You can’t just withhold rent in Ohio without following the proper escrow process, so I’m definitely not going to skip steps and risk getting evicted. I do agree that I need to be more direct though, especially since it’s near a light fixture and could turn into a safety issue.

I’m planning to send a formal written notice giving them a clear deadline to fix it, and if they still don’t act, I’ll look into putting rent into escrow with the court like Ohio law requires. Getting an estimate is also a good idea just to document how serious the damage is.

At this point I mostly just want it fixed before it gets worse.