do you rent? sooo ticked at landlord

[phaethona]

yesterday was epic stress for me. yesterday morning I very narrowly avoided what would have been a devastating house fire with me and my kids in the house. our furnace caught fire and my daughter heard the alarm and woke me up in time to shut the unit and the gas off. the furnace is downstairs in the laundry room and we could barely hear the alarm wide awake, if it would have happend overnight the whole basement would have been on fire before we knew it. who saved the day? my daughter, and it was her birthday and my day was supposed to be dedicated to cleaning and decorating, not dealing with my ding-dong landlord. but she wasn't very disappointed because she was too busy in the bathroom getting sick all day. So, in the midst of all this I asked my husband to come home early to help me handle things, he came home...and got sick.

so, back to the landlord rant. we've been faithful tenants for 5 years, our landlord does home repair for a living so anytime something goes wrong, he's usually just a phone call away, and if it's something we can fix we usually keep the receipts and deduct off the rent(with his ok first). A couple of years ago something went out on our A/C and after he fixed it he mentioned to me that I need to make sure I'm changing the furnace filter, I told him that I change it every month because of my allergies. so then he tells me, "well if you dusted and vacuumed more often and didn't let the dogs in the house all the time(we have 2 and we paid a $500 deposit to have them), that would be ok, so maybe once a month isn't enough." Okay, so my house does not look like a picture in a magazine, I have 3 kids, 2 dogs and a husband, I spend most of my days cleaning and my house looks clean but "lived in".
fast forward to a month ago, and the blower fan goes out on the furnace, turns out it was something electrical. rather than hiring an HVAC tech, he and his buddy decide to rewire it themselves. fast forward again to yesterday, I'm still in shock that we came so close to losing everything, possibly even our lives. the landlord did call an official HVAC company this time, who found that it was a faulty gas valve and an arc in the wiring that sparked the fire. and what does beloved landlord ask the tech? "what are the chances this started from the filter not being changed?"

I'm biting my tongue off to not tell him "look pal, you and your buddy could have burned this house down with my family and everything we own in it because you're too cheap to hire a professional, and you want to turn around and say it's because of something I did?! and if you want your filters changed so bad then why don't you scurry off and buy some or knock it off the rent so I can. I've rented since I was a teenager, and you are the only landlord I've ever heard of who not only expects his tenants to pay extra for maintenance, but who continually tries to blame his own cheapskate screwups on them!

ugh, so I'm curious if any of you rent, and if so, who is responsible for what maintenance?
my rent is due at the end of the week and I got half a mind to buy a case of filters and deduct off the check

sorry I just had to rant, that got me so peeved when he said that yesterday, I feel better now

 

[NoseyChickens]

We had a house out in TX that we rented out once we moved to California. As landlords we were responsible if anything broke or needed repaired. Filter changes and yard work were the responsiblity of the tenant. They also had to comply with the HOA rules. We did hire a property management company to take care of it since we were so far away.

I am glad your family is safe! I hope everyone is feeling better. Now I am off to check my smoke detectors!

 

[WIChookchick]

I think there is a law that every area should have a smoke detector.
We live in a small, older home that we rent, we have heating fuel based furnace, with NO filter.. not even a place for one.. it runs off of a diesel type fuel.. my husband is allergic to it.
We have a natural gas furnace we can get installed, the hook up is all there. Yes we paid for it, and yes we will pay to have it installed.
WHY.. its cheaper than trying to buy 500 dollars worth of heating oil, up to 2x a year.
The house was a foreclosure, the land lord put in the minimum to bring it up to code, except she did put in a bathtub/shower vs the old stand up shower that was there.
We have a small 4 drawer dresser as the linen/medicine/storage cabinet in the bathroom. The toilet roll holder is attached to 1 drawer...
She put in track lighting that gets soo hot we had to take two out, one faced the thermostat so it wouldn't kick on the heater...
We have OLD windows, that need to be replaced, two rooms, the bathroom and a small room off the kitchen have plastic on the OUTSIDE and inside, still keep them
shut tight because they are COLD...
When we moved in, she said she would replace them.. its been almost 2 yrs now. The basement has an OUTSIDE entrance, and is dirt, the breaker box is down there.
We put pallets on top of the dirt, and plastic to keep the mold down. We have a dehumidifier down there, and a small heater to keep the mold down.
The front steps- one was crumbling, as they are badly done concrete. I fixed it using 38 pds of cement, and a bonder.
She raised our rent this last year so she could "fix things"...
No we have not been re-imbursed for what we have done. It is too much trouble to try to get money out of her. She has let us break our rent up
more than once into 2 payments due to my DH's pay schedule. And we want to do a rent to own thing on this house.
IT is an ODD house, and we love it.
Here is a pic of it from last winter.

