Pittsburgh, PA Tenant/Landlord liability question

[Greatguardian]

Okay, so as a few people may remember from a thread I made a couple months ago, I moved into this apartment in September. Since then, I have had a veritable flurry of issues with it, ranging from previous tenants leaving burnt out light bulbs in, to baby rats in my bathroom.

While I'm having a small spot of trouble finding my copy of the lease at the moment (I think they actually just faxed a copy to my dad in Texas to sign as a Guarantor and tried to count that as "my copy of the lease". I'll know for sure when I find that stupid housing folder they gave me), I believe there was a clause in there about pest control that required me to be responsible for all insect infestations caused by a lack of sanitation on my part.

However, my apartment is one of 6 in this building, sharing a massive common wall with the apartment next door (3 floors, 2 on each floor, I'm in the middle). Back in Texas, it was my understanding that state law required landlords to provide tenants with basic blinds for their windows. I have nothing covering any of my windows, only one of my windows actually has a screen, and they do not even have a rod to hang the curtains I bought for them (I'm a short guy at 5'8", I honestly can't reach a good spot to hang a bar myself on my windows without standing on a chair or more, shit's high). I have had constant issues with spiders, spiders, and more spiders, as well as the occasional centipede. Now I just found a baby rat in my bathroom, which has absconded to my kitchen and is hiding behind my fridge where I can't get to it.

My google fu has been failing me horribly, so I was wondering what my rights are in a situation like this. Rats are disease carriers, and their presence constitutes a lack of safety and habitability as far as I'm concerned. Extermination in a timely manner should be the landlord's responsibility and I should not be charged for it, correct? Also, how does this extend to the spiders and centipedes? Taking into account that I share a common wall, can I be held responsible for these things having a breeding environment in someone else's home? There appear to be plenty of small holes in the wall for them to be coming in and out of.

Also, it seems almost as if the interior lighting for this apartment was stripped down at some point. I have a half dozen light switches which don't appear to connect to anything at all, and my living room and hallways have absolutely no light sources, requiring me to keep my kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom lights on at night to be able to navigate the rest of the apartment at night.

I feel like I'm living in squalor, and as a 20 year old male with practically no credit history to back himself up, I'm honestly very afraid of being taken advantage of by lessors and utility companies and the like. What rights do I have? What can I safely request or, if it comes down to it (and it may), what can I demand in order to make this place more livable?

[MisterBob]

My main question here is, why the fuck did you rent this place? You had to have seen that the windows didn't have screens/shades, and that the lights didn't work..

[Greatguardian]

Eh I was pretty much stuck with it, it's the only place I could afford within decent driving distance of my university. Everything on campus was 900+/month for efficiencies, and so on and so forth. My parents live in TX, so I was staying there for the summer and I didn't have a place to stay in PA to check out the places before coming up for school. All I really had to go on before sending in my security deposit was pictures, pretty much. And the place did have blinds before the previous tenants moved out (day before I moved in). They just took them, and what seems like a nice chunk of other things with them.

Not the smartest move of course, but there was only so much I could do to verify the integrity of any place from TX, and I was on a tight schedule with school starting up. As it was I had to stay a weekend and change in my girlfriend's dorm since school started on 8/28 and I couldn't move in till 9/1.

[Ksandra]

Do you have renters insurance? If so they are the best place to call to find out your rights.

[Greatguardian]

Nope.. I'm young and broke. My paycheck pretty much just covers gas, utilities, and rent with very little room to maneuver. I have a roommate lined up for May which should give me the spare cash to tack on things like that, but he's under contract with the school for housing until then and I'm honestly not sure I'll be able to keep selling the place to him if problems like these keep cropping up. I can attempt to take care of it myself, but I can't really afford an exterminator or to spend much at all on traps/sprays and the like. From what my google fu has given me, it seems like rats/mice/small rodents and the safety risk associated with them *should* compromise the safety and habitability of the home, which should make it the lessor's responsibility. I'm not sure if they'll do anything about the spiders though, or if the same treatment will handle them too, and so on. Let alone the other issues.

[Byrthnoth]

As I understand it, the deal is basically:
1) You notice pests that you are not causing in your apartment. There's some degree of wobble room for what is a "pest," but rats definitely count.
2) You notify your landlord about the problem, being very explicit about what the problem is and saving a copy of the conversation.
3) They have a certain amount of time (more wobble room, but generally 2 weeks to a month depending on the kind of pest) to fix the problem.
4) You go and look for other apartments in this time.
5) If they fail to fix the problem, you request to be released from the terms of the lease.
6) If they refuse, you take it up with an attorney and are released from the lease.

That's literally it. As I understand it, there will not be any monetary compensation and the best resolution you could hope for is to be released from your lease. I imagine you could maybe get some rent money back if the conditions were so intolerable that you had to sleep somewhere else and weren't using your apartment, but that's it. I'm also renting in Pittsburgh, so I looked all this stuff up when we had a cockroach explosion in our apartment building two months ago.

In my opinion, your best option is to appear informed and find some apartment alternatives so your threat of leaving looks real.

