don’t know what to do anymore and we can’t afford to move right now

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Bed Bug Issue

Christine — Mon, 20 Apr 2015 23:07:00 +0000

We have bed bugs and want to file a complaint. We found the first one just two weeks after moving in, neither of us had had any before, none of our former roommates have any at either of the houses we lived in, all of our furniture was ours before we moved in, and we only moved our stuff in friend’s vehicles who did not have bugs. So, we didn’t have any. My husband made the mistake of calling the property management immediately, and when the guy claimed the didn’t have bugs and that we must have brought them in, my husband made the comment that, "maybe, but not likely, it came from a coworker whose coat I hang mine next to stayed at someone’s house and got bed bug bites. Maybe it came from her." This isn’t the case, he followed up with her and she doesn’t have any, and that was three months before we found ours.

My question is, if we file a complaint with RPA, will his comment be held against us or make our chances worse? If we truly HAD brought them here, we’d pay for it with no questions. But we’ve seen at least 5 mattresses and two couches thrown out in the complex since we’ve been here, and the unit directly next to us was up for rent when we found the bugs, then after we sent a letter of noncompliance to the property management, they took the signs down and tore out the floors and rennovated the place, then put the signs back up and are currently trying to rent it out again. They only responded to say they contacted their lawyers and they are taking no further action and we have to pay to exterminiate.

Even if we do pay to exterminate, the bugs are most likely coming from elsewhere in the building and they’re pulling that good old line of, "you brought them here, we don’t have to pay" like so many other property managers and landlords do. So then they’ll just come back, or get worse in the whole building.

So, any thoughts?

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No Heat. What do I do?

anonymous — Sun, 19 Apr 2015 10:50:04 +0000

I am a renter in an apartment complex that was receently taken over by a new management company. I have been having problems with my heat since Nov 2010. I usually get too much heat and have to open a window or use a fan to cool off. Sometimes I don’t get enough heat. The heat is included. I told the mgmt company about the problem. I explained to them that the thermostat does not work because no matter what I do to it, I am unable to control the temp in the apartment. Now I have no heat at all and it is very cold. Nothing is coming out of the baseboard heat. I was told by their maintenance person that it may be a valve, wiring or thermostat. The heating makes a lot of noise like there is air in the line. The maintenance guy does not know what to do for the heat. That’s not his area. They have a heating company, but they come out during the day when I’m at work. I have asked to have a call when they are in the building and I will leave work to let them in, but to no avail. I have a small child under 5 and he doesn’t understand why we don’t have heat. The heating company guy said he may come out today. I cannot continue to be without heat. Something is wrong. Something is not connected. They need to troubleshoot and find out. I called the local township building to see what they could do. They are going to call the property mgmt company. I think now they may be mad because I am trying to get outside help, but what am I supposed to do for myself and child? Any suggestions? Who can I get help from?

Thanks.

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Landlord Harassment and “Changing her mind”

Amber Webb — Fri, 17 Apr 2015 22:26:04 +0000

Hey, there. I’ll try to shorten this to something as manageable as possible.

My landlady and I have been on uneasy ground for awhile, but since April of this year she has become extremely irrational and uncooperative. In April, I sent our rent out to her on March 30. The latest it could get in was April 3, which (since we live in the same, decent-sized town) should’ve been fine. However, she claimed it took FIVE days and harassed me via text for three days. She then demanded a $59 late fee.

Fast forward. This month, we paid our rent around the same time, but I got tracking on the mail to see if it got in as late as she said. It got in right on time. However, my landlady sent me a letter claiming I violated a clause in our contract but not paying the $59 late fee ASAP super speedy quick and therefore had defaulted on all our payments — including our on-time May rent.

I emailed her about it, trying to figure out what to do, and she told me that if I paid the default ($59) ASAP, "We can still work with you if the default is fixed now." So I let her know I’d get it to her the day of, quickly got the money (I had been paid, woo) drove straight up to her house and knocked on her door to give it to her. No one answered, so I left it under the door, called and emailed her to confirm. She told me she got it, but then exploded at me for coming to her house uninvited and yaddayaddayadda she changed her mind and we STILL had to be out of the house by May 31st because "Just because we CAN work with you doesn’t mean we will."

I have records of her texts to me (she refuses to answer calls or deal with me face to face) and a witness who was with me the day of the late-fee fiasco.

I’m really tired of being harassed by this woman when I have been on-time for my rent except for the month of April, and I am tired of her trying to hold this over my head when she clearly stated that she would work with me if I paid this fee. I feel like she’s making up rules and trying to bully me, and I’m not sure what I can do to protect my rights and keep this house for one more month. Trying to deal with her face-to-face and talk it out is impossible (as she pretends she isn’t home), and she will not speak with me over the phone. I don’t like texting her because I find it unprofessional and she harasses me constantly if I don’t respond immediately to her.

