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 people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Hiring third-party technicians for independent assessment
- 2Repeatedly messaging property management
- 3Photographing abandoned maintenance work
- 4Contacting housing inspectors or the health department
- 5Letting the water leak and refusing to empty the container
- 6Looking for a new place to move
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
r/hvacadvice2 people · September 2026
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 26How to fix previous owner DIY nightmares
- 3When should I hire a process server for an unresponsive tenant?
- 2How to coordinate home repairs when you are away
- 14How to pay for expensive structural property repairs
- 12How to handle property managers who ignore maintenance billing disputes
- 20How to get a contractor to fix damage they caused