I'm just wondering what I should do here. We are about to move out of our current apartment and there are 2 maintenance issues that our landlord has not resolved in the past year.

Approximately 1 year ago we mentionned to our landlords that one of the carpets was separated from the trim pieces that hold it down between the kitchen and living room. This is causing the edge to unravell due to a year (almost) of walking back and forth over the carpet. Also that the window frame (made of wood) is beginning to rot away and air leaks through it.

I put this in a letter in October 2008 (I have a copy of the letter) when nothing was done about it and left it at the rental office, this is after mentionning it verbally to the landlords several times. I'm going to send a new letter today by registered mail to bring this up again and say we can't be held responsible for the costs since you never fixed these problems when they were minor.

We move out April 2009 and don't want to be held responsible for these damages that they kept telling us they would come and fix and never did. Is this enough to make sure we are not held responsible or should I do something else?

Take lots of pictures as soon as possible.

Yeah... I did a few weeks ago, I should have done it sooner but they keep saying it will be fixed as soon as we can.

our landlord was aware of things not working in our apartment for the past year. I have 2 small children in my house and haven't had a functional w/d since we moved in. our metal stripping from the kitchen to the living room has never been replaced and now the kitchen tiles are coming up off the floor causing a hazard for my kids. My carpets have been shampooed 5x a month by my husband, my fridge has broken pieces in it. The bottom shelf is completely cracked and things fall out of the fridge when you open it, the door is missing the bottom shelf so I'm only able to use the top part of the door for storage, my freezer frosts my food instead of freezing it. My front door doesn't open right or close all the way leaving a cold draft coming into my house. The only way to stop the cold is by deadlocking the door. He has been aware of these issues since we moved in but still expects us to pay rent. We are now moving out but am I responsible for paying him back rent when it was only a 6 mo. Lease and nothing has been fixed in a year and no lease was renewed?

Yes, you owe him the rent. You lived there and paid it as it became due. In some States you could have put the rent in an escrow account and not paid either the total rent or a percentage until/unless repairs were made. You are not due a refund and a lease - in most cases - reverts to a month to month tenancy if not renewed.

You can always take your case to Small Claims Court but I think it will be too late to argue the majority of your problem.