Imagine moving into an apartment that’s filthy and needs a lot of repairs done. What would you do if you were told that would all be taken care of before your move in date but it wasn’t? Would you do the cleaning and repair work yourself, try to live with the problems, or make sure the landlord actually fixes everything?

In this story, one man and his wife are in this situation. They ended up cleaning the place themselves, but they turned to the landlord for repairs. When the construction workers didn’t fix the problems quickly enough, he decided to contact the city.

It turns out the problems are a bigger deal than he realized.

Let’s read all about it.

Don’t mess with the wrong tenants

I moved into my apartment about two months ago, and I noticed that many basic maintainence issues (e.g moldy/leaking ceilings, toiler not rooted to the ground/ broken windows/ pipes that leaked debris, unsafe wiring, heating did not turn on/ some outlets and smoke alarms didn’t work etc…) that I had discussed with the broker prior to moving in had not been fixed, despite the broker’s assurances that these would all be addressed before move in.

Additionally, no one had bothered to clean anything, so when I should have been unpacking and setting up my new home with my wife, I was busy on my hands and knees all day scrubbing every dirt-caked surface.

It got worse.

Fast forward a few days, we speak once again to the broker and to the building management about the conditions, which were not fixed.

They send a superintendent who does not speak any English and who disappears before fixing the issues, but not before leaving a mess.

This repeats for a week until I finally call the city, who sends an inspector.

Turns out, the above listed conditions of the apartment are deemed illegal, and the landlord is given a certain window of time — either 30 days, 60 days, or 90 days — to fix each specific issue before fines begin to accrue.

Management is trying to wiggle their way out of taking responsibility for the problems.

City inspectors keep coming to check on the repairs.

Meanwhile, an manager from the building is emailing us saying that we never gave them proper notice of the issues and is saying that we are in the wrong for calling the city.

The other representatives from the management agency back her up, totally ignoring all our prior conversations, many of which were in writing via email.

Once I prove that we did indeed describe the issues to them, they blame me for not allowing them access to my apartment to do the repairs, which still had not been completed due to workers disappearing before the repairs were complete, as well them not showing up at agreed-upon times.

This is taking a long time to get resolved.

Lots of angry emails go back and forth, which ultimately lead to nothing.

Two months into our lease, which is about a week ago, most of the repairs had finally been completed.

Turns out, however, that when city inspectors were here, they noticed that the front door does not automatically close, Apparently that is required for fire safety reasons.

I honestly don’t get it, but I don’t particularly care, because at this point I am mad.

The workers aren’t all that bright.

Workers were here to fix the door, while a city inspector came, and told them that the door must close automatically from 30 degrees.

Now the workers don’t seem to be so skilled in math and they clearly were not able to estimate what a 30 degree angle looked like.

They saw that the door closed automatically from a much larger angle than 30 degrees and assumed it was okay.

Tired of dealing with unreliable workers and the mangement in denail, I kept my knowledge to myself

This is why it’s important to pay attention in math class when you’re in school.

After they left, I measured my door, which is 36 inches wide.

If the door is opened to a 30 degree angle, the door can be viewed as a hypotenuse of a right angle triangle with degree measures of 30, 60, and 90.

Taking the sine of 30 degrees and multiplying it by the hypotenuse length thus yields the length of the opposite leg of the triangle.

In other words, the door would need to self-close when the edge of the door is 18 inches away from the door frame.

He doesn’t plan to tell management about the problem.

Did the door actually do that?

Of course not.

Now the manageent believes this issue to be fixed, but next time the city shows up to inspect if it has indeed been fixed, I will show them the math and demonstrate how the door does not properly close.

Fees for this issue not yet being remedied are accruing at a rate of $250/day. Once the city sees that the issue still has not been fixed, the fees may escalate even more.

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But the revenge isn’t over yet.

The next phase is creating leaflets about tenant rights, how to get the city to lower one’s rent if living conditions are poor, and how to call the city inspectors to fine the lanbdlord for unadressed maintainence issues.

I have patiently waited for two months for issues to be fixed that never should have existed in the first place in an apartment that is being newly rented out.

Don’t treat your tenant well, then be prepared for the full extent of the law to be applied and made fully known to all your other tenants.

It sounds like it has been a nightmare just trying to get his apartment into livable condition. I can’t blame OP for wanting revenge.

Let’s see how Reddit responded.

Here’s a suggestion to take pictures.

One person offers a warning.

This person had to drop some math puns.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a neighbor who sees the chance for revenge after a neighbor who refuses to share wifi needs help with a parking issue.

This is exactly what I was thinking!

This is why we learn geometry in school.

I’m glad he contacted the city and the inspectors are making sure the work gets done. Being fined is clearly the motivation management needed to actually fix the problems they should’ve fixed anyway.