Moved into a dump, no lease signed yet, legality? Colorado

[Andrew Rinne]

Hi all,

**Let me first preface this by saying that the beginning part of this is going to sound like I'm just an inexperienced renter, but please read on, I promise it's a very unusual situation and a problem to which I'm not really sure how to solve diplomatically. I am also a home owner with my fiance:

My fiance and I moved into a rental property in Colorado Springs, CO. It’s my fiance’s coworker’s brother’s home, by the way. When we looked at the property initially, over two months ago and at night with all of the previous tenant's belongings still in it, he lied and said it’s “just under 900 square feet”. I now know (after moving in) that it’s 811 square feet. He also said his asking price of “$1200/month is below market value”. I looked up market value and it is $1100 to $1150 if the house is in *immaculate*, newly remodeled condition. This place is beyond filthy and, arguably, unlivable.

The previous tenants moved out and the owner didn’t clean or fix anything. He told us months ago that he’d need a couple weeks after the previous tenants moved out to clean and either have the carpets shampooed or replaced, which didn't happen. The walls and doors are covered in holes, the place smells awful (like dog pee and old, nasty carpet, in fact, if we walk barefoot, our feet are filthy within a couple minutes), there are no screens on some of the windows and the sliding back door (which, btw, does not have a handle because the previous tenant broke it completely off), and I told him mosquitoes are attracted to me and that I have a severe allergy to them (there is no AC, so we have to have the windows and doors open at night to cool the place down, but can't without screens), he also said he would have a microwave installed above the stove when we looked at the place that first night months ago and did not do it.

I fully understand all of what he said was a load of BS but that nothing was in writing, so we can't hold him to any of that stuff *but* we also haven’t signed a rental agreement or given him any money yet--no deposit, no first month's rent, nothing--and we moved in on July 1st. 

What are our rights? I had him come to the house on July 2nd and agree to fix/clean stuff but he’s REALLY flaky (he was supposed to come look at the home we own up in Aurora to possibly rent it from us but he never came by, despite setting up numerous appointments and then bailing on them). What should we do? 

I have the square footage lie on a text message record btw.  I tried to have most of my conversations with him over text after getting a flaky/pot head vibe from him.

Thanks for the help and sorry for the long post!

[Ryan Murdock]

@Andrew Rinne I'm immediately skeptical of your claim when you are haggling over 89 sq/ft. Did you measure per ANSI standards (slight sarcasm intended...)? Did your landlord? And where is it that one looks up a definitive and 100% accurate "market value" on rentals?

Regardless, the place sounds filthy and the landlord annoying inconsistent. You have signed nothing and given no money. Why even make an argument to stay there? And why ask about your "rights"? For what? Pack it up and find another place.