Define “Reasonable” Repair Time

By Amy

I have lived in this house for over a year. When we first moved in I noticed the shower leaked and one of the toilets leaked. Told the landlord, nothing ever happened. 2 weeks ago the toilet finally gave out after trying to flood the entire house. Thankfully that didn’t happen and we fixed what we could and called our landlord and she said she would have a friend come over and fix it. No one ever came. Toilet broke Friday Feb 23. I waited until Wed Feb 28th to call her again. She said she was waiting to hear back from her friend. Whatever. When it came time to pay rent on the 1st I took the check into the business she owns (that’s procedure) and her employee told me she had just left to go to Las Vegas. Nice! Going on vacation and not bothering to repair her rental house first! Classy! So I waited some more. Finally on Wed the 3rd I called again, leaving a message stating it had been almost 2 weeks since the toilet has been out of repair and if she was too busy to have her friend come over I would call a plumber to come repair the toilet if I didn’t hear back from her in 24 hours. She never called. So 28 hours from the message I left I called a plumber and made an appointment for today Feb 5th.

Last night my landlord has the gall to FINALLY call me back at almost 10pm upset that I could not wait for her plumber friend to come fix it. I informed her it had been 2 weeks and I thought that was plenty of time to have someone come over and we were ready for the toilet to be fixed. She stated that it was no big deal that one of the two toilets (though this is the main bathroom of the two, and the ONLY bathroom with a useable shower in it) wasn’t working. I said it was. In the past we have paid for some repairs ourselves and with her permission deducted it from the rent. But she was very mad at me and I am afraid she is going to call the plumbers that I scheduled and have them not some and then never send her friend over to repair the toilet.

I PAY FOR A 2 BATHROOM HOUSE. I PAY MY RENT. ITS NEVER LATE. I AM A GOOD TENANT.

My question is: I know I must give my landlord a "reasonable amount of time" to make a repair to something which was not our damage as the toilet was not working properly when we moved in over a year ago. EXACTLY HOW LONG IS A "REASONABLE AMOUNT OF TIME"? Isn’t two weeks plenty of time? Please advise!

Edited on: Sunday, January 23rd, 2011 7:31 pm

One Response to “Define “Reasonable” Repair Time”

My response: (We welcome stories, examples, explanations, answers and a touch of your personality)
 

Renter

March 16th, 2010 3:48 am

Yes, two weeks is considered reasonable time for your landlord to fix the problem.  Since he hasn’t don it yet, you should consider taking it to the next level!


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