Tenant Reports Peeling Paint After Landlord Dares Her—Inspectors Finds Much Bigger Problems
A Connecticut resident said they endured months of trying to get peeling bathroom paint addressed by their landlord. Things took a turn for renter and landlord alike after the landlord finally gave an unexpected bit of advice: report it to the city.
The renter did exactly that.
The renter shared their experience on Reddit under the username u/octoberflavor, and later specified the city as New Haven, Connecticut. The poster said they had waited over three months for the paint repair, including six occasions when contractors allegedly failed to show up at all. Finally, they mentioned code enforcement to their landlord.
Complaints about paint falling from a bathroom ceiling then brought a housing inspector into the New Haven apartment. According to the renter, the inspection uncovered electrical problems, architectural violations, trash in need of cleaning, and even issues with how electricity was being billed between two apartments.
The City Gives Landlords 21 Days For Peeling Paint
My landlord told me to go ahead and report her to the city, it did not go as planned
by
u/octoberflavor in
MaliciousCompliance
There is a legal basis for u/octoberflavor’s grievances.
A City of New Haven housing-code outline lists defective paint among violations that generally must be corrected within 21 days. That same document allows just 24 hours to fix a missing smoke detector and 72 hours to address garbage outside the property.
The Reddit user took the landlord’s instructions to report their complaints seriously.
“It took about 5 minutes to fill out the form on the website and about an hour before I got a call scheduling an inspector to come out and take a look,” u/octoberflavor recounted.
The Livable City Initiative is New Haven’s primary housing-enforcement agency. Its inspectors investigate resident complaints and can even issue violation notices when they find problems.
The renter wrote that is exactly what happened. Beyond the peeling paint, u/octoberflavor said they “found a fire alarm that wasn’t working, took note of the garbage around the property, and found windows that were boarded up in the basement that needed to be real windows to satisfy the city’s ‘at least 2 real windows in basements’ rule or whatever.”
Then They Looked at The Electricity
The inspection led to another problem the renter had not initially called about.
The Redditor said an upstairs neighbor had previously lost power in one room, only to discover that flipping the downstairs renter’s breaker restored it. The city inspector reportedly suggested calling the electric company.
According to the renter, a utility worker then determined that the apartments’ electrical circuits were actually mixed together. The Redditor claimed their neighbor had been paying for electricity used in parts of their apartment and the basement, while u/octoberflavor’s own bill covered the entire upper floor of the neighbor’s apartment.
Connecticut tenant information published by Connecticut Legal Services says renters are responsible only for utilities used inside their own apartments. If a meter also covers another apartment or common area, the organization says the bill should be placed in the landlord’s name.
Connecticut law places responsibility for utility costs on a landlord unless service is individually metered and used exclusively by that unit, according to the Connecticut General Assembly. A new law taking effect Oct. 1 is aimed at making that protection even more explicit in rental agreements entered into or renewed from that date forward.
In a follow-up comment, the renter said the bathroom had since been repaired, and work was supposed to be underway in the basement. A moderator for the sub, u/, also shared that “the landlord has 21 days to have a licensed electrician come out and unf**k the wiring before the entire electrical bill for both apartments legally goes into her name.”
Why Did The Landlord Tell Them To Report It?
Why the landlord told the renter to contact the city remains unclear. U/octoberflavor admitted that they “genuinely have no clue” why a landlord would welcome an inspection that could uncover other problems.
Commenters had theories. One user, u/winter83, theorized, “I wonder why she thinks the cities laws and timelines are not relevant for her??” The renter described the landlord as an out-of-state property owner; this detail combined with u/winter83’s theory, posits that perhaps the landlord thought New Haven’s rules somehow did not apply to her because she lived elsewhere.
That might not shield the property from local enforcement. New Haven’s residential rental licensing rules require non-owner-occupied properties with two or more rental units to obtain a residential rental business license and pass an inspection.
On Sept. 11, u/octoberflavor described the dilemma as “a very cold war situation right now,” and said that the landlord is “not super fun to talk to.” This suggests that the landlord telling u/octoberflavor to report the situation may have been a bluff—one that this renter called, and threw the curtains back on additional problems while doing so.
