anyone know what I can do or where I can get some legal advice for my rental situation? the house two friends and I are renting has had a few issues that were really poorly dealt with because the landlords go through a 'warranty service' as they live across CA from us.

1st issue was our sewer was backed up, flush a toilet and both toilets' would leak at the wax rings and sewer water would come up in both bathtubs, it was pretty disgusting. well this was on friday. they send some guy out saturday afternoon that doesn't speak a word of english and he ends up changing the wax rings on the toilets...well, sunday we call and say 'look, a plumber needs to come look at this, something's wrong', so they call their service again and say someone will come look at it today(sunday). monday morning we call the landlord and say no one showed up, calls his 'service' back and replies with "they can't make it out until friday, sorry for the inconvenience. if you can find a plumber that will come take a look at it for around $55 that'll be fine for you to call them out". keep in mind this is in CA where cost of living and business overhead is astronomical, so NO ONE has a business rate doing anything for less than $80/hr, plus anyone doing on-call job evals usually charge a service fee plus 1 hr labor no matter what. we told the landlord we're not going without plumbing a week and they'll be getting a bill for whoever can make it out the soonest.

few weeks later the A/C goes out on saturday, we came home in the afternoon to realize it'd been running all day and was the same temp inside/out. monday they called their 'service' and contracted through some POS A/C company who said they'd come out to inspect monday morning...they showed up wednesday to inspect, isolated the lines to see if the evap or condenser was leaking and wouldn't come back until friday to inspect it. they said at the earliest they might be able to have it fixed by was wednesday(just to replace the outdoor compressor/evap unit), today but probably not. haven't heard a word from them. so we're coming up on two weeks without A/C because our cheap landlord's going through this seemingly scam of a 'warranty service'. the outside temp has been in the upper 90's the whole time, so the house has been getting up there, a few times it got to 100 inside, which I believe to be "uninhabitable" which is in direct violation of California State Law. Plus, nearing two weeks to replace an A/C unit is not anywhere near a reasonable amount of time.

Anyone know where I could look to get some legal advice for at least getting a couple weeks of rent money back; or who to turn the landlord in to for not taking care of issues that directly affect sanitation/health?

 

This might help you out California Tenants - California Department of Consumer Affairs

Here is another one http://www.dca.ca.gov/publications/l.../repairs.shtml

 

being on the other end of this spectrum I understand the landlords side. I have a few rentals here and when theres something that goes wrong sometimes its impossible to get anyone out there to fix it right away. What I do is if its an easy fix and the tenant can fix it ill let them and have them send me the bill. Then i would deduct it from there rent.

Now I dont know if your landlord is an azz or not but maybe he would be able to make some sort of compromise for you and your room mates and comp some of the rent, for the inconvienence.

 

yeah I completely understand if there's just no one available to get out there and that's definitely not the case. they want any repairs to go through their 'warranty service' that they pay into(because they're retarded). no, there are PLENTY of businesses in the area, Fresno is pretty big with several surrounding towns. all it takes if a few minutes in the phonebook and a couple phonecalls.

I know from handling the A/C unit at my parents' house that a diagnosis and replacement is possible within 2-3 days, not up to two weeks...

 

What I do is if its an simple fix and the renter can fix it ill let them and have them deliver me the invoice. Then i would subtract it from there lease.