We have a newer zoned oil furnace hot water baseboard heat. We never turn on the upstairs or basement only the main floor. I put up plastic sheets going up stair and to cut off the kitchen area. The thermostat stays at 62 for the entire winter day and night. If we go away I turn it down to 58. We use a kero heater in the livingroom and basically spend our winters in this one room. It is so cold in the bedrooms literally you can see our breath. When doing dishes the water hurts my hands because its so cold in that room. We spend about 100 dollars a month on heat between oil and kero. This is too much, we need some other way to save money? We can not afford to get new windows ( they are older but do have storm windows ) we have insulated every thing we can, the house is old (1862 ) plank built there is no way to insulate the walls because of that. What other hints or ideas can we do to survive another winter. Money wise its hurting us.
Depending on what state you are in, your landlord has to provide certain safety measures. And there are several options as far as the repairs (or lack thereof) go. If your landlord does not repair things in a timely manner, you can either do it yourself, or hire someone, and deduct the cost from rent; you can withhold rent until repairs are made; call an inspector, who can force a landlord to make repairs. But remember, it goes both ways. If you cause damage and do not report it, or if you enter into an agreement with the landlord to do repairs yourself for a reduced rent and do not complete repairs, the liability is then on you.
Smoke detectors may or may not be required per your local building codes. Call the city building dept. to ask. The broken toilet is a separate repair issue. Neither gives you the right to withhold rent.
In a private single family home to the best of my knowledge know rules or regulations exist on fire extinguishers. Before attempting to fight a fire, you must know what is burning in order to choose the proper fire extinguisher. A Class ABC fire extinguisher can be used for multiple kinds of fires and is a good choice for household use. A Class ABC fire extinguisher should be labeled clearly. If your fire extinguisher has only one letter, it is not rated for multiple types of fires. The symbols may be a green triangle with an A, a red square with a B and a blue circle with a C. The Class ABC fire extinguisher can be used on three different kinds of fires: Class A (ordinary combustibles such as wood or paper), Class B (flammable liquid fires such as grease or gasoline) or Class C (electrical fires).
You are responsible for what you flush down the toilet. You will need to pay the plumber and carpet cleaner yourself. You had no legal right to deduct your bills from someone elses income. You can get away with buying 1 smole detector though and deducting that. It will be about 5 bucks, comes with a battery. When you pay the rent deduct the smoke detector and give the landlord the original receipt (needs it for taxes). You can not deduct anything else without getting evicted for non-payment.
