What can we do about our apartment complex?

My husband and I have lived in the same apartment for five years. We went out of town Saturday and returned Sunday to find our bedroom closet and bathroom flooded. Some of our belongings were ruined and part of the ceiling came down. This is the second time this has happened in that closet/bathroom since we've been there. The first time it happened it took them over 2 months to fix the hole in our ceiling. We also had water come down in our other bathroom a few years ago. There is a hole in our ceiling that the apartment complex never fixed. In our family room some water came down right by our patio door. The ceiling is stained brown and the apartment complex never did anything. When the maintenance man came to clean up the mess from the most recent flood, he sucked the water out of the carpet and threw away the carpet pad. He put the soaked carpet back in the closet and turned a fan on it to dry. This is the same thing they did the first time but this time it smells really really bad. If mold or mildew were to get into the carpet or drywall it could make us really sick. To make matters worse, a few weeks ago I had maintenance over to fix our kitchen sink from dripping. The guy dropped a part of the knob into the garbage disposal and left it. Me not knowing this turned on the garbage disposal but quickly turned it off after realizing something was down in there. I took it out but now our garbage disposal doesn't work. I have called the office every week to see when they could replace it and they keep promising me it will be that same week. This week on Thursday it will be 4 weeks since I first reported that it was broken. We can't afford to move right now and we've been trying to save our money for a house so finding another apartment in a different complex is out of the question. We have renter's insurance but our deductible is $750 and I'm not sure that much got ruined when it flooded. My Wii Fit and the $300 remote controlled airplane I bought my husband for Christmas were ruined as well as all our shoes and some of my husband's clothes. Shouldn't the apartment complex be liable for this anyway since this has happened before? Not only that but is there someone I can contact about the apartment complex's unwillingness to fix anything or replace the carpet/drywall in our closet? Um vacations? We have NEVER gone on vacation. We went camping for ONE day and the airplane was a gift. And like I said, I have been saving. I called my insurance company with whom I have renter's insurance with. They told me that my insurance isn't liable as the apartment comlex owns the pipes and we were not negligent and the people upstairs were not negligent. Called the apartment complex and the manager got an attitude with me. She asked me why I said it was a pipe that broke (that's what the maintenance guy said) and what kind of stuff we had in our closet and how much water was back there (acting like we dumped it back there). She acted like they weren't responsible and said she would call me back when she found out what was going on. I might end up getting a lawyer.

5 months ago - 3 answers