Rental Horror; Can my landlord do this?!

By anonymous

I’ve lived in the same apartment in the same complex for 14+ years now with my mother, beginning when I was a young child (about 12)… I never knew how horrible this place was – but now I’m really starting to see the big picture.

They’ve never once updated or renovated our apartment, no matter what the scenerio – no new paint, no new carpet, no new nothin’! – the only time we received anything "fixed" was when I was 14 and our fridge crapped out… Our toilet is currently rusted out, they "fixed" it several times over the years, none of which actually fixed the problem.  Our tiles in our shower have needed to be re-caulked/grouted multiple times over the years, they’ve done half of the work or no work what-so-ever… it’s so bad, one of the tiles actually FELL INTO the wall never to be seen again… they still won’t fix it!!!

Not only that, but we pay over $1,175 in rent and most recently (apparently this isn’t the first time) they returned our check – claiming there’s a tenancy to be filed and that they cannot accept personal checks but that the payment has to be in by December 6th (tomorrow) and they left the notice December 5th (today after 6p) with the check on our door otherwise a late fee is incurred.  Our rent is due the 1st of every month, and our check was mailed out prior to the end of November in order to get it there in time (as they no longer accept in-person payment)… in other words, there’s no time for a working person to go to the bank and get the money order/bank check in on time – so late fee is going to be incurred anyway!!!

To make matters worse, we live in a shore town in New Jersey, Hurricane Sandy hit us pretty hard – bringing cockroaches into the apartment, my landlord will do nothing to fix this – claiming it’s "our fault"!!!

Our downstairs neighbors even had a bedbug problem a few months back – leaving us approximately 13 hrs weekday notice (they left the notice around 7p on our door without knocking the night prior when they were to be back around 8am the next morning and one of the persons living in the residence had to be present), to have an exterminator… they said he’d be back in two weeks to do Round 2 and never showed up — THEN two months later we get another notice on our door, same time frame, that we have to show up to the office before closing (at 4pm) to request a second round of treatment… How are we supposed to do this when both my mother and myself work?!
OH! – AND – they hit US to split the balance for the downstairs neighbors mattress covers – my mother and I have a Full Bed and a Queen bed, and our neighbors have a King and two Fulls!  Charging us upwards of an additional $100!!!!

Is this legal? What can we do?!  Our lease isn’t up until NEXT October and we currently can’t even begin to afford to think about leaving!!  HELP!!!!

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