roof leaking for over a year

By unhappy renter

I am renting a unit in a mill building and have been living here for about a year and a half. During this time, my living room ceiling has leaked a minimum of 5 times. I am on the top floor. These are only the documented cases I have where I emailed the leasing office and does not include leaks that I only called about. The leaking is not in one spot. It spreads over a large area that includes my couch, coffee table and electronics. Each time I have notified the leasing office they send roofers out and tell me that they have patched this or that and the roof should be fixed. This past few weeks we have leaked again and I told my leasing office that I wanted to transfer to another unit ( they have 100’s of units in multiple building ). The problem is that they don’t want to pay for the movers and they are also looking to charge market rent for the new unit which is 200 dollars more than what I am paying now. The square footage of my current leaky unit is larger than the unit they are looking to charge more for. I have paid my rent on time and in full every month, including the months that have leaked. It is now the winter and the middle of the holidays and I am really not looking to find a new place to live. They told me that they would be happy to release me from my lease but I think they are just looking to get me out because I don’t want to pay more. Does anyone have any advice on what my rights are? Can I withold rent or ask for a portion of my rent back for each month the unit leaked?

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