Hear Him (or Her)! Hear Him! 
That means “Word”, “Cool” and “We are the chorus and we agree”.
If you can’t afford to pay more in rent, then I say suck it up, esp. if the rent is below market. There’s a reason you’re getting a deal and it’s probably because the landlord isn’t charging enough to pay for expensive repairs.
Wait a minute, I should have increased the rent from $700 for a two bedroom house after I laid out $4000 for the new furnace and AC?
Dammit!
For Pete’s sake, just move out. There’s nothing to think about, argue with yourself about, debate about. Your landlord sucks; give him the months notice required by you month-to-month status, and get out.
I don’t recall if you’re paying for electricity or not; if the landlord is paying for electricity, I say get as many oil-filled heaters as you want and run them as much as it takes to make your rental comfortable.
Of course if the rent really is “below market” - you probably have the choice to take a house that is also “below market” and keep the rent that way - if you want the house to be “up to market” then you need to pay “up to market” rent
(If this makes any sense at all)
This type of sage advice is why I call myself a Pundit.
I think this is the key point. You are essentially going to a shade tree apartment guy, and not a professionally managed building. He’s basically figuring his costs, adding in profit, and then charging that as rent. This, likely, results in lower rent, but comes with lower services.
I still don’t understand why people are upset with the property manager. If you want him to take care of it automatically, then he would have fixed it, increased the rent, and it would be done. If that’s the solution you want, then just tell him to do that. All he has done is give the OP options. If OP wants heat and is willing to pay the rent increase, she can do that. If the OP would rather wear sweaters and save the money, she can do that.
It seems what OP wants is for landowner to fix the heat without increasing the rent. But that isn’t how his business works, and there is no legal obligation for him to do so.
Yes there is.
This has been cited multiple times throughout this thread if you’d care to check the relevant links.
The landlord is trying to squeeze his renters so he loses as little money as possible on replacing something that he is legally obligated to replace without retaliating against them.
Now, if he wanted to raise the rent without all of this heater bullshit, then he could - they’re renting month-to-month (which doesn’t seem like a good plan to me on the renters’ part, but whatever). He can raise the rents for his properties any time he wants to.
However, since he is specifically linking the raised rent to the provision of the heat, that’s retaliation, and is illegal.
The problem here is that since he’s already proven that he’s ok with being a dick, then calling in the enforcers or taking him to small-claims court is just going to piss him off further, and then he’ll evict the OP and they’ll have to find another place within 6 months anyway. (Unless they can get a court injunction against him evicting them as retaliation also, but I don’t know if that’s possible, and then they’re living with someone who has it in for them hardcore now.)
Back to the OP -
If it were me, I would beg-borrow some more heaters, tell the landlord that you appreciate his trying to provide options, but you’re fine the way things are. Find you a different job, and then MOVE OUT as soon as you can. Once you have his reference (if you can get it anyway - he may *already *be peeved enough to refuse to provide one) and you are safely into another place with a new landlord, THEN you call the DHS people on his ass. Everybody wins!
The thing is, there is a legal obligation for him to do that. In order for the apartment to be habitable, it must have “heating facilities in good working order” and if I complain about it and he then raises the rent, it’s considered retaliation and is against the law.
The only reason I haven’t pressed him on it is because I know it would piss him off, and I don’t want him to give us a bad reference for exercising our rights.
Re: the relative cheapness of the apartment - per a couple of online rent calculators, the median rent for a 2-bedroom apartment in our area is about $1300, and ours is $1200. So it is less expensive than the median, but not grossly out of line with it.
After much discussion, it looks like that’s pretty much exactly what we’re going to do. If I had my druthers I’d find a new place and move out tomorrow, but not knowing what my job situation will be makes that difficult. If I do wind up getting another job that’s local, we will still be moving as soon as it’s settled. This guy is not worth doing business with.
