You missed a golden opportunity to slam your fist on a desk and shout “I’m asking the questions here, bub!”
I’m still wondering how Cat Whisperer can have 27,000 posts and have the time to watch Judge Judy.
Multi-tasking, my good man. 
Glad to hear it worked out. Your ordeal sounded awful.
At this point I am hesitant to say that it has worked out quite yet. We don’t have anything in hand from the landlord saying he is letting us out of our lease so we can’t assume he is actually going to follow through with this. He seems to be doing some stuff just to tick us off (for example, the day we filed against him we lost our hot water and didn’t get it back until yesterday, so we were without hot water for 2 weeks and had to shower at various friend’s apartments) so he might have just paraded people through under the guise of trying to end our lease just to get our hopes up. Mr. pbbth is contacting the landlord today to try and get something in writing stating that we can leave 8/1.
Oh, he’d just do that, wouldn’t he? I’m not a vindictive person, but I find myself wishing a serious case of pubic lice on your landlord.
OK, it’s time to turn evil on your landlord. Rent the movie Pacific Heights and take careful notes.
pbbth - keep documenting all this stuff that’s happening - if he has 25 days to complete the work - keep a tally of the work he is or is not completing and the success rate. He may hope that you’ll be so distracted with the potential of moving that you will get sloppy on your documentation.
As for the media - as a former media person myself, I know that some news persons want you to lay the hook right out there for them. Send an email in the subject line that really grabs their attention.
“Ceiling Collapses on Renter, Courts Still Rule in Landlord’s Favor” or “Broken Camera Tells Moldy Tale of Landlord Neglect”
If they see a headline that grabs their readers/viewers/listeners attention - they are more inclinced to go for it - it becomes the easy fix.
jmho, ymmv.
Wow. Just…wow. I can’t believe after all that he’s playing mind games with you. That’s just surreal. I can’t imagine after a long day of work coming home to all that. I hope it’s not adding any extra tension between you and Mr. pbbth. I wish you luck. There are still some nice landlords out there, FWIW - my mom was up half Monday night fretting because one of her tenant’s hot water stopped working and she couldn’t get the plumber to come out till Wednesday.
The Mr. and I are just dandy…the crap with the apartment has just pushed us closer together actually. We find comfort and strength in one another and that stops us from corpsing up our landlord. We know there are lots of good landlords out there and ours just sucks royally right now so we are looking forward to getting into a new place where the owner has a soul.
@melody - That is a fantastic idea! It hadn’t occurred to me to put the headline right in the subject of the email but that would be a great way to get the attention of the media. If we are still stuck here next month I will be using that trick!
I find your ideas interesting and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
lol! Thanks! 
Just…wow. A repairman came by to remove the mold in the closet and he literally just painted over the mold. He didn’t even scrape it away first, just painted right over it. :smack: And our landlord still hasn’t sent us anything telling us we can leave legally. I hate him so much! virtually kicks my landlord in the crotch 715 times
One more time for me, please. :mad:
Were you able to take pictures of that incredibly bad repair job? That would be an excellent documentation of the mockery your landlord is making of being a decent human being.
I can believe there’s few people in the world like your landlord. I accept that there are scum of the earth, that he’s just above those who commit physical violence.
But the fact there’s a repair guy doing it too just breaks my heart.
Have you guys tried sending him a letter or or contacting him in any way since the people visited the apartment interested in renting it? (I assume you have, I just wanted to know what it resulted in).
Today has been surreal. I went out and found our new place - a gorgeous 2 bedroom on the upper east side for $50 a month less than we pay here. We checked the government sites and the building and the apartment have no complaints from any of the tennants in the last 5 years. We want to sign the paperwork and move in right away but we can’t leave until we have something in writing. By happenstance my fiance got a business card from the guy who wants our place and since we can’t get ahold of the landlord he called the guy to find out if he signed the paperwork. Turns out he signed a lease to move in on the 18th. Our landlord hasn’t said a word to us about this and apparently has already given them a move in date during a period during which we had already paid rent. I hate him so much, but because of a little forethought we know ahead of time exactly how he is trying to screw us this time so that makes me feel a little better. One week from tomorrow we should be out of here forever assuming, of course, we can get a lease signed on the new place on Monday.
!!!
I mean, what, was he going to wait until the 17th to tell you ???
I’m glad you’re getting out though.
My god, that’s great. 2 bedrooms too, in NYC for the two of you, color me jealous ;). But really, I hope in a week you’ll be able to say it’s all over.
I take it there’s no hope of getting a deposit back?
Our thought is that we will get a call on the 12th and he will tell us he found someone to take the place but only if we can be out that weekend. He wants us to have to take 3 days off of work to pack up our stuff and rush around to hire a moving company and all that stuff to make our lives hell. We’ve decided that whether or not he provides us with anything in writing we are still moving to the new place next week and he is welcome to take us to court. We’ve already got our case all set up and pictures of this most recent attempt at a half-assed repair so he is welcome to sue us if he wants.
We are going to send a certified letter asking for it back. If he doesn’t give it to us we are considering filing against him in small claims court to get it back but honestly if someone came to me today and said, “For one month’s rent I can get you out of this place forever” I would totally pay it so it might not be worth it to go to court if we can just get out of here.