I am renting an apartment in a college town in TN. The rental market is insane here, the rent has skyrocketed in the two years I’ve lived here and competition for affordable housing is fierce. Most of the apartments in my price range are dumps or in bad neighborhoods. I was living in a really bad roommate situation and was desperate to get out. I finally found something in my price range, a two-story garage converted into an apartment. It seemed great at first. The landlord didn’t give me time to do a thorough walk-through with him before I signed the lease and the lease was kind of vague and had the wrong date on his signature line (showed the year 2013). It wasn’t the best decision I’ve ever made, but I was desperate and there were 5 others in line behind me to snap the apartment up if I didn’t take it. I basically had to sign that day or lose it.
Since moving in, I have found numerous problems with the apartment. The sink leaked (landlord fixed), two of the burners on the stove didn’t work (landlord “fixed” but they aren’t working again, also found out that the wiring was done improperly and it could have caused a fire.) The apartment is very poorly sealed and I’ve had a huge problem with leaks and bugs getting in. There have been electrical problems, the refrigerator died and I had to throw out over $100 of food because everything in the freezer thawed. There have been other minor issues but I don’t want to make this too long.
When I moved in a quiet elderly couple lived in the main house but a month ago the landlord rented the house to obnoxious college kids. They party constantly and invite more people over than the parking lot can hold. Their friends have parked right behind me, blocking me in and making me late for work.
There have also been burglaries in the neighborhood and I had a prowler coming around twice about two months ago. I think they were just looking to see if I had anything worth stealing. I don’t.
I don’t think the apartment meets housing code guidelines. The main issue is that there is no range over the stove for ventilation, and no heat in the apartment other than a small space heater. I’ve heard it’s a fire hazard to run a space heater constantly and it’s nowhere near large enough to heat the entire apartment. We had a cold snap in March shortly after I moved in and it was freezing in here even running the space heater constantly. I want out of here before winter when it gets cold.
I’m at my wit’s end. I want to move to another city closer to home where the cost of living is more in line with the pay and I won’t be paying half of my income to live like this. I want out of this lease, with my deposit back, before it starts getting cold again. I am pretty sure that heat is something that the landlord is legally required to provide, but I’m not sure how to go about filing a complaint. I tried to look up the TN state housing authority website but couldn’t find anything relevant to my situation. Is anyone familiar with the laws in TN?
My lease runs through next August but I want out of here before then. I’m going to try to find someone else to rent the apartment as soon as I move out and that shouldn’t be a problem, there isn’t enough affordable housing here so there will be someone willing to take it, problems and all. I just don’t want my landlord giving me a hard time about breaking my lease early and I want my deposit back for all the trouble I’ve endured here. He’s done some shady things in the past and I wouldn’t put it past him to refuse to return my deposit or claim that he couldn’t find a renter to keep charging me once I’m living states away and can’t check up to see if someone new is living here. I want to find out what my rights are regarding the lack of heat and other issues in case I need to go that route, but I’m not sure where to start and I can’t afford to hire a lawyer. Can anyone recommend some resources or a course of action? Thanks!
Submitted August 07, 2015 at 05:44AM by offmyIawn http://ift.tt/1gg4cb1 legaladvice
No comments:
Post a Comment