South Carolina. Multiple part question.
At the end of July, my partner and I moved from one apartment to another in the same complex owned by the same guy. We had rented from him for two years with no issues. The new apartment had more space, but the landlord claimed the previous tenants trashed the place so it wasn't ready until over a week after our alleged move-in date. And the place still seemed pretty trashed when we moved in. The landlord was extremely pushy about getting us out of the last place and into the new place despite his delay.
I took pictures and have video of damage to the walls, floors, ceilings. The previous tenants banged up the walls, door jambs, and trim pretty much everywhere. The carpet appeared to have not been cleaned very well (black dog hair from the previous tenants in every crack and corner). There was significant water damage on the ceiling in the living room, and the (faux hardwood) floor in that room has had so much water damage it is soft and bouncy. The refrigerator smelled like death and still smells horrible a month later (we cleaned it several times with bleach and other cleaners and the smell persists).
After about a week, part of the ceiling fell into the living room along with a whole bunch of water. The maintenance guy came by several times and it took over month to diagnose the water leak as coming from the upstairs bathroom toilet; the wood is so rotten in the floor of the bathroom due to years of water damage that the toilet rocks back and forth on its wax ring. Water collects around the toilet and as soon as someone steps foot in the bathroom, the floor sinks a little bit, opening up a gap through which all the water flows down into the living room. Usually around a cup or a cup-and-a-half at a time.
We have been talking with only the maintenance guy, who has been, in turn, speaking with the land lord. They will have to tear up the floor in the bathroom upstairs, an adjacent wall leading to a second bedroom, and replace all of it. It is not clear whether we will have access to our shower, and it will take over a week to complete.
I like to think I am reasonable: it is clear that the previous tenants totally trashed the place. However, a lot of this damage is long-term and obvious (like a bouncy living room floor and a terrible refrigerator) and we have had water coming in from the ceiling for two months while the maintenance guy and land lord kept dragging their feet on repairs. Furthermore, the maintenance guy is unsure if we will have access to a shower for the next week to two weeks.
What do I do? Is my landlord obliged to pay for a hotel or something while we are having repairs done, since we won't even have a shower? Am I at least entitled to ask for cheaper rent for the next few months, or a refund on part of my rent for the past few months? After all, I am paying for an apartment with two bedrooms and 1.5 bathrooms, whereas for the next week or two, I'll have 1 or 0.5 baths and only one bedroom.
As an aside, the upstairs bathroom smells terrible too due to the wood rot and the bad connection in the wax ring in the toilet. The maintenance guy has suggested once that our apartment smells like pot and he is unwilling to do work on our place if we aren't sober. My partner and I claim that smell is entirely coming from rotten wood and sewer odors. We smoke occasionally with friends, but we never have any in our apartment, and I am concerned this guy is either making excuses to drag his feet, or that if we push our landlord about this topic, he will accuse us of being druggies in order to get out of his obligations as a landlord.
TL;DR Landlord is taking too long to repair obvious problems, never provided an apartment "ready to move-in," and is using the rank odor of his water-damaged and rotting apartment to indirectly accuse us of doing drugs on his property. We may not even have a shower in our place for a week or more. How do I push this guy into giving us a break on rent from the extreme inconvenience without getting evicted?
Submitted September 21, 2015 at 09:47PM by LandlordThrowaway279 http://ift.tt/1KuQrhm legaladvice
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