[Tenant - US, AZ] issues all month, what is a fair amount to ask for rent to be discounted?

Tenant

Forewarning: Story-lengty status here. Advance TL;DR: How much is fair for me to ask the apartment to discount my rent for having multiple major issues and being pretty inept for the past month?

So, my window has been broken for over a month now, and my last a/c bill was $40 higher than normal, with this month predicted to be the same. I should also specify that i could find NOTHING that caused the window to break, except for the heat outside. This is my first summer in AZ so i checked witb friends and coworkers on what temp they keep their ac, and I actually have mine set a few degrees warmer than average. The apartment has recognized that the window isn't our fault and wont be charging me for the replacement, at least. I reported it about 2 minutes after I heard it crack. But! They first wrote down the wrong apartment number, so I heard nothing for 2 weeks until I put in a second work request. Then the window guy came, but was too short to reach the window. Now they're coming "sometime Tuesday" -- I already cancelled appointments last week for their unproductive visit, and I don't even have a set time for tomorrow's. The guy who came out last week put duct tape over the window cracks to replace my electrical tape job, and I don't think my a.c. has turned off during the day since this happened unless I manually raise the temp, then it waits for about 5 minutes and runs constantly again. It's also between 100-120 degrees every day so turning it off is not an option.

Then it was raining inside my bedroom. I called, they called back in the morning and said roofers would be here today. I asked them to call in advance because we would be home but wanted to get the dogs in a different room, plus they never said when they'd be here. Knock on the door wakes me up, it's the maintenance guy (who didn't call first because "they said you'd be home so I didn't need to") who comes in, takes a picture of the leaking spot, then rips off the drywall that was keeping the water contained and says, we will give you a call when the roofers can come by. Leaving me to clean the drywall off the floor and out of our leak bucket so my dogs don't eat it. Oh, and this is what they said they would do Sunday, with roofers coming out today, but I asked them to leave it be until the roofers get there since the drywall bubble was at least protecting it enough to not fall down, and I didn't want my electric to continue going up because of the hole in my ceiling. Nope! He ripped the drywall off leaving a visible dime-sized hole before I even realized what he was doing. Also! When we moved here about 7 months ago, we also had a leaking roof. They were more responsive that time but apparently didn't check to see if there were other parts that could cause a problem. Last night was the first major rainstorm we had since the first leak was fixed (yay living in the desert where it really never rains). I'm getting frustrated at this pattern of heavy rain outside, rain is now inside! :(

I'm pretty annoyed. I like living here aside from this mess and don't want to do anything to jeopardize that, but I also don't feel like I should be paying them the full rent this month since they literally have not been able to get one thing right.

Sorry for the long post, and thank you in advance for the advice! I am in an apartment complex, outside of the Phoenix, AZ area, and pay 1000/month plus water/electric.

Thanks!!

Edit: I spoke to the manager, and will be sending over the electric bills for them to look at and decide what is fair. She also gave me some helpful tips when it comes to A.C. specifically for this apartment. With that knowledge also with some more info about humidity's affects on a.c. (honestly, I moved from NY and have never had an air conditioner beyond a window unit), I let her know if it turned out to be no discount I would understand and appreciated all her advice.

That was the only thing I ended up asking for a slight discount from, since some useful comments from here and other friends mentioned there isn't much they can control about a leak and were very quick to respond there.

She also mentioned that she had a chat with their maintenance about listening to notes that say "please call first" in the future.

I'm totally aware these things happen (and honestly am glad to be renting and not owning anymore so apartment management can do their thing), I picked a pretty good apartment complex all things considered, and all turned out just fine :)

Thanks again!!

Posted Aug 14, 2017, 7:12 PM UTC · edited

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