What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Utah
I began renting a property in September of 2014 with my husband and a roommate. The house was built in 1968 and has aluminum wiring, and the devices attached to the aluminum wires are copper. These devices had had electrical tape and "wire nuts" screwed on to tie them in with the copper, which is NOT up to code.
On Monday morning (real early, about 1:30AM), my bedroom smelled of burning plastic, my lights flashed and dimmed, and the power went dead to both my bedroom and the bedroom across the hall as soon as I flipped the switch. I ran downstairs and flipped the power main off.
My landlord is in California, and couldn't be reached by phone, nor could our maintenance guy. We called an electrician out once we made sure there wasn't an active fire in that bedroom.
The electrician came out at about 2:30AM, and found that one of the connections had melted and nearly started a fire.
The electrician we hired informed the landlord the following day that while the house doesn't necessarily need rewiring, there is a tremendous fire hazard and every single connection and splice within the wiring needs to be redone to prevent another situation like we had with the bedroom outlet. The landlord said no, that he will not do the repairs because "it's not likely it will burn down." Regardless of likelihood, we very nearly DID have a fire, so frankly, I don't care about his not wanting to spend the money.
The wiring is not the only problem as far as code violations. The windows in the basement have been sealed shut and cannot be climbed out of in the event of a fire, the gutters have all been torn down, the garage is starting to separate from the house, etc. Basically, my house looks really pretty inside, but there are a ton of problems that we had no way of knowing about when we moved in.
Our recommendation from the electrician was to contact the building inspectors and get the house condemned.
Can we get our deposit back? What about February rent, which I paid on 1/31 before this nightmare with the wiring? How long would we have to get our belongings out of the house once condemned? And of course, what exactly makes a home condemned in Utah?
I began renting a property in September of 2014 with my husband and a roommate. The house was built in 1968 and has aluminum wiring, and the devices attached to the aluminum wires are copper. These devices had had electrical tape and "wire nuts" screwed on to tie them in with the copper, which is NOT up to code.
On Monday morning (real early, about 1:30AM), my bedroom smelled of burning plastic, my lights flashed and dimmed, and the power went dead to both my bedroom and the bedroom across the hall as soon as I flipped the switch. I ran downstairs and flipped the power main off.
My landlord is in California, and couldn't be reached by phone, nor could our maintenance guy. We called an electrician out once we made sure there wasn't an active fire in that bedroom.
The electrician came out at about 2:30AM, and found that one of the connections had melted and nearly started a fire.
The electrician we hired informed the landlord the following day that while the house doesn't necessarily need rewiring, there is a tremendous fire hazard and every single connection and splice within the wiring needs to be redone to prevent another situation like we had with the bedroom outlet. The landlord said no, that he will not do the repairs because "it's not likely it will burn down." Regardless of likelihood, we very nearly DID have a fire, so frankly, I don't care about his not wanting to spend the money.
The wiring is not the only problem as far as code violations. The windows in the basement have been sealed shut and cannot be climbed out of in the event of a fire, the gutters have all been torn down, the garage is starting to separate from the house, etc. Basically, my house looks really pretty inside, but there are a ton of problems that we had no way of knowing about when we moved in.
Our recommendation from the electrician was to contact the building inspectors and get the house condemned.
Can we get our deposit back? What about February rent, which I paid on 1/31 before this nightmare with the wiring? How long would we have to get our belongings out of the house once condemned? And of course, what exactly makes a home condemned in Utah?
