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View Full Version : Apartment issues - What can I do about them? (Long story + question)


Amphoric
Sep 19, 2011, 06:33 AM
Hello,

I was looking for an apartment, and finally got lucky and was able to get one close to everything. Before I got the place I looked around for anything major that could be wrong with the place but found nothing. I then decided to take the place. Upon moving in, I had asked my mom and dad to give me a hand to move. My mom was going to tidy and clean the place up abit, that's where the problems stated happening. When she opened the cupboards to start cleaning, they were all staind with stains, etc. I was really upset since upon further looking at the apartment closely, the walls had abit of stains on them too which was really depressing. Told me landlord about how dirty it was but he didn't say much about it and told us it didn't look that bad to him. Then after my mom was done cleaning the top cupboards she decided to clean the bottom ones which is what started to scare me. Along the edges in the corner, there is tape that is blocking off the cracks from where the cupboards join the wall, and it's taped all along the edges to block "anything" from coming in. This is scary now, I look around and find more tape covering cracks and everything. I confront the landlord about it and he said he had a tenant which had schizophrenia and that she taped all the corners up and he didn't get a chance to take everything down, worse thing is that he said he had this tenant about 8 years ago, and the tape looks awefully new to me which is why I am doubting him. Now yesterday I was doing my dishes and found that when I use the water for abit the place where the tap connects to the counter is leaking abit from there and going under the sink into the cupboards bellow it. Then when I was cleaning up the bathtub I noticed that the water leaks for a good 1 minute after turning off the taps and this morning noticed that it leaks from the bottom (where the tub meets the plastic with the sylicone/caulking job) near the tap. It also takes a good 1-2 minutes of running water for it to actually get hot, and the problem is that it doesn't get very hot like water in a house does, it just gets really hot I can still keep my hand in the water, it burns abit but nothing I haven't used before while doing dishes. What can I do about this, the landlord seems abit incompetent to help me out with this, and I doubt he is certified to do anything type of fixing.

ScottGem
Sep 19, 2011, 10:02 AM
You tell the landlord he has a problem with the plumbing and it needs to be fixed right away. Give him a week to have a professional plumber come in and make the repairs. Tell him, if he doesn't, then you will either call your own plumber and take the costs out of your rent, or you will consider him in breach of the lease and you will find somewhere else to live.

Fr_Chuck
Sep 19, 2011, 10:08 AM
First of course if he owns the property he does not have to be certified to do minor repairs on some leaks.

On the dirty walls and tape, it was there when you looked at the apartment, So you have learned a lesson about looking closwer when you rent.

If the landlord was gong to paint he would have before you moved in. I don't mean this wrong but it sounds like a "low rent" or lower level rental,

As for as leaking pipes, Scott is right on. As for as dirty walls, so paint them, many renters paint their own walls, if you are allowed to.