Our previous Land lords have repaid us when we have had work done, or repair'd it ourselves though...

 

[phaethona]

Quote:
thanks! yeah, my birthday girl and her dad were much better this morning, now my oldest is home sick, me and my youngest are washing our hands and lysol-ing like crazy.

moral of the story, make sure you have enough alarms, and that they're working and loud enough. you just never know, and we were very lucky.
this was a very eye-opening experience for me.

 

[FireTigeris]

In FL it all has to be spelled out in rental agreement.

 

[phaethona]

Quote:
your house sounds a lot like mine, mine's older, probably late 50's. old windows, so we have to put up plastic. And our landlord always does the minimum to get by, once I called the gass co, because I could smell a hint of gas every time I walked past the stove, they came out shut off the gas and fixed it. out here by law anytime they shut it off for repairs, they have to check all other gas appliances before they can turn the gas back on. turns out one of the pipes to the water heater wasn't up to code because it has to be so far from the unit and the ceiling, the gas guy said he can't turn us back on until it's up to code. he even said "I've only worked on gas lines for 3 years, but I've seen houses practically disintegrate over things like this." what did beloved landlord do? turned it back on himself and left.

 

[Judy]

I've probably lived in 30 places that I rented, and once had a landlord who was decent about things, and was someone who actually became a friend. Once.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Check your state laws for tenant rights and landlord responsibilities; anything that is not covered there needs to be spelled out in the contract.

I would suggest that if you want repairs, and are capable of doing them, that you first ask the landlord if you can apply your rent towards making that fix. Communicate via mail or email so there is a written paper trail. You may not be reimbursed for the labor, but you will know the quality of hte work. If the answer is "No," and the repair is necessary to make the home livable, you then need to reply that the work is NECESSARY, and you expect it to be completed in XXX time.

Pretty sure code requires smoke detectors in the kitchen and within a very few feet of each bedroom. Not zoning code, but fire safety and/or building code. There are two sets of code that are commonly used in the US: either the Uniform Building Code or the International Building Code. While a municipality can create their own, virtually none do.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Quote:
your house sounds a lot like mine, mine's older, probably late 50's. old windows, so we have to put up plastic. And our landlord always does the minimum to get by, once I called the gass co, because I could smell a hint of gas every time I walked past the stove, they came out shut off the gas and fixed it. out here by law anytime they shut it off for repairs, they have to check all other gas appliances before they can turn the gas back on. turns out one of the pipes to the water heater wasn't up to code because it has to be so far from the unit and the ceiling, the gas guy said he can't turn us back on until it's up to code. he even said "I've only worked on gas lines for 3 years, but I've seen houses practically disintegrate over things like this." what did beloved landlord do? turned it back on himself and left.

What your landlord did was illegal; definite grounds for calling the city and reporting it. Or asking the worker whoo first identified the problem to do so. I'm actually surprised that the gas company did not turn off your service until it was repaired to meet code.

 

[acid_chipmunk]

We just got done renting, finally bought our house, after renting for 10 years. Our last two landlords were great. The last one, who we bought the house from, lives in FL and we live in PA, so we didn't have to deal with him. If we had any problems in the house, we would pay to fix it and it came off our rent. We kept all the reciepts, but he never once asked to see them. Luckily for us, he finally decided that he wasn't moving back up here and sold it to us.

Good luck with your landlord, but what he is doing is illegal and I'm sure his insurance company wouldn't be too happy to hear about it.