My Husband i went to court

MayMaythaBiznitch

One Crazy Bitch
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Oct 10, 2005
Messages
257
Age
41
Location
Galveston
Linkshell
NoizyTribe
Ok so my husband and I had to go to court yesterday we moved out of our old residence after Hurricane Rita. We came home about a week after rita hit , we came home to leaks in our home and mold or mildew. We were upset about it told the landlord about the leaks and he said he would fix them so we wait and wait well after about a month of waiting and calling and being told he will get to it we decided to leave. Maybe it was wrong to leave but come on WTF! who wants to live in a house with mold/mildew? Well it really doesnt stop there, when we first moved in dec of 04 we noticed our living room floor was starting to cave in first thing we do is call the landlord and hes like ok we wait and wait two weeks later his guys come they cut out the rotten piece and fix them , 2 months later the floor in my bedroom and ceiling are caving in call him again takes him 3 weeks to come and replace the rotten piece and put a nail in the ceiling . So we have lived there about 4 months now we start getting these outrageous electric bills and during the day i stayed home and i didnt turn the lights on all i had on was usually the tv and it stunned us getting $500-600 light bills and during the day i didnt use the ac i would open the windows and get the cool breeze from outside , so i start going on a hunt for holes in the floor BAM i find it hidden under the carpet in my bedroom we call the landlord he says he will fix it and they never do , then there is another time where we start getting bees in the house i go on another hunt and find them in the oven roof thingy with the light and fan i call and it takes them 3 weeks to get out there, i was actually stung by one i tried everything getting rid of the bees and they would just come back and build another nest. Then comes august the Ac goes out my husband calls because at this time we are seperated the landlord says ok send some ac company out and tells them put freon in it they do it goes out again a week later my husband calls again landlord sends them out again the Ac guy tells my husband he needs a new Ac unit but the landlord told him to put freon in it again so he does goes out again a week later at this time my husband is getting pissed and called the landlord and told him that the ac man told him that the ac unit is too old and needs to put another one in . Land lord refuses so my husband said well im moving out then , a day later the ac company is out there putting in a new ac unit .

So anyways back to the topic of going to court ,my husband didnt sign the lease and him and i seperated for like a month or 2 in june i come back everything is so far so good with the house then here comes Rita we flee to my moms get stuck for a week in Lufkin because there was no Gas , We come home to a house that smells awful and we cant figure out what it is later on that week i start unpacking and find the leaks and mold/mildew . At this time we had 5 kittens about 4-5 weeks old in the room where all this was found and they started getting sick and dying off day by day . We really dont know if that was the cause but we were tired of it we were getting sick and my husband skin condition had gotten worse so we decide to move out at the end of october , needless to say 3 weeks later we are being sued for default of lease for like almost 2k . When we moved in we paid a $800 depoist so where does he get this 2k when he got first and last months rent out of us? Our lease was up in November , So basically we go to court and lose and we are in the process of apealing the case , anyone have any advice for us ?

Also i am including some pictures so ya'll can see what im talking about.

(This is the hole in the floor in the bedroom )
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c31/Maddambooboo/000_1080.jpg
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c31/Maddambooboo/000_1081.jpg

This is some of the mold/mildew
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c31/Maddambooboo/000_1115.jpg

This is under the house where they fixed a rotten piece of the floor

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c31/Maddambooboo/000_1082.jpg
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c31/Maddambooboo/000_1083.jpg

i have more just need to scan them

[Edit: Converted IMG to URL as the pics were too wide and were breaking the board. -Sculli]
 
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My landlord is a total dickwad too. We had a rotten floor in the downstairs bathroom, so rotten that you could step on the lino and feel your foot sink through the foor.

We point it out to him. He shrugs and says, "so?".

So we wrote a nice, calm, proper letter explaining that this is a medical concern, and should the floor fail and one of us suffer an injury, he may be involved in a 5 to 6 digit court case. We also pointed out that should he ignore our request and hope that nothing happens, we would summon an ahmbudsman (sp?). These folks are associated with the gov't of my province, and protect renters from unjust landlords and the like. If they were to find our location unfit to live in, I believe they seize the property and require certain conditions to be met before they return it. They also put the renters (us) in temporary housing and charge our monthly bills to the asshole landlord.

