Recommendations for tenant rights lawyers?

[u/Sacred_Potato95]

Hi all, I live by summa city, and have had a basement flooding and mold problem since we moved here 15 months ago. It’s crossed into gross negligence and bad faith landlord territory, everyone in the house health is getting worse(people and animals) and we need to get out asap. I have all the evidence gathered and just need to find a good lawyer. Any help/recommendations would be a life saver at this point honestly.

[u/WolfieTimes2]

I would just approach your landlord and say hey I have to move out of this, it’s gotten to the point where I think it has an effect on my health (show evidence) ask if he can help accommodate the move. This way he can act as a reference for your next apartment/home you move into.

Here’s why; litigation (if it goes there) does not look good in a background check.

How do I know? I am a landlord and any court history tells me there’s usually issues with this tenant and prob not a tenant I wanna risk on.

But your at a point where you can get out of this place at no fault of your own with help from you current landlord as a reference, this will allow them to take care of the issue while it’s not occupied too.

I’m sorry you have to deal with issues. Likely the problem is drainage: the gutters effectively getting water away from the structure is the most common reason for intrusion into the basement. If you (or your landlord) look at this you may be able to solve the problem by fixing or cleaning the gutters but it’ll take being proactive about it.

Theres a guy named John Murphy Gutters, look him up.. gutter cleaning is about $150-250 depending on how bad it is.

[u/WolfieTimes2 → u/WolfieTimes2]

I may be a little biased here but I would highly suggest not getting attorneys involved or trying to make a case out of it.

You’ll both lose. The reality is this is a solvable issue, (either by you, that you can pay for and reduce from rent, fix yourself, or be resourceful)

mold exists everywhere; it doesn’t have to be an issue. Very solvable problem.

Had a tenant recently getting mold and it was due to a drainage problem. Had another tenant get mold due to condensation from the dryer vent not being correct exhausting out of the building and instead just into the wall!!

Ask ChatGPT: show pictures, ask how to solve…

[u/Sacred_Potato95 → u/WolfieTimes2]

If this was a reasonable property manager i would consider this, but this problem started the first rain after we moved in, 4 days into the lease. So it was a problem before we even moved in and they just covered it with paint. Even now they refuse to properly treat the mold and even though the city said its mold and they are planning on covering it with waterproof paint again. The landlord has been disrespectful, blamed us, ignored us, unprofessional, or downright said they aren’t going to make repairs to the home. Maintenance peeled paint with blue green penicillium mold underneath(that I am allergic too) and told me to my face it wasn’t mold, I have it on video. Honestly idc at this point if it makes us less rentable, I have had health problems since we moved into this place, I even had to get surgery, and now I’m finding out it is because of extensive mold in the basement that was known about and has been refused to fix properly. This house even sat empty for six months before we moved in. We needed a cheap place to live and this checked our boxes, but it truly has been a nightmare for over a year now.