Jeanne Robinson    |    Boone    ,    North Carolina 28607    Landlord Complaint 23-9406

On December 9th, 2017 I contacted my landlord to request that the furnace be serviced since I had discovered that I, in a little over a week, had gone through $400 in oil that the landlord had claimed to put in the heating oil tank prior to my moving in. I cannot be sure that there was actually this much oil in the tank, as every request for a receipt or bill of sale that I have made to the landlord has either been ignored or she has provided me with a document that was not the bill of sale, such as a credit card statement showing a charge by the gas provider or a service call invoice showing repairs to the plumbing infrastructure. Landlord is requiring that I pay her for $400 of heating oil that she refuses to provide receipt for that she claims was delivered before my moving in date of October 1, 2017. Upon requesting that the furnace be inspected and expressing my concern about how the oil had depleted so quickly, she insisted the furnace was fine and that it was inspected annually. On December 28, 2017, a chimney sweeper hired by the landlord to clean the fireplace chimney told me that the chimney was the worst he had ever cleaned and that he was concerned for my safety due to the fact that the furnace chimney surely would be in an equally dirty state if the fireplace chimney was, and that the furnace chimney not being cleaned is a much greater safety issue. He conveyed this to my landlord. I again expressed my concern in regards to the furnace to my landlord via an email, she responded by mocking me, threatening to evict me, and stating that she would be coming to install smoke alarms and CO2 alarms in the next couple of days (four months after I had moved in she decided to finally install). When she arrived to install them, I for the 4th time expressed how professionals in the heating industry had warned me not to use the furnace until the furnace chimney was cleaned, she responded by telling me that if I I didn’t feel safe in the house then we should have the lease terminated. Yesterday, on January 15, 2018, landlord began calling and texting repeatedly demanding that I have the heating oil tank filled up with oil and telling me, again, that we should terminate the lease. I replied stating that I had asked her on multiple occasions to have the furnace inspected and the furnace chimney cleaned and that I would not be putting oil in the furnace oil tank until such maintenance was completed. I informed her I would be submitting this complaint today.