I've been renting a house that has had constant problems with the toilet backing up and little or no heat in the dead of winter. The HVAC unit leaks hot air and is undersized for how much cold air leaks from the windows and doors. The landlord refuses to fix the HVAC, leaks or the toilet. I am in the middle of a school semester and don't have time to look for another place and move, so I'm stuck here suffering. What should and can I do? Can he be forced to refund the rent I paid somehow?
Start by documenting the issues you are having. You write to your landlord. You point out that you don't have heat and that the plumbing is not working properly. Send a copy certified mail, send a copy regular mail, hand-deliver a copy. Tape it to his door if he won't answer the door.
Then wait 24 hours, and go find the "Building Department". Bring them a copy of your lease and a copy of the letter you sent to your landlord and ask them to inspect the property. If they refuse, don't argue with them, go find the Assistant Deputy who handles civil matters in the prosecutor's office. Take him copies of the above, and copies of RCW 59 18 115 and RCW 59 18 085. If that doesn't work, you can call me.
Tenant Relocation is in RCW 59 18 085. Landlords have to provide reasonably habitable housing. Reasonably habitable housing has heat and effective plumbing. If you do not get that, if you follow the notice procedure, you are eligible for a refund of three month's rent, any pre-paid rent, all your deposits, and your reasonable attorney fees and costs of suit, if necessary. And the law requires your landlord to come up with cash or certified funds within seven days of when the Building Department inspects and determines that you are living in substandard housing. Housing with no heat and defective plumbing is substandard.
What you CANNOT do is stay in the house and quit paying rent. That will just get you evicted.
Elizabeth Powell
You have an independent duty to pay rent despite the problems with the property. However, the landlord has a duty to fix the problems that make the premises uninhabitable and working plumbing is very high on that list. The mechanism you have is to take him to rent court and the court usually has some kind of provision for rent escrow where you pay the rent to the court until the landlord fixes the problems. That usually gets their attention. Good luck.
Elizabeth Powell is as always, totally correct. Her last comment points up one thing some people tend to miss: in Washington a court case number is a public record. They do not go away like bad credit entries. They are incredibly difficult to "seal". Just keep that in mind if you decide to get into a court fight with a landlord: even if you win you will get tagged with a case number and have to explain that to every place you ever try to rent again. It can also inhibit your ability to get Section 8 housing benefits as they do not like to give vouchers to people with evictions on their history. If you are already on Section 8 - talk to your case worker and get your voucher moved -- you still have to pay to move yourself.
