Tenant rights but non-communicative with landlord

[Alisa SantaAna]

It’s winter in MN and my renter contacted me about a non-working stove with smell of gas. I’d tried calling and messaging/ email through cozy next day and several days later to get more details on the problem and stove itself with zero communication back from the tenant. This began 2 weeks ago with no further communication by them. After 5 days of no responses I assumed the issue had been resolved. Today I get a call from the city that there is a concern by the tenant regarding neglect.

This is my first rental and am learning the hard way but I feel I’m starting on defense with them having contacted the city before allowing myself to fix the issue. The tenant has been an issue each month since purchasing in July 2019. There are also other violations of the lease at hand.

Suggestions? They are month to month renters and I am debating non renewing the lease so I can just get in the property to fix what may be wrong. The majority of issues stem from them not cleaning and is causing more expensive fixes of plumbing/ hvac. Would this impinge on their renters rights? I’m not trying to retaliate by any means but I’m not sure how a problem can be fixed if the complaining party doesn’t give more information or agree to a time I can assess the issue and thus fix it.

Thank you all!