Landlord refuses to fix fireplace

By Tammy

My landlord absolutely refuses to fix the fireplace in your duplex unit. He owns and lives on the bigger half of this duplex property and my husband and I rent the smaller "mother-in-law" unit. We have tried to have a fire in the fireplace twice and both times the place filled up with smoke, I don’t know if the flu is broken or if the chimney needs cleaning, … or both. We’ve asked the landlord each month on the day we pay rent to please fix the issue and he finally said, no, he doesn’t want us having fires as he doesn’t want to paint the unit when we move. This is the tip of the iceburg.

 Our deck is completely rotten, so rotten it has large holes in it. It’s "useable" but very scary to walk on. He does nothing to fix it.  ~ EVERYTHING in the unit is from the early 1970s, no upgrades other than a used stove (possibly) had been put in before we moved.

Our kitchen faucet broke, and it was in dire need of an upgrade and I was pretty excited about getting a new faucet… he replaced it with an even older model he had in his garage. I was extremely insulted that he would treat his tenant and next door neighbor this way. And I’ve grown to detest the man.

Our bathroom faucet was leaking and we asked to have it fixed he did so… and left a gunky pink gooey mess beind. It started leaking again a week later. It took several months for him to come back to fix is… as you know… the drive over is so taxing! He fixed it but now the hot and cold water are backwards.

 He simply can’t fix anything right, he WON’T put any money into the unit and he’s just downright neglectful and cheap. I’ve taken to calling him the slumlord.

The worst part of this is my husband won’t let me speak up, or go to anyone for help. I want to report him but he’s known for suing others and my spouse is concerned he’ll do the same to us even though he has no legal leg to stand on.

What advise can you give me? There is so much wrong with this unit that it’s sad as it’s in a very, very nice neighborhood and it looks great from the outside, but having to live with issues like this day in and day out is disgusting and depressing.

Tammy

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