**OT** What can I do...

J

jefff

Joined
May 27, 2005
Messages
747
OK here is the deal.. We had a guy living across the hall from us .. well He was a bit crazy acting so we avoided him.. well anyway He died somehow I guess week before last.. we had noticed a stench and called the manager.. they checked and sure enough eh was dead and had been for the better part of a week as best they could tell..

M.E. and cops show up and get him.. this past Monday.. here it is Friday and the Smell is still making us sick.. we have talked to the manager and asked what they were doing about this on Tuesday. They Lied to us telling us they had a ION machine running in there..
then today Friday.. we asked again cause it is not getting any better.. And they said they couldn't do anything about it until his family showed up to get his property out of the apartment. I asked what about the ION machine and she stumbled and said it somehow was broken.. BS.. anyway .. I can't stand the smell, My 3 year old daughter can't stand the smell.. And to top it off .. My wife is 8 months pregnant.. and pukes every time we have to leave.. And all they have done so far was open up the windows that lead right into the hall facing our front door...

We have no family here or friends we can go stay with or enough cash to pay for the expense for a hotel until GOD knows when they will do something about the smell.. I have contacted the Police dept. and County City Health dept. and they all say the same thing .. We can advise them to get it taken care of but can't really do anything more than that.. In the mean time.. they are very apologetic but they don't have to live across the hall from this one of a kind worse smell in the world of rotting dead guy ..

Anyway does anyone have any ideas of what other steps I can take in getting these cheap skates to do something about it now.. or yesterday would be better. I am not sure but I think they are suppose to hire a bio crew to come clean it up but I hear that cost like $2700.00 to do .. and they just replaced the carpet in there like 4 months ago .. So I can just imagine they are trying not to have to spend any more money ..
It's a bunch of crap and I feel like we have no choice but to live across the hall from it.. Oh and it is coming in the house also.. we have a window unit and it is just pulling the smell right into our living room .. YUK~!!!!!!!!
Thank ya
~Jeff
 
Kick the door in, and dump buckets of bleach water all over the place. Or, buy an Ion air cleaner like they pretend to have. I really dont know what you can do, it sounds like your landlords are scum. There wouldnt be any stink left if they had to smell it. :rolleyes: Sucks.
 
I can imagine you don't want to spend money on this if you can help it, but ... I wouldn't trust the police or any other government agency. Talk to a lawyer. A consultation shouldn't cost too much.

You might also have to move. How long can this go on? I knew someone who died and it was months before her family cleared out the apartment. There may be a provision in local law on "constructive eviction", where it won't be held against you breaking a lease, since they aren't providing a proper environment for what you pay.
 
Personally, I would contact the local news and tell them of this story. To me personally, having a corspe nearby and then it's odor and remains is a harzard. A very SERIOUS hazard in regards to a 3 yr old. I may be over reacting, but I would refuse to have just an ionic breeze going to help with smell. I would want to see about sealing that section off (The room that is).

Contact your local news, media, and hazmat teams. I wouldn't want to live there and that is unsafe in my unexperienced opinion. Maybe legal help?
 
When I lost my brother he wasn't found for almost two weeks. When I went down to St. Pete for the funeral I visited the apartment and noticed some canisters laying in the floor. They were left there by the coroner's office. It's a type of smoke bomb that chemicaly wipes out the majority of the smell. You might want to call or drop by the coroner's office and ask them about this. They may be nice enough to give you a couple of the cannisters.
 
That sounds like grounds for a rent strike. You should talk to someone who's familiar with the local laws before you actually start withholding rent, but not necessarily before threatening the landlord with the possibility. If you can't afford a lawyer your local Legal Aid can probably help; they give priority to tenant/landlord disputes (figuring there are too many homeless people already).

Going to the news media might be more effective than going to court, though -- and faster.
 
The best thing you can do is call the local Health Department and have them come check the apartment for themselves and file a complaint. Once a report has been filed with the HD you should see action very quickly. The last thing the super needs is the HD on his back.
 
