What to do when your landlord ignores essential home repairs
When landlords refuse to fix broken air conditioning or vital utilities, renters are left dealing with unsafe indoor temperatures and constant water leaks. Tenants are then forced to submit multiple unanswered maintenance tickets while living in hazardous conditions with zero response.
What the numbers show
Counted from the threads quoted below. How we count
- The most recent one is from October 2026.
- This comes up 19.4× more often in r/hvacadvice than across the site as a whole.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
What to do when your landlord ignores essential home repairs
- 1Hiring third-party technicians for independent assessmentDid this help you?
- 2Repeatedly messaging property managementDid this help you?
- 3Photographing abandoned maintenance workDid this help you?
- 4Contacting housing inspectors or the health departmentDid this help you?
- 5Letting the water leak and refusing to empty the containerDid this help you?
- 6Looking for a new place to moveDid this help you?
- 7Using the landlord's shower insteadDid this help you?
- 8Offering to pay for a professional inspection out of pocketDid this help you?
- 9Turning off the dangerous appliance until it is repairedDid this help you?
- 10Threatening to report the landlord to the health departmentDid this help you?
- 11Purchasing a carbon monoxide detector to monitor the hazardDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“I’m also emptying a tote of water approximately every other day.”source ↗
“I’m now on my fourth maintenance ticket for the same issue, and this latest one has been open for two weeks with no response or anyone even coming out to look at it.”source ↗
“My landlord has been refusing to fix my broken air conditioner.”source ↗
“My inside has been getting up to 84° every single day.”source ↗
“The duct on our burner connects to the outside, but also has an opening that I can see directly into.”source ↗
“She has told me everyday for three days now that someone is coming but noone has yet.”source ↗
“Do you know if this is something that can be fixed or should I be looking into getting deposit back and getting out of here”source ↗
“The shower has been running for a minute and the amount of water declines after.”source ↗
“She claims that that problem I showed you guys with my shower being broken is caused by me pulling the little screw too hard, not an issue with the showerhead”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 5Clients who refuse to fix underlying problems before repairs
- 6Landlords using cheap handymen and accordion drains
- 2What to do when an installer refuses to fix your system
- 3Home insurance threatening cancellation over mandatory property repair list
- 3How to repair accidental damage in my apartment before landlord inspection
- 29How to fix previous owner DIY nightmares