Street lights-Who pays? Tenant or Landlord?

[Kristin Kerr]

I hope I can ask this here, my husband and I are currently renting out our condo in Michigan after an unexpected move to Alabama for his work. So now we are both landlords and renters (the move is most likely not permanent). We are renting a house about 30 minutes of Birmingham in a weird subdivision. And by weird, I mean it’s a kinda a failed subdivision. There are only about 20 houses in here but originally we think the plan was for around 200. There is also an abandoned golf course and club house that give off some serious “Walking Dead” abandoned overnight vibes. 

I love the house we are renting but not the property managers so much. Communication is a joke and i have the same person telling me two different things in the same conversation. Anyway...the latest thing is that slowly all of the street lights outside stopped working. After contacting the PM about it (twice) I finally got an answer, apparently, the owner doesn't want to pay the HOA the light bill for the street lights so the HOA shut them off. If we want the street light by our house on we would have to have it hooked up to our power and pay for it ourself.

We are smack dab in the middle of nowhere and it is DARK here, we may not have a lot of houses in our sub but the one across the street is pushing 200. It just doesn’t seem right that the street lights can be turned off like that, one would think that the owner would want the security of the lights especially considering that there are several of their properties for rent in here still! 

We had to make sure that our tenant had a copy of the HOA by-laws but I don't remember getting a copy of the ones for this sub. I don't know if that's a difference in state law or what. I'd ask the property managers but who knows how long that will take.

Are all landlords requires to supply tenants with copies of the by-laws? If not would I be able to find them online?