[aurik]

It varies from state to state, but in most places if the landlord is not upholding his part of the lease, you can withhold paying rent after proper notice. In order to evict he will need to serve notice. When that happens, make sure you make a proper response etc. Once you do, the landlord will realize he's fucked (its very hard to evict people that have even tenuous justification) and will give up rather than fight it.

Just make sure he doesn't manage to get a default judgment because you didn't respond to his notice. And remember: if he dings your credit without a court judgment, you can sue him for a shitload.

Also, perhaps the best advice, most universities have free services for students that you can use to prevent yourself from being taken advantage of in these kinds of situations. Find out what help they will provide.

[Brill Weave]

I'm assuming you're down in the shitty side of Oakland? You can contact the housing authority, the shit apartments in Oakland are always getting hit and will be on the local tv stations regularly. Housing authority takes that shit very seriously here. And if not, the wife and I have a spare room you can crash in. But I can't guarantee I won't chop you up in your sleep and eat you. Call the housing authority, see if your concerns are something they can work on.

[Dagren]

You didn't happen to rent my old fraternity house on Neville street did you? That place was a shit hole after we were done with it. Anyway the if your at Pitt the university can help you deal with your landlord issues. Try going to panther central and asking.

[Greatguardian]

Thanks a bunch for the tips and generous offers, guys. After being significantly more forceful about things, my landlord had someone come down today to plug up all the holes in the wall, set traps, and all that fun pest control stuff at no charge. They've also agreed to set up curtain rods so that I can put up the curtains I brought with me (since I can't remove the slots for the blinds myself). Hopefully this trend will continue.

[jmc]

It varies from state to state, but in most places if the landlord is not upholding his part of the lease, you can withhold paying rent after proper notice. In order to evict he will need to serve notice. When that happens, make sure you make a proper response etc. Once you do, the landlord will realize he's fucked (its very hard to evict people that have even tenuous justification) and will give up rather than fight it.

Not really hard to evict people, or get evicted. Alot of people say its "Hard to do" simply because courts usually give people some time to find a new place (2-6 months) but in those cases the judge usually still orders the renters to pay rent.

Case in point, when I was younger (about 18) I was still living with my parents in a house my grandparents owned(Fathers side). When my father passed away from cancer in Aug. 2006, my grandmother filed eviction papers in Sept. 2006 (2 weeks after my father was buried) claiming she was not comfortable with my family living in the house. We went to court, and my mothers defense was because my father was the main source of income she had no way to afford rental fees here in boston, until she found employment. Judge turned around and said get out by Jan 1st 2007.

Maybe just shit judge, but it didn't see hard to get evicted when we did nothing wrong >.>

Now for the OP....

As for the pest issue, you can really push the subject with the landlord and see if they will fix the issue. However, if they say no you will have a pretty hard time trying to "force" them to fix it with legal action. You would need to find proof that the infestation is not from your own doing, and that can be a pain in the ass to do. Otherwise you would probably be accused of just cleaning up your mess after the infestation.

As for the shades, you can always show the pictures to your landlord and tell him/her whats missing and what needs to go back. Otherwise place was "lied" about before signing the lease agreement, and you will call the AG's office/lawyer etc...

[kyod]

Make sure your requests for the landlord to fix something are in writing. Send a letter via certified mail with your requests. That way if the landlord does not fix them in time (or make a good faith effort), you can get your lease broken.

Additionally, this is why you do a pre-rental inspection of the apartment with the landlord before you sign the lease. Note all problems with the apartment, because if the landlord is shady, he will say you caused XYZ and expect you to pay out of your security deposit.

[aurik]

Not really hard to evict people, or get evicted. Alot of people say its "Hard to do" simply because courts usually give people some time to find a new place (2-6 months) but in those cases the judge usually still orders the renters to pay rent.

Your problem was "But I wanna stay" is not a good affirmative defense.

"My landlord is fucking me over by doing A B and C and I'm withholding rent until he remedies those problems" is a much better defense.

[jmc]

Naw, the defense was "family of 6 would be living on the street if evicted soon"

Which would have been true, if I didn't start working for the police a week after getting evicted.

[aurik]

"We will be on the street" won't stop an eviction either. You really do need some legitimate excuse, but most things will pass as a legitimate excuse. Certainly most of the things cited in OP would halt or at least suspend an eviction based on nonpayment (if the nonpayment was due to the issues).

Then again, tenant/landlord protection laws vary a LOT from state to state. It's one of the few things that the federal government has mostly left up to the states, and it shows. There of course is a proper legal procedure for withholding rent that varies on location, so again the best advice is to get advice from your local university which will be versed in the nuances of local law.

[jmc]

Then again, tenant/landlord protection laws vary a LOT from state to state. It's one of the few things that the federal government has mostly left up to the states, and it shows. There of course is a proper legal procedure for withholding rent that varies on location, so again the best advice is to get advice from your local university which will be versed in the nuances of local law.

Exactly this ^^

In one state, you can get away with withholding rent for legitimate reasons, like quality of life issues.

In some states you could just be sued for not paying rent.

Op you should really call your AG's office. Most states have a "tenants/renter rights guide" through their AG's office