Compensation for No Heat and the Consequences?

By Father of a Newborn Son

Good evening,

We are renting an apartment in Avenel, NJ. We have had heat/cold problems (heat not working, apartment/windows/doors poorly insulated) for over a month (Nov-Dec) and the apartment was freezing. Nothing was fixed for over a month. We had the NJ Health Department and Maintenance Workers here and the temperature was below the requirement by law every time they tested it. Our son was born in October and got very sick (cold, fever) just from being inside the cold apartment (as we never took him outside after returning from the hospital) and so did everyone else. I have contacted my landlord with a 3 page letter and calculations to be reimbursed for the rent (daily rent amount times number of days until it got fixed) and the total came out to be $900 (it’s $1025 monthly). I now received a phone call from his representative (a "manager") saying that they would only offer $250 towards next month’s rent ("take it or leave it"). We are not willing to settle for that amount.

Please help/advise.

Thank you.

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Holy Cow, we couldn't find any other related post. Sorry. :(