slumlord not attending to safety issues

By frustrated mom

we started to rent a 3 bedroom twin in april…not to long after moving in our sewer drain backed up, it is an older home that was vacant for 4 years..the former owner passed away.the guy who came to fix the issue told the landlord and us, that if the landlord wasnt going to fix our basment drain by replacing it..it should be sealed up…either never happened.next came the flooring..after getting settled in we realized the worn hard woood floors were more than a cosmetic issue..we found we could not clean the floor with a regular mop/ sponge..it would rip and tear. next came the staple my daughters foot got cut with..fortunatly no infection from it. as i began to hand scrup the floor i managed to pull out of the floor about a court size bag of old rusty staples..and nails..some i hammered back in…some i pulled because they were to bent to hammer in.Then we started getting splinters and realized we could not walk across flooring barefoot for safety issues…we told him the floors needed repair.he sent someone to do an estimate, but nothing came of it. Then the upstairs bathroom paint started to peal due to no ventelation system…we are concerned for mold.then we found that some of the old style two prong outlets are so old plugs slide right out, or wiggle to much to use.he sent an electricion, but again nothing came of it…on to the heat and insulation.we have oil for our heat and hot water.we are very conservative with our water usage, but in the beging of september..we had an issue and had no hot water..we thought we maybe ran out..but when the fuel company came to service the unit, they made us aware that the tank hardly moved since we moved in at the begining of april.we figured while they were out we would have them fill tank to get ready for winter.we didnt turn heat on till the week of thanksgiving. keeping it low when nobody was home and running when we were at 65…it was just not warm in house..we gradualy turned it up…it took only about three and a half weeks to completley run out of oil..and it wasnt even very warm..we went around the house and discovered large air gaps where cold air was coming in around windows,doors, an attic window,and basement..we let the landlord know of theses insulation problems..and tried to but things across windows and doors..not much help..he told us he would not do anything because he had no money.as it grew colder we noticed the few storm windows that remained were in poor shape.they would get a film of ice on the inside of the windows…before we even moved in and signed a lease we asked about the windowsand insulation.he assured us everything was good…and to the naked eye,with fresh paint it did seem fine in the spring.I had lost my job a few months back, and by november we were a bit late on rent,but communicated to our landlord our situation and that we would make partial payments every week or every other..he excepted that.but january1st rolled around and our roof started to leak two floors down.badly!our land lord took over a week to even address the issue.he got a roofer to do some cheap fix work to thr roof.this didn’t help..we had several bad snow storms durring this time and could not even use or bedroom and our family room..we were about three weeks late on rent  at that time..but were sending him a partial payment still…he told us he could not fix the problem because we were late on rent..we had some one else come to give an estimate..they told us if the roof did not get repaired it was so damaged it could fall/ cave in..we asked again to have this issue taken care of since we have two young children..instead he started an eviction, we appealed it and now have to put or money into escrow..he still has not fixed anything..if my ex catches wind that I have a leaky roof, he could take me to court to try to win cutody of my children due to unfit living standards..he likes to mess with me how ever he can..we are getting ready to fill are oil tank once more..it is still so cold we wear our coats inside and have also been using space heaters which make our electric go up.tried to run a second one down stairs, but electric trips due to old wires..still have a leak..and are being forced to leave regardless of the eviction going thru…we have a month and a half to continue sticking rent into escrow..pay all utilities..and save money to move…this house and our landlord has been nothing but a nightmare!!!!!

Related posts:

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