I think you should have taken some alternate steps before moving out. You should have contact your municipal / state / federal government's tenancy branch (if they have one) and initiated a case through them, to get your landlord to clean his act up.

Right now, what you should do, is contact them (tenancy agency) anyways. They should be able to offer suggestions on what you can do from here.
 
OMG I am so sorry ><

F'ing evil ass lazy bastard. I am sure you guys would win any case in court w/ pics like that...especially w/ a lil one around <3 (I saw his pic - what a cutie!!! ^^)
 
MayMaythaBiznitch said:
Our lease was up in November , So basically we go to court and lose and we are in the process of apealing the case , anyone have any advice for us ?

Building inspectors and the Board of Health are your friends in situations like these. Have you checked with them?

I'm not sure how it works in Florida (I'm guessing that's where you are) but there's a law in Massachusetts that allows you to withold rent if work that's supposed to be done to an apartment isn't done. Either way, a building inspector can probably help.
 
I'm also sorry to hear about this May. To add to what Tauro said, I know you don't own and are just renting, but what about FEMA also? I think it's FEMA anyway.
 
Were in Galveston Tx area Rita really didnt hit us that bad but the rain is what got all this going i guess , I'm not sure if we have a tenancy agency but is something to definately check into , those last 2 pics in my first post were actually in the baby's room right where his crib was we didnt know about that part underneath until 3 days ago when i went searching to crawl under the house to get some pics and i found that, i'm really actually glad we decided to leave because the baby is now getting really good at walking , i mean what if he walked on the floor and it fell through . It makes me sick everytime i see this i'm always like this man should not be allowed to rent homes anymore. We did call Fema they came out and sent him a letter i guess , But from what the judge said we have alot of rights but if we had rights why didnt he want to look at the pictures or electric bills , i may be wrong but i think he was paid under the table .
 
My landlords at my last apartment where evil evil people. They would come into my apartment an "inspect" for cleanliness once a month. They did this with all of the apartments and then if they found something out of place they charged you for it. For example, when all of our lease was up except for 1 person who signed a year instead of 10 month like the rest of us, they charged all of us for the oven being dirty and for dishes in the sink for the roommate who was still living there.

My lesson... never rent from these people.. they are a chain and you find alot of them in college towns and such. In the link below my old apartment is in the picture but seriously you are in for a world of shit if you rent from place properties....they will charge you for any repairs that they make to your apartment that they have to make before you move in. Then they will charge you for cleaning your apartment after you have taken the time to clean even the grout in the kitchen floor with a q-tip. All of this just makes me happy to have a landlord that never stops by or bothers me in anyway now... but boy is she going to be pissed when she finds out the ceiling fan stopped working because I let it run for damn near a year straight :biggrin:

http://www.theplacetolive.com/murray/index.html
 
We may have found a Attorney who takes these kind of cases but not sure yet im still waiting on the call and as soon as they want us to come in im hopping right on it we have 8 days left to file this appeal to the courts and we are going to push to have it moved out of the court with this judge because i believe the decison was already made in the begining of the case >.< i mean if you were a judge and someone had evidence againist someone wouldnt you want to atleast see what they have to show ? It really pissed me off i guess i should have left my lil one with grandma but we were in a rush and took him with us he was good and all but would have seemed a lil akward to have brought him up there to the judge where my husband was . We know this is a open and shut case and will more than likely be able to win but it really URKs me that this man got away with it . I really feel like calling the news stations and embarassing this man but i know its not right so im going to stay put and continue looking for a lawyer .
 
Hire someone to cut the dude's nads off with a rusty knife.

Meeze can't be too far away from you, QCDN discount?
 
Well, there are precedents for introducing evidence and filing the right kinds of charges, so the Judge was looking for those procedures to be followed. Since all of this stuff is public record, there are rules to getting things moving right. If you get an attorney and you only have like 1 day left to file, the attorney files a request for an extension and then you get more time.

I'm no fan of attorneys, but it's their job to know how to do that stuff. Most cases end before making it to trial, anyway. Good luck with it! That place looked to be in criminal disrepair, so once it gets heard properly, you probably won't have too much trouble.
 
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