How to Report Issues to Your Landlord

Introduction

Like with any other kind of relationship, the key to successfully working with your landlord, no matter the form success might ultimately take, is effective communication. After all, they cannot fix a problem or be held responsible for not fixing it if they never know it existed in the first place. Therefore, properly recording and documenting the existence of a problem with your tenancy is both part of a renter’s responsibility as a good tenant and a good practice for holding a landlord or property manager in the future. Below, we will discuss best practices that I have found helpful for clients dealing with unresolved repairs, annoying neighbors, and other problems surrounding their tenancies.

Always Put It in Writing

It is extremely important to document communications in writing. Sending an email, text message, or even a physical letter captures a snapshot of the situation in time. Documentation is especially helpful if you can prove that the person you sent it to actually received it, such as a read receipt for an email, a signature on a certified letter, or a screenshot of a reply to a text message. These records overcome one of the simplest and most effective defenses a landlord or property manager can raise: they didn’t know there was a problem.

Keeping an ongoing record of reports and the landlord’s responses is extremely important, as is the need to correct any inaccuracies in their version of the situation. The documentation does not have to be aggressive or confrontational; it can simply explain a difference in how something was remembered by different people. You can even use this strategy proactively if your landlord or property manager tries to keep all communication between you limited to telephone or in-person conversations. Writing a summary of the conversation immediately afterwards, including a reference to the date and time, as an email or text message, can be a great way to preserve a record of the situation as it was understood at the time. Additionally, a record of this message being sent will strengthen any case you make later. Adding an invitation to correct any misunderstandings can also help ensure that everyone stays on the same page and makes it difficult for the landlord to claim later that things were completely different: if they were, why was there never a reply to set the record straight at the time?

This has all been written with an expectation that there will be a problem, but that doesn’t have to be the case. Many landlords and property managers will view a written report as the beginning of a necessary process to provide notice of a problem that must be addressed. If that’s all it is, then there’s no harm done, and both parties will just have an extra bit of assurance that the process is working as it should. But if it isn’t, the side with a more complete record will definitely have an advantage.

It is also important to keep copies of everything: receipts, bills, notices, and maintenance requests. These are all things the landlord or property manager should keep, but there’s no guarantee that they will either be thorough or honest. And even if they are perfectly diligent and upright, accidents happen. This is particularly true when working with things like tenant portals, where the landlord may have the ability to archive or delete entries or remove tenant access.

Be Specific, Disturbingly So If Necessary

When reporting a problem, it is essential to show what impact it is having on your life. Don’t blow things out of proportion, but don’t pull punches either. Suppose you don’t have running water and can’t wash your dishes, heat your home, or get enough light for your children to do their homework. These examples are all real burdens on human beings, and the people responsible for fixing them should appreciate the consequences of delay. And if they don’t, maybe an insurance adjuster or a jury will be able to understand more clearly what that delay meant for real people.

This is doubly true if a problem returns or was never dealt with to begin with. It’s helpful to know that the plumber has to come back again, but it’s even more helpful if the landlord sees that sewage overflowed into the guest bedroom for the second time in a month and five people are now sharing one bathroom.

It is important to keep these communications as neutral as possible. It can be challenging to remain calm when dealing with issues like rats, sewage, or threats from neighbors. However, any concern about a dangerous or unreasonable tenant can either impact the response or justify substandard fixes, particularly where the landlord or property manager can show they had a reason to be concerned. Again, a neutral-sounding message to correct the record may be best in these cases. Unless there is an emergency, the age-old practice of writing something, going to sleep, then rereading it in the morning to see if it accurately conveys the intended message is a good way to protect the record.

Pics or It Didn’t Happen

In a world where everyone carries a high-definition camera in their pocket, it can sometimes be tough to explain why there are no pictures of uninhabitable conditions. Without pictures, some readers seeing a report of a leak might think of a pinhole worn through a connection to a plumbing fixture, or a full-blown pipe explosion. These situations are ones where a picture is worth a thousand words.

And if a picture can be worth a thousand words, then videos can be worth a full-length novel. Videos can show a worn-out dryer violently shaking, the swarming of insects, or other details that might not come through in a still image.

Sometimes you can also use a video to explain what the viewer is seeing. A picture of a thermostat reading is helpful, but a video explaining that the thermostat is showing 59 degrees after the heat has been on for twelve hours makes the point more clearly.

Video recordings can also be more helpful when explaining issues with neighbors. It is important to keep in mind that covert recording is illegal in California. However, if someone is making enough noise that they can be heard outside of their home, then it really isn’t something they should expect to stay private.

Conclusion

If everything works as intended, a written record will get the ball rolling on repairs or whatever other action a landlord must take to address a problem with a tenant’s rental unit. But if things don’t go well, it could make the difference between a successful tenant rights case and a waste of your time.