questions & answers

Question: For the last 2 months, after a company bought the complex I'm living in, have endless cut down trees, no warning, all day every day other than the weekends. Because of that, rats have now started entering our apartments and taken up residence in our walls. It took them a month to come and repair holes where the rats were entering and the endless noise has made living here stressful. What is their rights as the owners of the complex and how much noise and inconvience they are causing everyone living here?

Answer: Residential tenants generally have a right to the full use and “peaceful enjoyment” of their rented dwellings. The best course of action for tenants in such situations – both to protect themselves legally and to give themselves more options – is to carefully document all of the problems occurring (dates/times/photo and/or video evidence/etc.) and provide formal written notification to the landlord – in the form of a signed and dated letter either delivered by hand or sent to the landlord by certified mail (keeping a copy for your own records) – describing the nature and extent of those problems and requesting that they be remedied as soon as possible. If, after a reasonable period of time after the landlord has received this notice, the problems continue, then, depending upon how severe those problems are, the tenant may have the option, for example, of giving notice of the tenant’s intention to terminate the lease without penalty or of requesting a reduction of the rent in proportion to the diminished value of the dwelling given the constant noise and inconvenience. (What is and is not possible or is likely or unlikely to persuade a court of law is always dependent upon the particular facts of each case.)