Reoccurring refrigerator issues, landlord slow to fix legaladvice

Hi all. I live in Washington state and moved in to an apartment that came with a refrigerator in the kitchen. The issues with the fridge can be traced back to three events:

1. 
   

   When I checked out the apartment for the first time, my landlord mentioned that one of the current tenants (my future roommate) had said the fridge wasn't keeping things cold enough. He said that he would be fixing it. After I had lived there for about a week, my roommate and I agreed the fridge truly didn't work (food spoiled) and we reported it to the landlord. He bought a new fridge which brings us to:

   
   


2. 
   

   The new refrigerator was driven to our property on it's side. I am no expert, but I have been told that if you move a fridge on it's side, before plugging it in you need to let it sit upright for the amount of time it was on it's side for. My landlord did not do this. The fridge worked for about a week and then our food started to go bad again. Ice had built up in the freezer, food in the fridge side went bad. We reported it to the landlord and he came down and fixed it (turned it off, defrost, turn back on). It worked for about two weeks and now:

   
   


3. 
   

   For at least two or three weeks I've felt like the fridge wasn't keeping cold enough but thought I might be being paranoid. However after my non-dairy coffee creamer went bad in two weeks, I decided we had a problem. I shot my landlord a text last Thursday (10/23/14) and told him the fridge was acting up again. He said he would come by in the morning to check it out. He did but didn't do anything and it is now Monday night and my fridge is at 50 degrees inside.

   
   

My biggest issue is how much money this is costing me. I have looked up some laws on this and understand that if I had kept receipts from having to replace all the food, I could use those in an attempt to get some money back but I did not think about this.

My question is, rent is due at the end of the week. If by the day rent is due the fridge isn't fixed, can I refuse to pay rent until it is? I have not talked to him since last Thursday.

Submitted October 28, 2014 at 08:45AM by PNWTacoParty http://ift.tt/ZUO72v legaladvice