House maintenance creates conflict between State College students and their landlord

Video posted December 10, 2012 in News by Mike Bray

Loading...

Tom O'Malley is a tenant inn State College and he lives in a house located at 225 E. Prospect Ave. He and his roommates have not been able to see eye to eye with their landlord.

“A problem happens, and we ask him to fix it so we don’t get fined,” O’Malley said. “So we go to him a bunch of times, and he rarely sends people to help us out.  When he doesn’t come, we get fined for a problem that wasn’t our fault.”

O’Malley recalled an incident like this.

O'Malleys house full shot

“We’re not allowed in our attic, so we don’t go up there,” he said. “Also, in the summertime, none of us live in the house. There’s a washing machine we didn’t know about in the attic and it somehow went off in the summer, destroying our ceiling and covering our walls with mold.”

“We went to him numerous times to explain the problem and try to get it fixed, but he kept blowing us off and we never heard back from him,” said O’Malley.

This is the second year O’Malley and his roommates have lived in the house, so their landlord checked up on the house to see its condition for next year's incoming tenants.

“So he came through and saw the problem and he had a look on his face like someone had just died,” O’Malley said. “He freaked out, and we explained that we had tried and tried to talk to him and how he never came by to check out the problem.”

“He ended up fixing the ceiling, but didn’t get rid of the mold,” said O’Malley. “We got a bill in the mail later for hundreds of dollars, explaining how we were being fined and potentially evicted for the problem in the ceiling.”

Tony Lopinsky is a retired police officer, currently working in the Health Department of State College. He is a part of the team that makes sure students are aware of the agreements that they are making with their landlords.

Sometimes students may feel taken advantage of, but in some situations, students are making agreements with their landlords without fully knowing what they are doing.

Students may be walking into a trap
 

Lopinsky explains how students can unknowingly sign an "as is" lease, where they are moving into a house that is being passed on in the condition it was left in by previous tenants.