We are using an umbrella each time we have to use the toilet in our apartment at Marbella Lakes in Orlando, Florida. This is due to a ceiling leak which is spewing filth down onto our heads.
I have needed repairs as a tenant at prior addresses, but I have never before left my home crying over the treatment that I received by building management. We have had plumbing problems since our first night in the apartment when we were awaken by a superintendent saying that he had an emergency caused by a leak from our apartment into the one downstairs. Okay, we were frightened because we had been warned too late about a place that we had rented on the Internet by people who told us that we were entering a bad neighborhood. We got over it and opened the door and understood that things do go wrong. Okay fine. What is not fine is that the neighborhood has been the least of our problems. Getting things fixed has been.
We have overlooked quite a bit since moving in, starting with the number of bugs that ran across the threshold when I opened the door for the very first time. This is the south after all. We have overlooked the large number of problems that we have had with the refrigerator, which still leaks and is now making a tremendous racket. Refrigeration is a very big deal to a Type 1 diabetic on insulin. Nevertheless we have sucked it up and are now wondering if we should just replace the refrigerator ourselves.
Today is just too much. For over two months now we have tried to get leaks in the bathroom fixed. After repeated claims that this was fixed or would be, we awoke this morning to sounds like a creek running. Our ceiling was leaking badly again from a huge hole lefty by a repairman. We also have a big Hefty plastic trash bag covering water damage coming from inside the wall behind the toilet, which was left there with masking tape by a workman a week ago. We spoke to the manager of the leasing office about this yesterday and asked her shouldn't we remove this to stop the black junk which is growing on the wall of our bathroom from getting worse. She said that she would tell the groundskeeper about this and that he would decide whether to remove the plastic trash bag. Upon getting home from work last night, I found the trash bag still there.
After getting a voice mail when I called the emergency number for repairs, we waited about an hour and a half for the repairman to call us back. No one did so we left for work and so forth. I called the corporate number since the rental office is closed on Sundays asking what we should do about a leak which might overflow the trash can sitting on the toilet to catch the water.
Then I came home from lunch today to find the groundkeeper inside our apartment and now another hole in my ceiling. This means two holes the size of a window inside of a small bathroom. The repairman said that it was not the fault of the people who work at Marbella Lakes and expected for me to just accept this. That might be human ---- running into my bathroom from above. If I owed them three months rent, would they just accept my saying that it was not my fault that I didn't have the money and that we should just forget about the rent? Get out and that I still owe them money after I am gone is what they would say; right? Of course right. Yet, even though I have been paying my rent on crappy wages, we have never been late. Why should I have to pay the rent and honor the lease for a place which is uninhabitable? I think that we should be moving at the expense of Marbella Lakes after what they have put us through
I want an attorney to settle this because I am not interested in any lame apologies for the inconvenience. I want for this to cost Marbella Lakes because they are much too casual about something which has costs my husband and I dearly.