hecaterose
New Member
There's alot of details so bear with me:
We have lived in this property for 15 years, gone through 3 or 4 landlords, but never had an issue with any of them. The new landlords purchased the property (duplex) about 3 years ago, and since then have not fixed anything that has broken. For example our back fence is falling down and rotting, and our gate is held closed by a hanger, but they want us to buy the stuff and build a new fence ourselves and just take it out of the rent. We don't have the money or time for that. Our heating system has broken down 5 times this winter, and each time they have someone come out and it gets temporarily fixed. Now it goes out sometimes at night and we just bought space heaters because the landlords will not buy a new system, since the one we have is an old gas heating system that needs to be replaced. On 1/3/08 our oven stopped heating, and if the fan is on the back burners wont work right. We notified them immidiately of it, and within 36 hours were told they were going to try to find a used stove, then said they were going to see about having gas connections put in and getting a gas stove, but there was no date as to when. On 1/28/08 they still hadn't contacted us, and we used car payment money on fast food (healthy fast food not fried stuff) because there's heart patient here and a person on a disbility case who can't eat a lot of fried or greasy stuff and we couldn't cook properly. We sent a certified letter on 1/28/08 stating that we were not paying rent since it was a month after we told them of the oven, and that they had 30 days to fix it or they would be taken to small claims court. Our landlord appeared today at the house (first time in 6 months they've shown up in person) telling us they wanted the rent, and not having an oven was no reason not to pay. They never had us sign a new lease this year because they were putting 3 adults and 2 kids. There's 2 adults and 2 dogs here so I don't know where they got all this. She says the contract states its rent every month and $25 per day we're late. But if we didn't sign the contract is this valid? Do we pay even though they haven't fixed this still and we are falling into debt faster for all this? They've lost the other tenants on the other side of the duplex for the EXACT same thing. In fact they have email proof (our landlord is mute) of harassment and threats towards them from the landlord. Can they evict us without warning? HELP!!!
We have lived in this property for 15 years, gone through 3 or 4 landlords, but never had an issue with any of them. The new landlords purchased the property (duplex) about 3 years ago, and since then have not fixed anything that has broken. For example our back fence is falling down and rotting, and our gate is held closed by a hanger, but they want us to buy the stuff and build a new fence ourselves and just take it out of the rent. We don't have the money or time for that. Our heating system has broken down 5 times this winter, and each time they have someone come out and it gets temporarily fixed. Now it goes out sometimes at night and we just bought space heaters because the landlords will not buy a new system, since the one we have is an old gas heating system that needs to be replaced. On 1/3/08 our oven stopped heating, and if the fan is on the back burners wont work right. We notified them immidiately of it, and within 36 hours were told they were going to try to find a used stove, then said they were going to see about having gas connections put in and getting a gas stove, but there was no date as to when. On 1/28/08 they still hadn't contacted us, and we used car payment money on fast food (healthy fast food not fried stuff) because there's heart patient here and a person on a disbility case who can't eat a lot of fried or greasy stuff and we couldn't cook properly. We sent a certified letter on 1/28/08 stating that we were not paying rent since it was a month after we told them of the oven, and that they had 30 days to fix it or they would be taken to small claims court. Our landlord appeared today at the house (first time in 6 months they've shown up in person) telling us they wanted the rent, and not having an oven was no reason not to pay. They never had us sign a new lease this year because they were putting 3 adults and 2 kids. There's 2 adults and 2 dogs here so I don't know where they got all this. She says the contract states its rent every month and $25 per day we're late. But if we didn't sign the contract is this valid? Do we pay even though they haven't fixed this still and we are falling into debt faster for all this? They've lost the other tenants on the other side of the duplex for the EXACT same thing. In fact they have email proof (our landlord is mute) of harassment and threats towards them from the landlord. Can they evict us without warning? HELP!!!
