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Should I Just Hit Him?
Small Time Crooked
Post Malone's Hairdresser Des Plaines, ILRegistered User regular
Post Malone's Hairdresser Des Plaines, ILRegistered User regular
What's up yawl, it's ya boy Small Time here again requesting some help. So checknuts:
Due to a sleeping disorder I was up last night at about 1:00 AM and cooking food. Odd time to be cooking but it really relaxes me and helps me get to sleep. Around the time I was completing my biscuits n' gravy I noticed the smell of smoke. Assuming it was only the oven, I promptly shut it off, opened a window, and let the room vent out. Now this is where shit gets fun for me. After watching the kitchen air out and I regain visibility I look into the front room which is adjacent to the kitchen and it's slowly hazing up with smoke as well. Puzzled, I head to the basement where I notice the pungent odor of smoke and clouds of the shit filling the basement. The furnace in our house is VERY old, it's obvious just by looking at it that it's out of date. There's a panel that's about 2.5-3 feet above the main pilot that was just sizzling and pouring out thick clouds of smoke. I ran upstairs to shut it off by thermostat and to wake up my girlfriend and my sister who were asleep on the 2nd floor. Before I even reached the top of the stairs my eyes were burning and I had to keep a bandana over my face to filter the smoke, I don't even know HOW they slept through that. It looked like a fuckin' Cypress Hill concert, to describe it at best. I woke up them, got them suited with coats and had them go outside then called the Fire Department. Upon arrival the firemen go through the house and determine that it was, without a doubt, the furnace. So they, and the police, told me to call my landlord ASAP and have him look at it. They opened the windows, shut down the furnace completely, let it air out and we all slept for another couple hours.
Fast forward to just now, my landlord shows up by himself to inspect the furnace. This man has NO background in repair work of ANY kind. My initial thought was to cuss him out, and that's the civil way of me handling things. But I remained fairly calm and told him that it needs to be replaced. To which he responds, "no, no, there's probably something stuck in there that's getting burned. It's still a good furnace". This is the same man who refused to change our stove for 3 years and knew that we had a decaying subpump in the basement as well. This visit lasted a total of 10 minutes before he decided I was just too "dumb" to even talk to anymore. At which point he says "well, at least no one was hurt. Just keep everything closed and I'll send a 'furance guy' over later".
Dear Penny Arcade. What the fuck do I do? I'm sorry if this isn't the most coherent plea for assistance ever. But I slept maybe a total of 1.5 hours and the red, burning hot anger racing through my head certainly isn't helping. I mean, I know I can't legally beat him. Though in my opinion to endanger the livelihood and wellbeing of my family for the sake of saving some money seems like it'd be justifiable to just beat him over the head with a 2x4.
My game plan stands to give him a couple hours to actually send some kind of professional to review the furnace. If he fails to do so by todays end I'm contacting the local town hall. I remember the firemen telling me the town can repossess the house from him and I'd just pay the town my rent as opposed to him until he cooperates and replaces the furnace and starts doing his goddamn job. But, mind you, we've been having problems with this furnace for the past 5 years living here. It was only inevitable that it starts giving up.
Thanks in advance to those who answer. I need to try and get to sleep and I need a cigarette bad as fuck right now. Deuces, Small Time.
tl;dr House damn near caught fire. Furnace needs to be replaced. Landlord disagrees and argues it's still good. Very, VERY angry Small Time ensues. What to do? Deuces, Small Time.
EDIT: I just saw how long this post was. Sorry guys. There's just a lot on my mind right now about this whole situation.
