Can my landlord so this?!

By NT

A couple of my friends and I unfortunately fell into a horrible rental situation while at school. Basically, we were short on time and all 5 of us were looking for a lot of different things that a lot of the apartments in the neighborhood didn’t offer. Anyways… We ended up at this apartment that seemed somewhat okay and we were willing to settle if it had most of the things we were looking for.

The apartment we saw was in pretty horrible condition: the previous renters basically did not care about the condition of the apartment and could care less how they left it. However, the manager promised that he would clean up the whole apartment and we felt that was resonable enough. Turns out his idea of cleaning the apartment was hiring a bunch of Asian women in their 40s to mop up the apartment with dirty, murky, cloudy gray water. The apartment was definitely NOT cleaned: the ceiling had random splattered stains and there was gum all over the wood floor. The floor was not rebuffed; it was dull and dirty. We then had to hire a cleaning service to come and save the apartment. Thank goodness: it was a lot cleaner afterwards, but it was nowhere near being as nice as it could be.

However, he was willing to buff the floors of another unit AND replace the floors of another unit. When we asked why he couldn’t do this for us? He said: because you guys already moved in. Our response: you didn’t even give us the option of fixing/replacing anything! We asked you once and you said there was nothing you could do about it!

Just a quick fact: we paid rent for a whole month before we even moved in. We basically spent that month cleaning/fixing the apartment on our own. So he could’ve TOTALLY fixed/clean the floor in our apartment if he wanted to.

Then he basically threatened that whoever moves into the unit with the new floor and made even a tiny scuff that he would automatically charge them $2000 to replace it. Absurd.

On top of that, the manager told us that we could paint the walls any color we would like, but, of course, he forgot to mention the fact that we would have to paint the rooms ourself. When we asked him, he proceeded to act surprised and say: "well I can provide all the paint, paintbrushes, and all the materials". We were of course surprised ourselves, but a little bit of painting couldn’t possibly kill us so we ended up doing it. What other choice did we have at that point.

The tiles in the bathroom floor were broken. The tiles in the kitchen are also cracked.

All the appliances in the kitchen were old and broken. The refridgerator finally broke down one day and the manager decided to buy another old and broken down refridgerator to replace it. Of course that didn’t last long. Eventually, he was forced to buy a new fridge (the fact that he was willing to do it was the shocker of the century). The new refridgerator had a rebate deal of about $300 dollars. From then on he demanded that I write him a $300 check. He said he just needs it, but that he would not cash it and that as soon as the rebate came in all I would have to do is tell him and at that point he’ll cash my check. I didn’t want to write it because that’s $300 that I could possibly be losing. What is the difference between me writing the check and him not cashing it and me NOT writing the check and giving him the rebate check? His answer: he doesn’t trust us. Fair enough: I didn’t trust him either. Basically, in the end we had to write him a "contract" promising that if a check comes in the mail I would promptly let him know and give him the rebate money.

The stove is also old and broken. The knobs on the stove aren’t even original! They were just random ones he found and stuck on the stove. One of the knobs don’t even turn.

But the one big thing that drives all of us insane: he thinks that coming over at 9 o’ clock at night and working until midnight is okay. He is hammering, sawing, drilling, and doing all sorts of things without any regards or consideration to his tenants. We are students: some of us need to study and sleep early. How could we possibly do that if he’s cutting ceramic tiles out in the front yard?! Ridiculous. When one of our neighbors complained he told her: I’m already done with the sawing and we’re just putting everything together. Yet within the next hour, he started sawing and cutting and making noise AGAIN.

My question is: is any of this okay or even legitamite? I mean, I know there are some things that just can’t be fixed, but working into the wee hours of the night? There’s no consideration or respect for the people living there.

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