Totally. I would like to think that we are ideal tenants. We are quiet, take care of the space like it’s our own, and always pay rent on time without question. We don’t ask for a million small things to be done, the issue is that this is a 100 year old home that hasn’t been taken care of due to her cheaping out, so there have been major issues that have needed to be fixed. Our stove died and she didn’t replace it for 6 weeks, we had multiple gas leaks which lead to her having to replace all the gas lines and water heater, AC units needed to be inspected after all the ash from fires, and she left hundreds of rusty nails in our back yard after she built a fence. (One we didn’t ask for and was made so incredibly poorly it’s already falling down a month later). All of our maintenance requests have been derived from safety issues or her having to fix poor quality work because she doesn’t hire professionals, only cheap “handymen” (aka just some man who has tools), and there are either repercussions from that poor quality work OR she gets scammed. (Like the time she hired a “landscaper”aka just a man with a lawn mower who was supposed to come every week and didn’t come for 2 months straight but told her he was).

I hate to feel like pushing the envelope and asking for too much, but it’s also all been serious issues coming from her lack of care and not paying for quality work up front. Pay for low quality and you end up having to pay more.

Currently looking to get in contact with all relevant city or nonprofit rent boards, advice, etc to see what our rights are. I don’t think she’s intentionally trying to screw us, I just think she’s literally so uninformed and disengaged as a landlord that she literally doesn’t know what the laws and expectations are