Due to a sleeping disorder I was up last night at about 1:00 AM and cooking food. Odd time to be cooking but it really relaxes me and helps me get to sleep. Around the time I was completing my biscuits n' gravy I noticed the smell of smoke. Assuming it was only the oven, I promptly shut it off, opened a window, and let the room vent out. Now this is where shit gets fun for me. After watching the kitchen air out and I regain visibility I look into the front room which is adjacent to the kitchen and it's slowly hazing up with smoke as well. Puzzled, I head to the basement where I notice the pungent odor of smoke and clouds of the shit filling the basement. The furnace in our house is VERY old, it's obvious just by looking at it that it's out of date. There's a panel that's about 2.5-3 feet above the main pilot that was just sizzling and pouring out thick clouds of smoke. I ran upstairs to shut it off by thermostat and to wake up my girlfriend and my sister who were asleep on the 2nd floor. Before I even reached the top of the stairs my eyes were burning and I had to keep a bandana over my face to filter the smoke, I don't even know HOW they slept through that. It looked like a fuckin' Cypress Hill concert, to describe it at best. I woke up them, got them suited with coats and had them go outside then called the Fire Department. Upon arrival the firemen go through the house and determine that it was, without a doubt, the furnace. So they, and the police, told me to call my landlord ASAP and have him look at it. They opened the windows, shut down the furnace completely, let it air out and we all slept for another couple hours.
Fast forward to just now, my landlord shows up by himself to inspect the furnace. This man has NO background in repair work of ANY kind. My initial thought was to cuss him out, and that's the civil way of me handling things. But I remained fairly calm and told him that it needs to be replaced. To which he responds, "no, no, there's probably something stuck in there that's getting burned. It's still a good furnace". This is the same man who refused to change our stove for 3 years and knew that we had a decaying subpump in the basement as well. This visit lasted a total of 10 minutes before he decided I was just too "dumb" to even talk to anymore. At which point he says "well, at least no one was hurt. Just keep everything closed and I'll send a 'furance guy' over later".
Dear Penny Arcade. What the fuck do I do? I'm sorry if this isn't the most coherent plea for assistance ever. But I slept maybe a total of 1.5 hours and the red, burning hot anger racing through my head certainly isn't helping. I mean, I know I can't legally beat him. Though in my opinion to endanger the livelihood and wellbeing of my family for the sake of saving some money seems like it'd be justifiable to just beat him over the head with a 2x4.
My game plan stands to give him a couple hours to actually send some kind of professional to review the furnace. If he fails to do so by todays end I'm contacting the local town hall. I remember the firemen telling me the town can repossess the house from him and I'd just pay the town my rent as opposed to him until he cooperates and replaces the furnace and starts doing his goddamn job. But, mind you, we've been having problems with this furnace for the past 5 years living here. It was only inevitable that it starts giving up.
Thanks in advance to those who answer. I need to try and get to sleep and I need a cigarette bad as fuck right now. Deuces, Small Time.
tl;dr House damn near caught fire. Furnace needs to be replaced. Landlord disagrees and argues it's still good. Very, VERY angry Small Time ensues. What to do? Deuces, Small Time.
EDIT: I just saw how long this post was. Sorry guys. There's just a lot on my mind right now about this whole situation.
Small Time Crooked on
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Just because it smokes doesn't mean it needs to be replaced. It could be dust or something else that got caught in it that's smoking. Give him a chance to have a guy look at it and see if it needs to be replaced, or it could just need a cleaning. If the house is cold then he should be getting a guy to fix it post haste (today).
There must be someplace where you can look up your tenant rights, which should give you a timeframe for when he's required to have the place fixed or compensate you or put you up someplace.
If both the furnace guy and the Fire Dept are a bust, I would say you're pretty much out of luck. There may be other options but I don't see them.
Just a word of caution here as this is the first thought that strikes me.
If the landlord is the asshole he seems to be then this might lead to a lot of trouble and legal issues. He could claim that since the OP called another contractor the OP will have to pay for it, not the landlord. And when the next rent isn't paid in full the landlord could start all kinds of asshattery.
Wait you can do this? I may need to do this about my stove!
You can do what you want, unless it's specified in the lease the landlord could still expect the full rent. Though most landlords I've worked with are OK with this because they don't want to deal it (or you) themselves.
I would call and email him to let him know he has 48 hours to get someone over there, otherwise you are doing it and deducting the charge from your rent. Even legal eviction where the landlord is in the right takes many many months.
But yea, checking with your tennant laws is always good.
He has no legal right to force you into living in unliveable conditions. Broken appliances and no heat in the winter? Fucking hell, that sounds unliveable.
Firemen aren't intrinsically trained for furnace repair, either, so their option is based around "the furnace is charred and blackened, so the fire probably started there."