Ok .. I filed a complaint over the phone with the Health Dept. on Wednesday .. They said maybe 3-4 days before an inspector could get out here.. I also called them back today to check the status.. They just basically gave me the shuffle.. Saying as soon as the Inspector gets out there they can advise them to take action.. But it is really going to be up to how fast the Property owners take care of this..

I feel bad for the loss of life of this guy and his family .. And don't want to come off as being uncaring but man this is just ridicules.. I want to go at least close the damn window facing our front door.. It is 92 degrees outside and humid and the stinch is over whelming.. They have all the windows open and it just lingers in the hall/breeze way.. They said they gave his family until this week end to get his stuff out... And Monday they will be getting to it.. but we will see. and from the already line of BS they are giving us it really seems like a stall to keep us from taking any further actions.. but so far from calling everyone shy of a local attorney and news media .. it really doesn't appear that there is nothing anyone can do about it.. I even called the housing authority and coroner and they all say it is up to the property owner to take action..
~Jeff
 
Call in the local media... just about every station here in the Chicago area has at least one guy or gal that specializes in these type of "investigative" shock cases. They always look for some kind of sensational story... I guess a dead guy, a lazy/cheapskate landlord, stench of rotting corpse juices, and a 3yr old and 8 month preggers mom should get enough shock value to air a special report on.
Good luck.
 
My brother-in-law cleans up after dead people - crimes, suicide, fires, etc. I haven't spoken to him about your case, but I'm guessing the landlord will have to replace the carpet and any other fabrics, probably repaint, and perhaps even replace construction materials that were in contact with the corpse (drywall, flooring, etc.).

Personally, I'd move if the landlord refuses to recondition the apartment immediately. I can't imagine why the owner wouldn't - surely he realizes he won't rent it out again until he does. The 'claimed property' excuse is exactly that, an excuse, and a lame one. The property can probably be put into storage until the family comes, or at least moved aside while the restoration crew works.

I don't think you'll have a hard time getting out of your lease. A simple letter from an attorney, and the landlord will back down.

Good luck with that,
Bob
 
"The 'claimed property' excuse is exactly that, an excuse, and a lame one. The property can probably be put into storage until the family comes, or at least moved aside while the restoration crew works."

Exactly. The furniture and everything else in there will be smelling worse by now than your hallway. I doubt the family needs anything out of there but personal effects and paperwork. If there is any family.
 
They said maybe 3-4 days before an inspector could get out here..
Click to expand...

That's front-page news right there. The Board of Health is so underfunded (or corrupt or disorganized or whatever) that they can't even begin to look at an emergency health situation for days. What are we paying our tax money for? Etc....
 
If your appartment is uninhabitable, especially with a pregnant wife, I'd think you could decamp to a modest hotel and subtract the cost from your rent. If you have renter's insurance, it may cover this. Otherwise, when you go to pay the rent, just attach a letter explaining that due to the situation which they left untreated for a week and appeared to be taking no actions to correct, mention your wife's condition, you had to do this and attach a copy of the receipt from the hotel. What is the landlord gonna do? Take you to court? I suspect that, with this tale of woe, any judge would find in your favor.

The landlord may have "loss of use" coverage on his insurance which will cover his lost rent on the dead guy's appartment and which should also cover your hotel bill while the smell is taken care of.

The same thing is true with breaking your lease if you need to. What are they gonna do? Take it to court and let the judge hear about how they refused to clean up such a situation? Of course, it will go on your credit record which could cause problems with you leasing in the future. BUT, you are allowed to add an explainatory statement to your credit report and this would be just the sort of situation to do that. "Normally, my word, much less my signature, is my bond. I would never break a lease except in the most extreme of conditions. In this case, the tenant across the hall literally died. The corpse sat for over a week in August weather. The smell became unbearable. Our appartment -- which we considered our home -- became unihabitable. The landlord was fully aware of the situation but simply refused to do anything about it. We endured for over a week, but with my wife eight months pregnant and unable to bear the smell without vomitting, we simply had no choice but to abandon our home, break our, lease and move." That will cover the whole situation.

