Eviction Notice Questions

Last month we become aware of circumstances (pay) that were possibly going to happen that may prevent us from paying our rent by the due date. We tried to call our landlord several times over the course of the month and he refused to return our calls. We got a notice to quit and in trying to contact him, we found from his work that he changed his cell phone number. We called his work several times (he gave us a business card for contact,) and he has not returned the phone calls. We have proof from our cell phone records of all of the calls that were made without a response. I then emailed him as a last resort to explain the situation and to request a phone number. He wrote a one line email saying that we broke the lease and he had not choice but to proceed forward. He did not leave a contact number. We understand that he is legally within his rights to do this, but we should be able to have contact with him. We have paid the rent and sent an email requesting a contact number and an expectation that this will end the eviction proceedings.

Next, we also wanted to talk to him about issues within the house that he has on several occasions (including upon moving in) that he was supposed to have fixed.

1. Baseboard heaters in the upstairs bedrooms are not covered and there are exposed pipes. Within a couple of weeks of when we moved in, he had someone come out and take measurements but that was the last that we heard. We also asked him about this several times and he said that he would check into it.

2. The basement is always wet (sometimes flooding with at least 1 foot of water.) He has come over several times to fix the sump pumps, but we are unable to use the washing machine that is in the basement due to it being flooded. Also, the furnace is down there and getting wet. We knew about this problem when we moved in, but he said that it was minimal and the pumps should take care it the water.

3. None of the plugs in the house are grounded, we found this out after there was an electical problem that involved the fire department and the landlord did actually call in an electrician who said that there were problems with the wiring and plugs that need to be fixed. There are open electrical sockets that cannot be covered because they are set deep in the wall. There are some that are not attached to anything (you can just pull them out) There are some that are empty but have wires with caps on the end.

4. The roof leaks when it rains.

These are just the serious problems.

In researching building codes, we found that we might have an additional problem since the ceilings in the whole downstairs are only 6.5 feet tall. The ceilings upstairs are just over six feet.

We are not trying to break our lease, but we were wondering what the correct procedure would be to get the safety concerns repaird. We do not want to cause additional problems, but there are some safety issues that need to be addressed. Also, is he legally obligated to give us a working number to contact him at?

Our overall feeling about the situation is either that he wants possession of the house back for his own use, or he has realized that the amount of work that is needed to bring the house up to code is more than he wants to spend and we have a two year lease.

Thank-you!