I would go ahead and have your landlord send a boilerman out, and ask to see his license when he arrives. This absolves you of footing the bill, and any--ANY--service repairman worth a damn would be more than happy to show you their license. If he refuses, you know the guy isn't legit.
My advice is to wait a day for the repair man, check the tenants rights for your local area just in case, and relax.
Face Twit Rav Gram
What's the issue? That's a pretty reasonable course of action, regardless of any past issues you have with the guy.
It is in no way unreasonable for the landlord to want to have a guy take a look to see how much it would cost (if anything) to repair it, as opposed to paying someone to haul the old one out, buying a new one, and paying a guy to install the new one.
As long as he does so in a reasonable period of time (which can vary depending on your local climate), your best option is to grow up and wait patiently for a day or two and let him do his landlord thing.
On a scale of one to ten I would say you are overreacting.
I'm not sure what exactly the firemen said, they saw the old furnace, smoke coming out of it and told you it was that old furnace that was causing the smoke. Did they ever specifically say that it needed to be replaced? Same goes for the police. Did anyone ever clearly state it needed to be replaced?
If they ever did say that and the furnace guy doesn't pull out a bird's nest or whatever and the landlord doesn't seem to care you can call the local fire department and get them to look at it again (where I work they are not completely locked in a bureaucratic quagmire and will make a visit sooner rather than later) more closely. They can also discuss their findings with the landlord and explain the legalities surrounding leaving a known fire hazard in an apartment building.
First thing you should is take some deep breaths, the landlord does not seem all that unreasonable. It's pretty scary to see your house covered in smoke and having to save your girlfriend, nothing wrong with being shook up.
(I'm not a firefighter, but I do work at a fire department doing various administrative things. So I know some things about these sort of things, but not enough to go 'YOU SHOULD DO THIS RAWR!'. )
This probably varies by j/d. Generally, you have to give him opportunity to have it fixed himself first. He's said he's sending over a furnace guy, so the OP can't really do this. You also have to give him notice in writing of your intent to do so.
This is never just flat out true, anywhere. Pretty much any housing laws anywhere ever will give him reasonable time to make reasonable effort to make things right.
It's not the first time my landlord has pulled some shady ish like this. Like I said, I've had to replace the old corroded sub pump on my own and he wouldn't let me dock that out of the rent. We didn't have a working fridge for a few weeks before he replaced. Working stove for 3 years before he replaced it. The second floor needs to be redone because of water damage, I'm just waiting for someone taking a shower to end up in the kitchen any day. When there is a problem in the house, he doesn't find someone that knows the specifics, he gets the local handyman from 4 doors down to check it out and that cat doesn't know squat.
Thankfully I was contacted by the repairman earlier today and he was just over about a half hour ago to checc it out. He determined that the motor either caught fire or just started smoking up. He said smokey motors occur in furnaces sometimes but not to the degree that I described, so he said it's good I shut it off otherwise me, my girl and my sister would be lookin' like Flavor Flav's relatives about now.
They'll be coming by tomorrow to replace the furnace completely, so I gotta empty out the laundry room of any little clutter as to make everything flow smoothely for them. Problem's been solved pretty much. A mod can locc this if they wish to do so, or we'll just let it die. But thanks a whole lot again to yawl who were able to lend some advice, I'ma head to the library or town hall to see if they can hook me up with local tenant/landlord laws and see if I can get this crochety old geezer to fix himself up. It really gets me heated when dude rolls up in a brand new car and suit every month, expects greenbaccs, but doesn't wanna do nothin' in return but tell me that I'm fuccin' his house up.
Thank you so much again, if I could give yawl more I would, but I hope a heavy-hearted thank you will suffice. Take care everybody. Deuces. Small Time.
Getting 'heated' at us when we offer advice certainly isn't going to help you any.
you say you've been living there for five years. you say you were without a working stove for three years?
the reason your landlord drags his feet on stuff like this is because you've established a pattern of letting him drag his feet on stuff like this.
Wow. There is just so much awesome in here. I don't really know what else to say.
But in all seriousness, this sounds like a shitty landlord.
Are you locked into a lease? It seems like you've lived there for quite a few years. Have you given any thought to just finding a new apartment with a landlord who isn't wack?