It’s not unusual to hear stories about landlords failing to fix important issues that pop up in apartment complexes. One of my old landlords took months just to fix a few windows! When renters are paying astronomical amounts of rent, it comes as no surprise they’re going to start complaining when vital fixes are not made on the property. One landlord was dragging their feet over a treadmill fix, so a Florida renter took things into his own hands.
Tyson Blatter (@t_blatt on TikTok) decided to get a little creative when his written requests to fix broken treadmills went ignored. His video shows him standing in his apartment’s gym with several other people around him. The text caption reads, “When your apartment ignores your maintenance requests to fix the treadmills so you pretend to be a potential client and schedule a tour to ask what their plan is,” which is just brilliant.
He sarcastically wrote one person on the tour said, “Oh, we had no idea!!” to which he responded, “Crazy none of your tenants said anything.” He explained to the person conducting the tour that they weren’t aware the treadmills were broken. Odd, considering he put in multiple requests to have them fixed!
I’ve been in that situation before, as have many others. Many people who rent have to wait long stretches of time just to get something simple fixed. It begs the question: What are we paying landlords for then?
Viewers in the comments weren’t shocked at all. Yet another case of a person being ignored by a landlord. Naturally, they loved Tyson’s undercover adventure and his interactions with the tour.
One commenter wrote, “Did it work?? Asking for a friend” but, unfortunately, we don’t yet know if Tyson experienced results. Another unsurprised commenter said, “Every time I’ve lived in an ‘upscale’ apartment with ‘amenities’ not a single thing has worked or been well maintained.”
The unfortunate truth is that, even through constant nagging (which renters shouldn’t have to do), things might not get fixed. As a tenant, you should always be on the up-and-up with your legal rights in your state. You still have them as a renter. Find out how long a landlord has to look at requests and when repairs have to be made.