Boy, this is really a bad situation. I'm trying hard, but I can't think of anything practical to do. Sorry.
 
Jeff if you want some action to be taken write a certifiied letter with
signature confirmation to the landlord or whoever holds your lease.

Explain the problem to them and the exact reasons why you can no longer
live in that apartment and why you are giving them 10 days to rectify the
problem.
After that if no action has been taken to recitfy the situation then it is time
to move to plan "B". Pay the twenty dollar file a lawsuit fee and issue some
subpeonas for bank records and make sure that the owner knows that you
have done that.

At that point they will know that you are serious.

BTW the smell is heavy and greasy as I remember so try using white vinegar
placed in a cup around the door. It won't stop the stench but it will keep it
down a bit.

Hope that helps.
 
Hmmm... a dead guy? Is that Gadgets and Gear?

Good? No. But bad and certainly Ugly? Yes. Two-out-of-three ain't bad.

Of course you could get into the whole politics of tenant/landlord relationships, so maybe Political?

Maybe Service and Support?

This is another thread that will confound KV.
 
What a rotten situation for your landlords to put you and your family through!

I don't know your living situation, but, if you're in an apartment building, chances are that others of your neighbors are getting affected, as well. What about if you check with your neighbors, finding-out who else is steamed, and then the whole lot of you go down to the landlords' office, demanding a cleanup of the offending apartment, or else your rent, and that of your neighbors, will be placed into escrow accounts, until everyone has been satisfied with the landlords' treatment of the tenants.

What about if one of your neighbors anonymously seals the offending apartment's door with caulk or rapidly-expanding foam? At least that would prevent any more of the smell from escaping into the shared hallway. No, it probably isn't legal, or "the right thing to do," but if the landlord isn't doing anything, who could blame someone for doing whatever could be done to prevent his wife and daughter from being further sickened?

I'm kinda thinking that your situation requires that the landloards be forced to live in the bespoiled apartment until they get so sick that the only thing that they can think of is to clean it.

GeoThorn
 
Man I just want to thank all you guys for the replies and help .. We just returned from wal mart and bought some of the pet order high strength carpet powder and put it all in the hall way and along the open window frame facing our front door.. smells a bit better .. but the smell of death is embedded into my sinus's by now and everything smells like it.. I tell ya what that is for sure one smell that ya wont soon forget.. dead cats or dogs don't hold a candle to it... I mean it is so bad that the crap it coming out of the eve's vents around the top of our upstairs apartment from the upper attic space.. we also bought some strong Cinnamon scented pine cones from waly world too. it is alot better in here .. but again I think I could smell it in the store too.. God this is terrible.. I wrote a email letter to our local news.. and will call them monday and see what happens from there..
I am seriously thinking about pulling off the screen and pulling the window shut but Im sure they would just be right back over here opening it back up .. I could use some gorilla glue on the window frame lol and they would never get it back open again .. hmmm .
Thanks again guys.
~Jeff
 
At one point in my life I worked in a forensics lab for a year, and we occasionally ran into such issues (for example a car trunk where a woman had been trapped for a summer and basically turned into liquid)

Rotting dead person is probably the worst smell in existance, because our bodies are programmed to dislike scents of things that are dangerous to us, and dead people suggest something is very wrong. You say it feels like its embedded in you - most likely it is - the stench sticks to your clothing and skin, and the best way to get it off (even this isn't perfect) is to scrub your body with lemons (cut open) or other citrus fruits. It's not a total solution, and won't stop your apartment stinking, but at least you won't stink of dead guy as much.
 
Check your local or state renters rights.

I've been in a situation, not as severe as this, but where the apartment was bascially unlivable and no attempt to get the landlord to do anything worked. The North Carolina renters rights provide for the renter to basically evict themselves if the apartment is not fit for habitation.

I threw that at the landlord and he showed up to kick me out and gave me a check for my deposit and paid rent (so I got around $700 out of it).

Go to the library or look online for your local laws.

Good luck.
 
Jeff, that sux!
Sorry bout yer situation, but at least you have an interesting story!
good luck.
 
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