Problems with Landlord Repairs, is it LEGAL?

 

 I, my husband, my four children and my mother. have been renting a house(since March) from a couple, who on surface level seem to be good genuine people.  Only at the first sign of any complaint by us seem to avoid us altogether!!!  When we moved in, the downstairs bathroom shower leaked all over the carpet downstairs…  I informed them of this problem in April when we noticed it.  They said they would get a guy in to fix it.  When June rolled around and we hadn’t heard anything from them I re-submitted our complaint because we could not use that shower in fear of causing more of a problem, that we would ultimately be responsible for.  Finally after phone call after phone call to them, the husband finally came in and caulked some tiles and the drain.  Seems to have fixed the problem…  NOW on Friday, Oct 1, 2010 at 10:00 pm, the bottom LITERALLY  fell out of the water heater!  I tried to call her immediately, but was  unable to even leave a message so I called his number where all I could do is leave a message.  Then I sent her a text since sometimes they will go thru when a call won’t.  she got my text and attempted to call back but there was a funny sound only on the other end of the line when I answered.  So she called my husband’s(who was at work), line to see if he knew what was going on.  BECAUSE he was at work, he had no idea what the problem was.   She again tried my number and we could talk.  I told her about the water heater and she said she would try to get the plumber over on Saturday the 2nd.  

Saturday rolled around since there was water all over the carpet I went and rented a carpet shampooer, so we could suck up some of the water at least.  Worked on it ALL day=off and on… in between two of my four children being sick!  I dumped at LEAST 12 buckets of nasty black water down the toilet during this time frame.  At noon or so I called her again to see what was what.  She said she talked to  her plumber and he couldn’t come till SUNDAY after 4 pm., and even then he would have an extra charge for being called in on the weekend.  Her husband is out of town till Monday night, and her brother is out of town as is her father.   She had a call into her brother-in-law who was up on the mountain cutting firewood, and her sister was supposed to have him call as soon as he could.  So We WAITED…  about five I sent another text message to see what was going on… status still the same waiting on brother-in-law…  eight o’clock I called her again and got more excuses… by now I have three children who DEFINATELY need baths- they have been sick for crying out loud and one is an infant!  

Hubby got home from work at 2 am, looking for a shower to help him to relax, upon being informed we still have no hot water, he wanted me to call her right then and say "How would you handle it if YOU didn’t have hot water?"  I TOTALLY AGREE, but I didn’t call.  First thing Sunday am, I sent another wave of text messages saying we understand you have people out of town, but this is getting outrageous.  We can’t shower, do laundry or run the dish washer(please note, we HAVE boiled water on the stove to wash the dishes) and I’m still sucking up water from the carpets but it really stinks something horrible of pet… (we have no pets).  To which came the response of "well why hasn’t the water been all sucked up from Friday’s events? read number 13 of the contract, if you want us to enforce ALL that is on the contract we will.  I am doing what I can to get someone over there today!!!  I told her that WE ARE fulfilling our end of the contract, thats why I went and got a carpet shampooer to clean up the water in the first place!  to which she said, well just keep sucking it up, and put fans on it.  When it drys it will need to be steam cleaned…  I wonder who the heck she thinks is going to pay for it… they certainly aren’t willing to pay for the extra money for a plumber on a weekend… how important is it for them to pay a professional cleaner to take care of the stinky carpet after no being willing to take care of the mess in the first place?!  UGH!!!  

SO my biggest question is How quickly is something like this required by law to be taken care of?  What rights do we actually have?  I have the receipts from the steam cleaner, and the box fans we bought SPECIFICALLY for this purpose!   Where does our financial obligation for this problem stop and theirs actually begin????  and If I file a complaint, can it effect the remainder of our 6 months lease?  Thanks for any and all input here… I’m soooo sick of the garb!  – Exhausted and Smelly!