Advice Needed For Dealing With Landlords

** EDIT: For anyone wondering, yes, we did sign a lease. We rent through a realty company, but do have an actual landlord, who we have never met. Our lease is only a half a page long, and is basically a “Dear John” letter, with next to no specifics on who fixes what, other than that the tenant is in charge of “basic” repairs and upkeep. I’m pretty sure that pulling up a toilet, which has been caulked to the floor, and replacing a wax ring, is not basic, right?

Hello, friends. I need some advice. I’ve always rented, and currently live in a not-so-fancy, not really up-to-date apartment. We have had a lot of issues, as many of you have read, but we’ve been dealing with a lot of issues that were preexisting, from before we moved in, that I have been researching. I don’t know how long we are going to be in this place, at least another half a year, but since I have a very mobile toddler now, I want it to be safe.

Recently, I’ve been growing more concerned about our toilet. So, the linoleum in our bathroom was quite discolored when we moved in, and there is a VERY large yellow and gray stain all around our toilet. I didn’t think much about it, mostly because I was naive, and obviously they knew about it before we moved in, and I assumed whatever caused it had been fixed, and the floor was just permanently discolored now. Recently, I’ve been doing some research, because I don’t know if it is my imagination or not, but the stain seems to be growing, and I discovered that it probably means that there is a faulty wax ring, creating leaks under the floor. The floor around the toilet also does not appear to be 100% sound, and was also like that when we moved in, but doesn’t appear to have gotten worse. I can see that the toilet is poorly caulked to the floor, and has been caulked for a while, which probably means they haven’t fixed anything with it in a long time, right?

I know that I need to contact them to fix it, because it is absolutely their responsibility to make sure that our plumbing is all working properly, and is not a hazard. Does anyone know if there is anything that can be done about the floor discoloration? The stain is MASSIVE, and hideous. We don’t have any windows in our bathroom, so we can’t get any direct sunlight on the spot, which I read helps, and I’m assuming that nothing can be done until the moisture under the floor is taken care of anyway. Would they have to tear up the floor? How long does it take to repair a wax ring? What if there is a mold problem, would I have to pay an inspector to find out? How should I go about asking them to get this all done? They’ve always been so flaky when it comes to fixing things around the apartment (we’ve been here a year and a half and I still have a hole in my kitchen ceiling waiting to be covered…). Has anyone ever dealt with anything like this before?

Thanks for reading, friends. Any advice is welcome!

Jan

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Dream Journal 2/25/16

Present day.

Kyle, Liam, and I were at an amusement park on a pier, similar t one I grew up by. All of the rides were being repainted bright green for St. Patrick’s Day, and there was a group of protesters shouting something about how St. Patrick’s Day is racist against certain individuals, or something like that. There were police all around them, and the protesters were getting rowdy and violent, reaching out to grab at families and people that were walking past. We rushed by them, and were walking toward a large arcade at the end of the pier.

I put Liam on my shoulders, and he pointed to one of the policemen and said, “Constable!” and I was so shocked that I almost dropped him, because that was his fist word ever besides “mama“. Kyle was laughing and I was nearly in tears, and Liam kept bouncing on my shoulders shouting, “Constable, constable!”

The arcade was getting painted when we went in, and the floors were covered in wet, green paint. We walked through the paint, along with the other pier-goers, tracking footprints everywhere, but no one seemed to mind. Kyle was trying to win a prize in the claw machine, and getting angry at it, while I took Liam over to play one of those Whack-A-Mole type games. He went nuts, and hit every single one of them.

An announcement came over the intercom that the arcade was closing, even though it was early in the afternoon, and people started to get upset. I took Liam outside, and we couldn’t find Kyle. The protesters had broken through the line of police in the distance, and were running around, destroying the buildings and rides. I put Liam back on my shoulders and started running toward the parking lot, but the protesters had lit all of the cars on fire. I started screaming for Kyle…

And then I woke up.