Q
quicksilver_chocobo
2hrs
Recommendations for a tenant lawyer?
Since I moved into my first apartment in Nutley, its been one issue after another. So far:
Was supposed to move in on May 1st. Previous tenants belongings were still here and the place had not been cleaned. Did not move my things in and texted the landlord. Landlord had people take the furniture out the next day but they didn't really do a great job at cleaning. Spent the weekend cleaning the place as best as I could and moved in the following weekend.
The ceiling tile above my apartment door (inside) has started to crumble from an obvious leak 2 days ago. I informed the landlord and put a bucket underneath to catch any water/debris. Yesterday at some point between 2pm and 5:30pm, it leaked water into the bucket.
When I mentioned this to a neighboring tenant, he asked if I would mind him looking in the ceiling to see where the leak might be coming from. Told him to have at it. So much debris fell out of the ceiling, including pieces of concrete. When we looked into the ceiling, we found wood that looked like it had been broken. No clue if its a sub floor or what, but it was definitely aged and we couldn't tell if the wood had water stains or if it was just old. The neighboring tenant said he also spotted what he thought was an old squirrel's nest.
Since the leak began, the landlord keeps texting the upstairs tenant because he thinks the leak is coming from her bathroom. He keeps doing a "wait and see" approach. I'm not hovering over this bucket 24/7 so I dont know when exactly its leaking water to line up with the upstairs tenant's timeline. Its not a constant leak from what I can tell, but its definitely water coming from somewhere.
Fridge stopped running yesterday. I kept flipping the "reset" button on the outlet. Tested the outlet with a phone charger and it works just fine. Plugged the fridge into another kitchen outlet that worked and it still didn't power on.
Landlord told me to mess with the temperature dial. Don't know how that was supposed to help in any way, but did it and obviously still didnt turn back on.
This morning around 8:45/9am, the fridge started humming again just as I was about to take my dog out for a walk. Walked my dog, came back, opened the fridge to check if it was cooling. Informed the landlord that it was suddenly back on, but Im still concerned about WHY it turned off and suddenly turned on hours later. I checked it again maybe an hour ago and it seems the freezer is doing okay but the fridge doesn't feel like its really staying cold. At this point, I'm sure the dairy+meat I had in there have spoiled.
Maybe a few minutes after I started writing this post, I heard a noise. Thought the ceiling tile was crumbling some more and went to check on it. Found more pieces of concrete fell on the floor. Looked up to see if the ceiling tile was actively crumbling and watched a squirrel poke its head out of the ceiling and then disappear.
The landlord still has not told me if he was going to send someone out to actually check on the leak in the ceiling... Now with the squirrel surprise, I'm anxious about leaving my dog here while I go to work because I have no clue if the squirrel will come down from the ceiling. I don't want to risk her being injured.
So.... any advice and/or recommendations for a tenant lawyer would be greatly appreciated. I'm a bit overwhelmed as this is my first apartment and it seems like everything has gone wrong. I dont know how hard it will be to break out of this lease since I've barely gotten through 1 month out of the 12 month term, but with all of this happening within the first month... I'm not optimistic at how things are going to go for the rest of this lease. My neighbor has also told me that the heat in my apartment does not work and they had lost heat for 7 days this past winter. Since this seems to be something of a pattern, I'd rather get out as cleanly (and legally) as I can. I don't even know where to start.