New rental is dirty and broken

[Kelly Williams]

hello

I moved across the country this weekend. I rented a place off craigslist last month. My lease started at the beginning of June. I'm in a college town so the rental market is tight so we wanted to find a place before we moved here. Anyway, I signed a lease sight unseen. The owners bought the home for their daughter while she was in college. Now they can't sell it and are unintentional landlords. They are very kind people and I'm sure mean well. They left us a bottle of wine and some beer in the fridge as a move in gift.

Here is the problem. The house is dirty. Not disgusting by any means, but not clean. There are also many things in the house that are broken. Most of the blinds are broken, lots of light bulbs burnt out, the locks and keys don't seem to all work together. Lastly, the interior paint job is a joke. Someone tried to do a touch up but the color is way off. The color around the trim is way off from the walls. Also there are tons of holes from mails hanging art from the precious tenants.

So my question is what do I do? We like the house. Yes I signed a lease aight unseen. What I these issues are the landlord required to fix if any? We want to stay and would make great tenants. Is it unreasonable to ask tejme to repair everything? What about splitting the cost for us to fix all of it? Any ideas? Thanks in advance.

[Chris Simmons]

Take photos or videos, documented with a copy of the newspaper to prove date. This can help you in case they want to say you did any of this damage and seek damages or withhold deposit. Not sure they have to fix any of it, but this gives you grounds to leave in similar condition at lease end. Also, review lease and see if there is a 10 day period of acceptance. You can certainly bring up these issues with them and ask for remediation, rent decrease etc. Also, offer to trade rent for paint etc. I would never do that as landlord, but I never lease out turds like this either so they may not have much to lose. Just not sure you have leverage on them or if worth it. Now that you're in town, you can scout out next place better. Mainly cya for when you move out.