What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Florida
I will attempt to make this as brief as possible. We are a family of four, including 2 children (one 2.5, one 6 months). We are renting a single-family house that the owner currently has for sale. It is an old house (built in the 40's) with wood floors and wood frame. It is INFESTED with termites. They swarm us by the hundreds at night and on some awful nights it has been in the thousands. There are large holes in the wood floors that we have to avoid for fear of twisting an ankle (due to the termites, the holes are filled with termite droppings). I am concerned about the roof and wall structures. I spend about two hours a day cleaning up live termites, dead termites, termite wings and termite droppings.
We have approached the landlord about this several times, including in writing, but her response remains (essentially) she does not want to put any more money into the house before it sells, the new buyer will just have to tear down and rebuild from the ground up (yes, she really said this).
After a couple of bad nights of swarms and picking a termite out of my 6 months old's mouth I got mad. My city has a website that allows users to file a code complaint online. I filed one online today at 1:30 PM. At 2:15PM the code enforcement manager arrived at my house. He was here to do a prelim inspection, said that the house was awful and was going to have to come back with 3 more inspectors and a police officer to approach the landlord. He left things pretty vague but said there are multiple code violations and is very concerned about my family's safety. Now I fear the house could be condemned because in addition to the structural damage, there are electrical and other issues.
If the house is condemned and we have to leave, is our landlord responsible for paying costs for our family to live someplace else since she refused to make any repairs? What specifically is she liable for?
Thank you for any answers you can provide.
I will attempt to make this as brief as possible. We are a family of four, including 2 children (one 2.5, one 6 months). We are renting a single-family house that the owner currently has for sale. It is an old house (built in the 40's) with wood floors and wood frame. It is INFESTED with termites. They swarm us by the hundreds at night and on some awful nights it has been in the thousands. There are large holes in the wood floors that we have to avoid for fear of twisting an ankle (due to the termites, the holes are filled with termite droppings). I am concerned about the roof and wall structures. I spend about two hours a day cleaning up live termites, dead termites, termite wings and termite droppings.
We have approached the landlord about this several times, including in writing, but her response remains (essentially) she does not want to put any more money into the house before it sells, the new buyer will just have to tear down and rebuild from the ground up (yes, she really said this).
After a couple of bad nights of swarms and picking a termite out of my 6 months old's mouth I got mad. My city has a website that allows users to file a code complaint online. I filed one online today at 1:30 PM. At 2:15PM the code enforcement manager arrived at my house. He was here to do a prelim inspection, said that the house was awful and was going to have to come back with 3 more inspectors and a police officer to approach the landlord. He left things pretty vague but said there are multiple code violations and is very concerned about my family's safety. Now I fear the house could be condemned because in addition to the structural damage, there are electrical and other issues.
If the house is condemned and we have to leave, is our landlord responsible for paying costs for our family to live someplace else since she refused to make any repairs? What specifically is she liable for?
Thank you for any answers you can provide.