My girlfriend has the Landlord from hell right now. The rental agreement states that the landlord handles Water/Electric/Gas. She has had the electric shut off once, two separate instances where the water was about to be shut off, and this morning no gas.
She is a student at OSU, and talked to the free lawyers there and they were of no help. The issue so far is, she goes through the process of sending the certified letter, and preparing to get her rent put into escrow with the clerk of courts. However by the time she completes this process the landlord fixes the issue.
The Landlord is not reasonable, and will not attempt to talk about these issue/remedy them. She sites that she is going through a divorce and has a ton of personal issues right now. The upstairs tenant hasn't had a stove since they moved in. The Landlord refused to fix it, so they started deducting a portion of their rent (which is incorrect). Instead of fixing it, the landlord is pursuing legal action against them.
Also when my GF first moved in, she had NO bathroom. The remodel wasn't finished, so she had to live some place else for a month (we were not dating at this time, or I would have told her not to move in at all)
Regardless, a recommendation is welcome.
Thanks,
Howard