This is probably going to be long, so sorry in advance - this deals with renting basement apartments, mold, fire codes, and contracts. Fun, right?
To start off, my husband and I are newlyweds living in Utah Valley, sought of Salt Lake City. We moved into our current basement apartment this past January. Rent is $600/mo plus utilities, that have cost us about $150/mo. Being students, this has really been a lot for us to scrape together with our meager jobs. We have a contract with our landlords (they live above us) that ends at the end of August. Starting in September, they would have raised our rent to $625/mo+utilities. My husband's sales job really did not go as planned, and at the end of the summer we'll have a lot less money for the coming year than we planned on. So we decided to move to a cheaper place if we found it for the next few years while we're still in Utah (we plan on leaving once I graduate so I can do my dietetics internship).
As it turns out, I found the cheaper place today - and we have it held for us.
But in looking for rental properties (basements and apartments) it opened my eyes a bit at how ignorant of a renter I (we) had been. First off, the windows in our place are NOT up to firecode. If we had a fire, there's only one door out, and the windows are ALL too small AND too high up from the floor...legally. Do the landlords have to bring those code violations up to code before they can rent? Because that alone makes me nervous being here. And the other thing is that there is no proper bathroom ventilation - and though they provided us with a dehumidifier, we have extreme moisture problems with peeling paint and black and pink mold growth. Which a lot of people overlook, but I REALLY don't want to be in a toxic mold environment.
Here's the catch. We're in this contract until the end of August. Do you think that legally we could get out of it because of the firecode violations and the mold, and not have to pay for the last two months? What should my husband and I do in this situation? DH's father is a lawyer licensed in this state, so we could have a little bit of help, I know.
Thanks and hugs to those who read this far.
To start off, my husband and I are newlyweds living in Utah Valley, sought of Salt Lake City. We moved into our current basement apartment this past January. Rent is $600/mo plus utilities, that have cost us about $150/mo. Being students, this has really been a lot for us to scrape together with our meager jobs. We have a contract with our landlords (they live above us) that ends at the end of August. Starting in September, they would have raised our rent to $625/mo+utilities. My husband's sales job really did not go as planned, and at the end of the summer we'll have a lot less money for the coming year than we planned on. So we decided to move to a cheaper place if we found it for the next few years while we're still in Utah (we plan on leaving once I graduate so I can do my dietetics internship).
As it turns out, I found the cheaper place today - and we have it held for us.
But in looking for rental properties (basements and apartments) it opened my eyes a bit at how ignorant of a renter I (we) had been. First off, the windows in our place are NOT up to firecode. If we had a fire, there's only one door out, and the windows are ALL too small AND too high up from the floor...legally. Do the landlords have to bring those code violations up to code before they can rent? Because that alone makes me nervous being here. And the other thing is that there is no proper bathroom ventilation - and though they provided us with a dehumidifier, we have extreme moisture problems with peeling paint and black and pink mold growth. Which a lot of people overlook, but I REALLY don't want to be in a toxic mold environment.
Here's the catch. We're in this contract until the end of August. Do you think that legally we could get out of it because of the firecode violations and the mold, and not have to pay for the last two months? What should my husband and I do in this situation? DH's father is a lawyer licensed in this state, so we could have a little bit of help, I know.
Thanks and hugs to those who read this far.