Thank you, everyone. The advice I’ve gotten here has been really reasonable, and has helped a lot, as has the focus of writing everything down and explaining it.
Oops, yes, agreed
I don’t know many landlords who will rent to an unemployed person, so I think it’s wise of you to stay put until you land something else. Good luck finding a new job, BTW.
But there’s no evidence he is doing it as a retaliatory measure. He’s increasing rent to reflect increased costs, not get back at you for demanding heat. As your cite says:
He can do that by showing the cost for installing the heater.
But the heater is something that he is required to provide, that is assumed to be part of the cost of the rental. An apartment with no heat is not legally permitted to be rented out; I would be within my rights to withhold rent entirely until it’s fixed. Its monthly rental value is $0.00.
By charging extra for apartment-with-heat, he is punishing us for asserting our right to a heated apartment.
Treis is just plain wrong, he’s been wrong from the 1st page of this thread and he continues to be wrong.
The heater is a major repair, which needs to be capitalized over 10-20 years, not charged to a tenant. If he knew his business, that sort of thing would be included in his budget. The rents would have included a capitalized cost for this- and in fact, they likely did.
Now, if he put in a pool or a laundry room or some sort of improvement, that would be different. But raising rents right after- and because of- a Code required capital repair- would be considered retaliation by any reasonable mediator. All that the OP would have to show is the communications and timing, it’s a slam-dunk. I ran this (as a hypothetical) by my co-worker in that dept and they agreed.
Now, yes, if a year or 6 months from now he put in a normal 5-10% rent increase, it’s be hard to show the connection. But the landlord has already admitted he’d be raising the rent to put in a Code required repair, it’d pretty clear.
Mind you, ianal, and it certainly might not be worth your time and trouble to fight this. Legal fees could be higher than any savings, and no doubt, having your landlord harbor resentment against you can never be a Good thing.
But the landlord is 100% wrong here and the OP is completely in the right.
No, he’s not. He’s increasing rent to cover a major outlay. Again, read your cite:
There’s zero evidence that the increase in rent is to get back at you or punish you for making a complaint.
Uh, what exactly would you call increasing rent by $90 a month to off-set a several thousand dollar repair? That, to me, sounds like including a capitalized cost into his budget.
It’d be interesting to know how much profit the landlord is making from his tenants. That way we’d be able to better determine whether he’s truly not in a position to make the repairs without an increase in rent, or if he’s just niggardly with his cash. I don’t imagine the law would require a landlord to lose money on his property.
Honestly, if he doesn’t have ten grand or so sitting around in an account for capital improvements, one wonders how he makes it as a landlord. Part of doing business should be asking enough in rent to cover occasional improvements.
The argument can go either way. Treis is making the argument the landlord would make.
‘I’m increasing the rent to offset a capital investment into the property. This investment and was necessary for the apartment to meet current codes regardless of the tenants complaints. I am not increasing the rent to be retaliatory, it was a necessary increase in cost. The truth is I should have increased their rent years ago but I was being a nice guy and knew they had trouble making the rent as it was.’
Vs the OP’s argument.
‘I demanded working heat per the laws requirements so he is retaliating against me by increasing my rent.’
I wouldn’t want to be on either side in front of a magistrate because neither is a sure thing. As a tenant I really wouldn’t want to bring any case to court that isn’t a sure thing because a loss in court for a tenant is usually far more costly to a tenants life then the loss for the landlord would be. Taking any issue to court not only costs time and money it also is emotionally draining, so much so that I never want to be there.
If the landlord increases the rent without making the improvement it would very clearly be retaliation. If he makes the improvement and increases the rent the line becomes much less clear.
A working heater is not an improvement, though; it’s a requirement, like electricity, water, and toilets. Trying on a different repair as a hypothetical, I think this becomes more clear; say what stopped working was the toilet. It would be ridiculous to allow the landlord to raise the rent because he replaced a 25 year old toilet that finally wore out, but that is basically what this landlord is trying to do.