Lemme break it down for you

#1 Layla

I really want to know what that second “sentence” is talking about.

Oct 8, 2012 at 3:53 pm rating: 21 small thumbs up

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#1.1 Michael

They’re probably taking it out of their rent. Or at least threatening to.

Oct 8, 2012 at 4:13 pm rating: 9
#1.2 M L

Curious to know whether that is a legitimate threat to make.

I don’t know, if the landlord sued them for not paying the full rent, I wouldn’t think that “we decided to pay less because repairs were slow” would be defensible.

Anyone?

Oct 8, 2012 at 7:44 pm rating: 3
#1.3 jadefirefly

It could probably be argued for long enough to make it a legitimate pain in the ass.

Part of the purpose of rent in a community such as that is to cover the costs of repairs and maintenance (within reason; I doubt its their job to fix the hole you punched in the wall). If they’re failing to address something of some urgency, like the device you use to cook dinner for your family, you could make a reasonable argument for withholding funds necessary to accomodate their delay.

Just a guess, however, and I am not a lawyer. YMMV.

Oct 8, 2012 at 7:59 pm rating: 8
#1.4 Stephanie

Yes, if your landlord does not abide by the terms of the lease (such as making timely repairs) you can withhold the rent. Florida has very tenant-friendly housing laws.

Oct 8, 2012 at 8:01 pm rating: 30
#1.5 FeRD

NY law (and MA, ISTR from living in Boston) says that if the landlord doesn’t make timely repairs, you can have the repair done yourself and submit the bill in lieu of rent (or partial rent). I don’t think you get to just randomly decide your landlords are buying you dinner, though.

Oct 8, 2012 at 8:49 pm rating: 13
#1.6 AtypicallyRelevant

It depends on where you live. In our state, you can’t deduct repairs from rent unless you have an official order and you’ll only get that if the landlord doesn’t make repairs in a “timely fashion.” Of course, the city defines what timely is.

Oct 8, 2012 at 9:31 pm rating: 3
#1.7 jimmy

In most states the landlord has 24 hours from the time you notify them to repair the critical appliances of the house such as heat, hot water, stove, and fridge. Then there are different penalties and remunerations available to the tenant.

Oct 8, 2012 at 10:19 pm rating: 4
#1.8 kbnorman

Perhaps they managed to get a couple meals out of the toaster shakings and such under and behind the stove?

Oct 10, 2012 at 8:03 pm rating: 1

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#2 KH

My stove doesn’t have any money either.

Oct 8, 2012 at 3:54 pm rating: 42 small thumbs up

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#3 Polly

Them’s some strong tenants.

Oct 8, 2012 at 4:00 pm rating: 16 small thumbs up

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#4 Stephanie

It’s “broke”. Is it sitting there panhandling for spare change?

Oct 8, 2012 at 4:03 pm rating: 59 small thumbs up

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#4.1 quat

At least it’s cleaner and less aggressive than our panhandlers in Seattle.

Oct 8, 2012 at 8:52 pm rating: 19
#4.2 The Elf

And half as crazy.

Oct 9, 2012 at 8:18 am rating: 5

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#5 Jareth

Hey, look, appropriate quotation marks!

Oct 8, 2012 at 4:57 pm rating: 18 small thumbs up

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#6 Karen

I couldn’t figure that out either. Where I live (Ontario) the laws aren’t very tenant-friendly and you aren’t allowed to withhold rent without applying to the tenant board to do so.

Oct 8, 2012 at 8:51 pm rating: 2 small thumbs up

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#6.1 shepd

Tenant unfriendly Ontario does force landlords to:

– Have heat above 70 F in most cities
– Not collect any security whatsoever
– Pay interest on Last Month’s Rent equivalent to rent increases
– Increase rent only by a set amount (generally under 3% a year) unless major renovations were done and special variances applied for (which are hard to get)
– Wait weeks to evict you for refusing to pay rent
– Let you have any pets you want even if the landlord specifies it is against the rules (unless the pet is proven to be dangerous to other tenants, to be proven per individual animal, not per breed)
– Must let you create a tenant’s association and must respect it
– Requires landlords convert all leases to month-to-month after the maximum 1 year contract
– No landlord entry to the apartment without 24 hours written notice
– Must let you sublease if you are in a 1 year contract and wish to leave
– If you are in a building with 6 or more units, the landlord cannot make you leave because he’d like to live there, and if he sells the unit you have the right to cancel the sale and purchase it for yourself at the sale price.

Definitely tenants get screwed in Ontario! Can you imagine living there with such pathetic protections?

Oct 9, 2012 at 6:12 pm rating: 19

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#7 Lossy

I hate to see what they would do if the toilet was out……

Oct 8, 2012 at 8:56 pm rating: 29 small thumbs up

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#8 Ely North

You KNOW they’ve had enough when they actually go through the effort to move the stove outside.

Oct 8, 2012 at 8:58 pm rating: 22 small thumbs up

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#9 Grammar Popo

Maybe the stove should get a job!

Oct 8, 2012 at 11:23 pm rating: 14 small thumbs up

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#10 lana

Wait… using the stove or going out to eat are the only two options available? I often go several days without using the stove or oven to prepare meals and still manage to feed myself at home. Microwave, crockpot, BBQ, Foreman grill, SANDWICH, just off the top of my head.

