As a tenant in a rental community,
you have some advantages over homeowners. For example, you
don’t need to worry about making simple maintenance
repairs. What you DO need to worry about is submitting repair
requests in a timely fashion. If you wait too long, YOU could
be responsible for costly repairs.
Let’s visit Suzy Shmoe - a resident of Hypothetical
Apartments. Suzy has a leaky washer. When her clothes hit
the spin cycle, some of the water inside ends up on the floor.
Since Suzy is a busy woman she keeps forgetting to turn in
that repair request to her landlord. So to temporarily “fix”
the problem, she surrounds the washer with big fluffy beach
towels which she replaces after every load. Sure, it’s
a makeshift job... but by the time she gets home from school,
its always too late to get in touch with the landlord, and
she’s too tired to find him early in the morning. So
the problem continues, and replacing wet towels from around
the washer becomes more of a routine than a reminder of the
leak.
What Suzy doesn’t realize is that the constant moisture
on the laundry room tiles is causing them to warp and crack.
Slowly, water begins to soak into the cracks and through to
her downstairs neighbors ceiling. (Aren’t chain reactions
fun?) So, Suzy’s downstairs neighbors submit a repair
request to the landlord asking him to look at the water stain
on their ceiling. The landlord determines Suzy’s leaking
washer is the source of the problem, and now she is responsible
not only for repairing the cracked ceiling of her downstairs
neighbors, but also the repair costs needed to fix the original
problem!
Now if Suzy had taken the extra time to turn a repair request
into her landlord in the first place, her washer would work
fine, she’d have a cabinet full of dry towels, and she
wouldn’t have to worry about dishing out the cost for
all of the repairs which now have to be made. Poor Suzy.
So let’s go back to Hypothetical Apartments and say
that Suzy DID submit the request for repairs at the first
sign of leaking. What if the landlord didn’t make the
repair before the downstairs neighbors had a crack in their
ceiling? According to the Cleveland Tenant’s Organization,
“If a landlord does not meet the duties imposed by the
Landlord Tenant law or the local housing codes or the rental
agreement or if there are conditions which materially affect
health and safety, then... a tenant may give the landlord
a written notice to correct the condition. This notice must
be in writing and delivered to the person or at the place
where the tenant normally pays rent. Tenant should keep a
copy of this notice.
“If the landlord fails to correct the condition within
a reasonable time, not to exceed 30 days, then the tenant
may deposit his/her rent with the Clerk of Courts, or may
apply to the Court for an order to compel the repairs, or
may terminate the rental agreement.”
In other words, if Suzy did her part as a tenant by notifying
the landlord of the problem, the responsibility would move
out of her hands and into the landlord’s. So if you
have even a minor problem that requires your landlord’s
attention, take the extra few minutes to turn in the repair
request. You’ll save both you and your landlord from
additional stresses.
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