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Healthy Choices
TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE
EARLY LEARNING CENTERS
COMMUNITY SUPPORT
Healthy Choices
TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE
The spaces we live in can impact our ability to learn and grow properly. Housing can be a contributing factor to health issues like asthma, allergies, lead exposure and other chronic illnesses. Poor housing conditions, chipping and peeling paint, pest infestations and holes in walls can be detrimental to health. WHE educates individuals about environmental risks and provides tools, resources and action steps tenants can take to ensure safe and healthy rental housing while helping create healthy spaces for families to live, learn, grow and play together.
As a tenant, you are entitled to live in an environment both safe and habitable. It is important to understand what your rights are and how you can work with your landlord to maintain a healthy and safe space. The implied warranty of habitability applies in all cases where someone is renting a place to live — whether a house, apartment, mobile home or lot in a mobile home park. It applies whether you have a written lease or an oral agreement with a landlord. The warranty is so important, it is in effect whether or not you and the landlord have specifically agreed to it. It cannot be given up (waived).
A landlord must make repairs necessary to keep your home in a safe, sanitary and healthy condition, provided you as a tenant did not cause the problem and provided you are current on your rent when the problem(s) develop.
This includes only serious defects such as:
If the landlord does not make repairs, the tenant has the right to repair and deduct the cost of repair from future payments to the landlord.
How to Assert Your Right to a Habitable Home Try to work the problem out with your landlord in a way that’s fair to both of you. If that doesn’t work, then you should:
Every case is different. Depending on the special facts in your particular case, you may be able to do the following:
Reduce the amount of rent that you pay, because of the problem. The amount you should hold back depends on how bad the problem is—the worse the problem, the more rent you may withhold. It is a good idea to keep the rent that you withhold in a separate bank account, so that you can pay the money later if a court decides you owe rent. Then, if your landlord tries to evict you and the judge rules that the housing conditions were not as bad as you thought, you will be able to pay the rent the judge says you owe.
Repair the defect yourself or have a professional repair it and deduct the cost from your rent payments. The repairs must be necessary to make the home safe and livable and must be reasonable in price. Get a signed receipt. When your rent comes due, give your landlord a copy of the receipt and pay the difference between your rent and the cost of the repairs. The cost of the repairs cannot be more than the amount of rent you owe for the lease term—for example, if you have a month-to-month lease, the repairs cannot cost more than one month’s rent.
Legal aid may be available to get back the rent you paid when your home was not fit or to get compensation for any injuries or other damages you suffer because of the landlord’s failure to make repairs.
This will require the landlord to make repairs.
If you move out, write to your landlord to provide your moving date and notify him/her you are moving because the housing conditions were not repaired. You should only use this option if the unit is totally unlivable. Your landlord may sue you for all the rent remaining due on the lease, so you must be able to show you had no other alternative.
Your landlord must obey any housing code which covers the place where you live. In some cases, the local code enforcement officer can make the landlord fix the problem, or at least help prove the problem really exists. The same is true for the Health Department. Contact your local government to see if help is available.
Reduce the amount of rent that you pay, because of the problem. The amount you should hold back depends on how bad the problem is—the worse the problem, the more rent you may withhold. It is a good idea to keep the rent that you withhold in a separate bank account, so that you can pay the money later if a court decides you owe rent. Then, if your landlord tries to evict you and the judge rules that the housing conditions were not as bad as you thought, you will be able to pay the rent the judge says you owe.
Repair the defect yourself or have a professional repair it and deduct the cost from your rent payments. The repairs must be necessary to make the home safe and livable and must be reasonable in price. Get a signed receipt. When your rent comes due, give your landlord a copy of the receipt and pay the difference between your rent and the cost of the repairs. The cost of the repairs cannot be more than the amount of rent you owe for the lease term—for example, if you have a month-to-month lease, the repairs cannot cost more than one month’s rent.
Legal aid may be available to get back the rent you paid when your home was not fit or to get compensation for any injuries or other damages you suffer because of the landlord’s failure to make repairs.
This will require the landlord to make repairs.
If you move out, write to your landlord to provide your moving date and notify him/her you are moving because the housing conditions were not repaired. You should only use this option if the unit is totally unlivable. Your landlord may sue you for all the rent remaining due on the lease, so you must be able to show you had no other alternative.
Your landlord must obey any housing code which covers the place where you live. In some cases, the local code enforcement officer can make the landlord fix the problem, or at least help prove the problem really exists. The same is true for the Health Department. Contact your local government to see if help is available.
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