Oct 8, 2012 at 11:55 pm rating: 19 small thumbs up

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#10.1 CurlyB

Some people have families that they prefer actually cook for. Have you ever tried to microwave a full meal for four people? I have, and let me tell you the logistics of that don’t often result in everything being warm.

Oct 9, 2012 at 1:01 am rating: 12
#10.2 The Elf

Does it matter? If the terms of the lease agreement include a working stove, then the landlord needs to fix it.

Oct 9, 2012 at 8:19 am rating: 26
#10.3 H for Toy

While I realize that not everyone has all the extra kitchen appliances I have, not too long ago, I successfully cooked full meals for a family of 4, for a week and a half, using an electric skillet, a crock pot, a grill and a microwave. It takes a little ingenuity, but it can be done.

Oct 9, 2012 at 8:21 am rating: 8
#10.4 s0nicfreak

I have a 6 person family, and if my oven broke it would be more cost effective to go to walmart and get a slowcooker for $20 than to eat one meal at McDonalds or such (about $35 to fill up my family). And if it was broken for several days it would be more cost effective to get a large toaster oven for $80 than to eat at McDonalds. And while I can understand not wanting to go through the trouble if you’re in a situation where you can just take the money for fastfood out of the rent, they should have alternatives on hand, in case of situations such as the oven breaks during a storm and the landlord physically CAN’T get to them for several days.

Oct 24, 2012 at 12:44 pm rating: 0
#10.5 L

The last time our oven died, we had a microwave that took half an hour to boil a cup of water, and my mother had just had back surgery. I was 14, so yeah, we ate out a lot because actually having a warm meal was nice.

Didn’t have a walmart either.

Oct 26, 2012 at 9:57 am rating: 1

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#11 Poltergeist

Yeah, this is a pretty dumb thing to do, but at the same time I know what it’s like to have a landlord who thinks that owning and renting out apartments simply means “People give me money while I don’t do shit.”

Oct 9, 2012 at 12:57 am rating: 26 small thumbs up

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#12 Karen C

What part of the stove is broken? One burner? All the burners? The oven? The oven timer? I think I would have said what was wrong with the stove. I just ordered parts for mine. Sometimes it is cheaper to just go buy a scratch n dent stove! Looks like a decent stove if it had new parts put in. Good thing my hubby wasn’t there, he’d load it up, fix it and sell it to someone.

Oct 9, 2012 at 7:10 am rating: 2 small thumbs up

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#12.1 raichu

In other words, he’d steal it?

Oct 9, 2012 at 8:11 am rating: 13
#12.2 Vulpis

Depends on just where they’ve planted it and how curb-side pickup of large items works where they are, really. Granted, if it’s curb-side, their note isn’t going to be that effective, either.

Oct 9, 2012 at 2:24 pm rating: 1

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#13 Adriana

A few years ago, I was living in an apartment when my stove broke. The burners still worked, but the oven released a ‘poof’ and a weird nose, then just turned off. I notified the landlord and he took about 4-5 days just to address the problem, but his genius plan was giving us an old, dirty oven from the vacant upstairs apartment and then moving our clean, but broken oven into our side yard – where it sat for several months, I BELIEVE until we moved out. Every time I looked out my bedroom window, I saw that oven and got angry all over again.

Oct 9, 2012 at 11:39 am rating: 9 small thumbs up

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#13.1 Will

My guess is that the heating element burned out. That’s like a $40 part, plus labor. Maybe $100 total.
Your landlord was penny wise and pound foolish.

Oct 9, 2012 at 12:06 pm rating: 8
#13.2 Tesselara

That happened to me too. It’s rather exciting– a little bit of pyrotechnics thrown in to your evening meal. Easy to replace with a part from Home Depot. Silly Landlord. Heating elements are for stoves.

Oct 9, 2012 at 12:56 pm rating: 3

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#14 Ames

Assuming that the range is broken but still able to be repaired, I hope that the tenants checked the weather forecast before putting that thing outside.

Oct 9, 2012 at 1:47 pm rating: 2 small thumbs up

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#15 Laura

I’ve never trusted a rental stove — or a landlord, for that matter — again since, many years ago, we rented an apartment with an electric stove and when I lifted up the top to clean under the burners, I discovered at least a half-inch of pure grease sitting there just waiting to start a fire. Clearly, when the landlord “cleaned” the apartment for us, it was cursory at best!

Oct 9, 2012 at 4:04 pm rating: 1 small thumbs up

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#15.1 s0nicfreak

To be fair, a lot of people don’t even KNOW that you can lift that part and clean under it. My husband was amazed the first time he saw me do it.

Oct 24, 2012 at 12:46 pm rating: 2

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#16 shepd

No wonder the stove won’t make you any meals. You clearly aren’t paying it enough! DUH!!!

Oct 9, 2012 at 5:59 pm rating: 0 small thumbs up

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#17 Clider

You CAN withold rent only if you put what you are withholding in an escrow account. You can’t just say, “I’m not paying you anymore”, regardless of how the laws are here in Florida.

Oct 9, 2012 at 6:37 pm rating: 2 small thumbs up

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funny (if not necessarily "passive-aggressive") notes from pissed-off people

October 8th, 2012 · 38 comments

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