Im not sure of the laws….

By Shaun

    Good morning,

              I live in a very small town called Attica NY. We currently rent a home and garage from our landlord that lives in the house nextdoor. The house was built around 1900, so it is a very old house. Now I do have to say my landlord has done a fantastic job making the place nice looking. However, the underlying age of the home continues to show itself. My landlord is telling me that some things are my fault when I believe it is due to the age of the home and improper installation of the things that are being damaged. For example. The home has its own septic tank. Now, we started to have  drain issues in the whole house. So when we weould flush the toilet or shower, the sink would "gurgle" and the drains were super slow if not stopped all together. I called my landlord and he cam into the house and looked at the toilet and shower. Niw since I have kids ( a 4yo and a 10 yo ) I have some toys in the bathroom for my 4yo and he saw them and stood in my face with his finger basicly up my nose and said "if any of your kids threw a toy in there your going to pay for this. it not going to be my responcability" This I understood but he did not have to be that accusing and angry with me. Anyways, he could not find an issue and I told him that I thought it was not a problem in the house because it is all the drains not just one. So he went out and looked at the ceptic tank vent and he opened the vent and all kinds of "stuff" came running out. That to me says it has to be a septic issue. He had someone come out and dig up the pipe and saw that one was broke so they fixed it and filled in the holes. Once that was done, my landlord cam to me and said that i should minimize my toilet use.?.?.? said I should throw out my toilet paper rather than flush it. He said in the last 7 years he has never had an issue with the system so it has to be my fault. I don’t think this is the case. Yes, if there is a toy or whatever obviously yes I will be liable, but the septic has been here for alot longet then I have. so I don’t think I should be heald responcable for that. Now, a month later, the system is backing up into the yard and im afraid to tell him because I think he is going to start yelling again and saying i have to pay to get it replaced. What is the liability of a tenant regarding this situation?

Second issue is a 5 year old pergo flooring. it is a immitation hard wood floor made out of fiber board. ( not very durable ) Now the floor was in great shape when we moved in. Since we have been here we have noticed that there must be no stable sub-flooring under it though. Everytime we walk in some places we sink right into the floor. ( about 1/2 inch or so ) because of this, the peices of floor are shifting and the edges of them are breaking apart from our chairs because when you sit on a chair, you sink in so the feet get caught on the edges and crack them. Also in some areas there is debris under the floor and it made the peices crack and start to come up. this debris must have been there when the floor was installed because I have no way of getting under there. When I pointed this out to my landlord he said it is my responcability because he has had 2 other tennents in here with no problems. Now that may be the case but i remember him saying that the last tennents were elderlt and probably didnt have the traffic of a family like I do so it was never noticed. That or as i said earlier, the age of the house really starting to show itself.

I was wondering if you could please respond to me and give me some advice on what i may be liable for and or where i can find this out from.

thank you

shaun

Related posts:

Holy Cow, we couldn't find any other related post. Sorry. :(