Advice?

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Breaking My Lease

Kissalvoe — Fri, 17 Apr 2015 10:22:10 +0000

I have been with my apartment complex in Albuquerque, NM since May. We signed an 8 month lease and it ends as of January 31st. However, I do not want to stay that long. I don’t feel secure in staying for a few more months.

Several times we have placed work orders for maintenance to fix a door or our ceiling fan (the light no longer worked!). It took 4 weeks for them to even go LOOK at the fan. They said they would replace it the following week but never did. Two weeks later, there was a leak, apparently from our master bathroom toilet, which flooded our apartment and the apartment below us. The call went to the office around 10am. I leave for work at 5am and don’t use that bathroom other than for showers.

THe office never recorded our new contact numbers from months before. They were always able to get ahold of us through our agent/alternate contact, but not on this day! They never notified us of the problem. Maintenance went in the apartment and ruined things with their negligence. They threw wet items all over the bed, onto the living room floor, filled backpacks with expensive electronic equipment and left it in puddles of water.

I didn’t come home til after 6pm and when I did, I had no knowledge of what happened. My apartment was thrown upside down. The carpet was torn up and a blower was running to dry underneath. All of the lights (that worked) and fans in the house had been running all day. All without our knowledge.

I took a complaint to my apartment manager who said it was our fault. The negligence was on OUR part because we “left the water running”. I asked him if I was supposed to shut the water to the toilets off everytime I left the house. He said it was a leak we didn’t report. And why? BECAUSE IT WAS A LEAK WE HAD NO KNOWLEDGE ABOUT. When I left for work that morning, there was nothing out of place. The floor in the bathroom was completely dry. He refuses to take any responsibility for the fact that nobody bothered to contact us, the fact that the maintenance men were negligent and not only ruined things on their own (NOT due to water damage directly from the leak), and that they left all electricity running for 8 hours, using up resources that WE have to pay for.

On top of all of this, and the reason I really don’t want to stay… The master bedroom, where the carpet was lifted for the blower, smells like mold. It’s damp (two weeks later) and smells moldy. The apartment manager refuses to work with us at all. What can I do to either make him work with us or get our of our lease so we can move somewhere SAFE and free of mold?

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Frustrated and Stressed

CollegeRenter — Wed, 25 Feb 2015 05:18:39 +0000

Hello, I wanted to know if I and other tenants in the same building had reason to file a complaint. If so, what my next steps should be.

The biggest issue is that there have been at least three known incidents of a stranger in the house (where we, all college students, rent rooms from her) and the landlady has only sent out an e-mail telling us to be more "vigilant" and closing doors and such. However, the bigger problem is that the landlady has made no indication as to improving home security on her end. Such as fixing the security gate on the side of the house or possibly updating the locks. We are not trying to be unreasonable, we just want to feel safer in our home.

Also the stove’s exhaust fan doesn’t work and there is a sizable amount of grease buildup. It is honestly a safety hazard and the landlady didn’t note it down in her inspection of the property. She marked it as still being acceptable.

There is also a problem with the heat in the house in some of the rooms. The heater seems to work in the front entrance but not in my room at all, and my roommate and I are always freezing at night.

There also seems to be a problem with the plumbing and the hot water.

Finally, there are extension cords inside and outside the house that are safety hazards to the house and the tenants in the house. (These aren’t even all the issues, but I feel they are the most pressing right now)

I’m just not sure what to do in order to get this all fixed. The landlady continuously says that she has an exemplary record of no complaints, but the reality is that she doesn’t really do things in a timely manner (or at all) which make it difficult to report such things to her.

I have the inspection report she did, which she asked each tenant to sign as a way to show our agreement with her assessment. However, I did not agree with her inspection and have not signed it. There are many things that need to be done in order to create a habitable and safe space for the tenants.

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Frustrated and Stressed

Wed, 25 Feb 2015 05:17:57 +0000

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Property Manager Paid My Rent – Sued Me

Wiz — Mon, 09 Feb 2015 03:12:13 +0000

This is gonna sound crazy…

Overview:

I received a letter from the owner of the condo I am renting stating that he had not received my rent for the last two months from the Property Management company.
He thinks the Property Manager is using he money for herself.
He tells me not to pay next month until he figures out what is going on.
I don’t hear from him or her for three weeks.
Next thing I know I’m served with an Unlawful Detainer in the owner’s name. I call him about it and I find out

He didn’t file it – she did,

He had already received the payment referenced in the UD – because SHE PAID IT OUT OF HER OWN POCKET.

Case was dismissed and never presented before a judge.

Since then she has filed another frivolus UD again for money I had already paid her.

I now have a 60 Day Notice to Terminate Tenancy. I think it is retaliation. Can anyone help me?Is there anything I can do to stop this 60 Day Notice?

Signed,
Stuck in the Middle

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