Parents please help - Problems with landlord

S0ad
Sat, 23 Jan 2010 18:13:46 +0000

Okay, so I have nobody else to ask, and am hoping some parents here will be able to help.


Our landlords are absolutely awful. When we moved in the apartment was absolutely disgusting, like its never been cleaned. It took me 8 straight hours to clean, I took before and after pictures.
We’re getting worried about them actually giving our security deposit back. There was a decent amount of grime (have pictures) here before we arrived, and a few broken things and garbage around the outside (no pictures). We do have neighbors that would testify that the garbage was here before we moved in. There are a couple of things we did damage (my dog scratched up a little bit of the wall and door). I don’t think it would be more than my pet deposit ($300) and am afraid they will take all of our money ($1200). Is there a way to assure we are given back a fair amount of our deposit?
They never respond to calls or e-mails. A lot of broken things have gotten far worse because of their neglect.
There is a freezer here, and the stuff in it has spoiled. I just opened it and the smell was absolutely disgusting. It was literally the worst smell I ever took a whiff of in my entire life. We agreed to let the guy (their maintenance person) keep it here for $15/month. He hasn’t been here in 2 months. The landlords never respond so we can’t contact him, and we want it out. The smell is slowly leaking into our house and its just not tolerable. What can we do about this?
There is a clause in our lease stating that if the heat goes over last year’s average, we have to pay the extra amount (they currently pay for heat/hot water). However, we’ve contacted them on several occasions telling them it gets way too hot in our apartment, causing it to be very uncomfortable. We’ve had to leave on several occasions because it was simply unbearable. We have no control over the heat (another apartment does) and that was not stated in the lease, nor were we told about. Is it fair to make us pay any excess costs?


Thanks so much for any advice or opinions!