Edit: Additionally, I forgot to mention this in the original text of the post, she has not set foot on the property since I've moved in according to her own account.
So this is going to be kind of a long story.
This isn't the whole story but TL;DR, the current situation as it stands now, is that firstly, I've had rats running around my apt for almost a month now and I can't get my landlord to allow me to hire the orkin guy to stop the holes they could be getting into. Rat feces is in my bathroom closet, kitchen, and I even found rat feces on my bed after being out of town for two weeks. Second, there is a repair I requested done on the apartment back in winter that she told me when I called over the phone she would have somebody come out and fix it. Nobody contacted me or came. The windowpane broke while I was trying to open the window, I was in no way at fault for the window breaking. Finally, she mentioned the word "attorney" in the context of "you might want to talk to an attorney about that" in a phone conversation today when I tried to ask about the rat situation after getting back in town. When I tried to put in formal requests for permission to hire the orkin people (out of pocket as it is specified in the lease I am on the hook for pest control/extermination) and to get the window fixed via email, the email provided on the lease bounced. I got one of those "address not found" messages back in my inbox.
Here are the details, this will be pretty much the whole story. I signed a lease in a one bedroom basement unit basically in Austin Texas last August. There didn't seem to be anything glaringly wrong with the place when I took the tour and nobody was occupying it at the time. They were doing some construction on the entryway but said it would be done by the time I moved in. The day I moved in I don't think it was all done but that's not the important part. The important part is that while I was moving into the place it happened to be raining that day (as is liable to happen in Texas) and about the point where I had half of my crap moved in the entire apartment started flooding except for the bedroom, which was on a higher level than the living room, kitchen, and bathroom. If I had actually had any of my crap set up in that house it would've all been destroyed besides my bed and maybe some things hanging in the closet. Also there was rotting food in the refrigerator with no power on for some reason.
I tried to get the lease ripped up but the realtor she was working through said she would not let me walk away from the lease and instead offered to let me sign a lease in a two bedroom unit in a duplex next door to the one that just got flooded for basically the same price as the one bedroom would have been. I was pretty sure I would've had a case to walk away from the lease but didn't feel like fighting it since the other place was above ground, technically an upgrade, and while it looked fine it was still obviously quite old. I wound up signing that lease.
While I've been living in this place it's basically been falling apart on its own. I had to pay a plumber to install a new garbage disposal (somehow it was specified in the lease that she wasn't responsible specifically for the garbage disposal) one of the planks on the wood floor in the living room just gave way while I was simply walking on it. My water got shut off for more than a day because my landlord who is on the hook for the water is overdue on something according to the city and they are having a dispute over that. The faucet on the hot water in the shower got stripped so I had to get a plumber out to fix that (the landlord actually took care of that one because she is on the hook for the water bill not me). I had to install a new showerhead because the old one stopped working for some reason I couldn't figure out on my own.
So I guess my landlord is leasing these properties through some realty agency or something. Part of my lease includes language allowing them to tour my property to prospective tenants. I live by myself. Don't entertain really ever. I never have like swarms of flies or foul odors in my place but it's just not always the cleanest. Around February they started showing my place to new tenants (the first few times they showed up with zero notice, which is not allowed in the lease, but they blamed it on not having the right number in their system to contact me). I apologized for the mess but was told it was no problem. Somewhere around the third visit some issue came up (I think it was the shower faucet thing) and while I was talking to my landlord I was told the mess was kind of a problem and to try to clean up more and I agreed to do so. The realtors hadn't shown my place in several months by that point but I never heard anything before then about my place being a problem. When the same realtors showed me places the ones that were lived in were very lived in, so I didn't think much of it at the time especially with the realtors saying to me it was not a problem. Clearly there was some kind of miscommunication but since then I've been trying to keep the place more reasonably clean. When I have notice that they are coming I clean up but sometimes they showed up like an hour early or only texted me hours before arriving while I was already busy doing other things. I was even specifically told one time to not bother tidying up when they showed up unexpectedly and I asked for about 5 or 10 minutes to make it look nice because it didn't matter. There is a clause in the lease that says I have to keep the place clean and sanitary. As far as I was concerned it was a bit messy but hardly unsanitary. I haven't been sick a single time since I've lived here.
About a month ago was when I saw the first rat. I bought a glue trap but never caught it. After seeing it again a few days later I called the landlord and left a message about it to see if there was anyone they already had on retainer that could take care of it and then I called the orkin people. The orkin guy eventually came and looked at the place. He said that the rats were being attracted by the water pipes around my sink and dishwasher and identified several places inside the house where they could be moving around and several places outside where they could get in. He said he could lay traps but it wouldn't stop the problem unless he trimmed a tree and got permission to plug up some entry points on the outside with some kind of fencing thing or something. I specifically asked him if any of the mess or any of my dishes or food could be a factor and he told me that it wasn't relevant. He told me to contact my landlord to get permission for them to start work on making sure the rats couldn't get into the house and setting up traps.
I managed to get hold of my landlord soon after but they were out of town and they told me to wait about a week for them to get back in town to look at the place and look at the entry points themselves. I couldn't really do anything at that point besides say 'okay' but I was fairly upset that this person was just expecting me to deal with rats running around my kitchen and basically making my food preparation area unusable. They got back in town a day after I had to leave town for a few weeks on business.
When I got back in town a few days ago, I called them to try and get an update on the rat situation (which I had to assume was unresolved because there was rat feces on my damn bed when I got back in town). Instead of a conversation about the rat situation and how to resolve it I basically just got chewed out about how there's a broken window (which she "doesn't remember talking about") a "hole in the floor" (which is just the plank that gave way when I stepped on it. Most of it is still there there's just a splinter that broke off and it dips into the floor.) and "doors broken off the hinges" (I have no idea where she got that one literally none of the doors have suffered any damage since I moved in) and that the realtors haven't been able to get a lease to replace me by the end of august yet because my place is basically too messy (as if it's my job to sell her apt or my fault that she hired shitty realtors who won't communicate to her about when they're showing the place and will just not show the place for months at a time). I remember the phrase "attorney" coming up in the context of "something you have to talk to one" about but I don't remember exactly when it was said. She said someone from the realty company was going to come by tomorrow 7/8 to presumably deal with the rat complaint maybe? I don't remember exactly. She hung up on me after I asked what I'm going to do about the rat problem again. The second time I brought up the rat situation she told me "aren't you moving out soon anyways?" As if three weeks of living in an apt full of rat shit is just whatever or her precious model apartment is going to look any more attractive to prospective renters when there is rat shit all over the kitchen area and in the bathroom closet.
I've already taken pictures of everything in the house as it is now to compare with the pictures I took when I moved in. I just tried to send emails a few hours ago formally requesting the window repair and permission to go ahead on the orkin rat proofing procedure but the email she provided me in the lease bounced with an "address not found" message.
There is language in the lease suggesting I could be on the hook for more damages than the security deposit (which is ample, almost 1k). What should I expect or do to cover my bases? I swept and mopped the floors and threw out the mountain dew containers/whataburger stuff and water bottles. Is the fact that there is no reasonable way for me to send her written repair requests something I can use in my favor? What about the initial lease with the place that flooded? Is any of that relevant? At what point do I need to start thinking about lawyering up?
Thanks
Submitted July 07, 2017 at 11:56AM by redditman808 http://ift.tt/2twYHgq legaladvice
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