Potential Violations?

[Otis3118]

Hello, I hope I am posting in the right forum here. I live in an ever growing neglected apartment building and have identified some building code violations myself. I am unable to find information on some of my concerns and was hopping you all could provide assistance in determining if these are violations and if so the chapters numbers and such involved.

1. Door Seal: - Can't find the picture but you can see light coming through almost the entire vertical side of the door.

2: Door frame rot - http://i.imgur.com/UOvA0T3.jpg

3. Rare Ceiling Leak Caused Stains and Peeling - http://i.imgur.com/G4XiX1o.jpg

4. Dirt Obstructing Fire Hydrant - http://i.imgur.com/L0h50zG.jpg

5. Aluminum Siding Left Unrepaired for a Month - http://i.imgur.com/T65vaAX.jpg **Notice the long nails sticking out the end**

6. Large Holes in Front Yard/Poorly Marked/PVC pipe Exposed - http://i.imgur.com/p42Pt3p.jpg

6. Windows Seal Falling Apart - http://i.imgur.com/Ib62sQk.jpg

7. Windows Seal Duct Taped - http://i.imgur.com/JjdBwJT.jpg

Thanks for any help in educating me on these matters

 

[fatboy]

Contact your local building department, they may, or may not be able to help you out, particularity if they adopted the Property Maintenance Code, or some local version of the same......if not, well.....civil court.

 

[north star]

: - : - :

Otis3118,

1st,...Welcome to The Building Codes Forum!

2nd,...as **fatboy** has stated, check with your local

AHJ to see if there are any Property Maintenance

Codes adopted in your jurisidiction.

3rd, ...Does your jurisdiction have a Building Department

or Community Development Department, or someone that

can assist you?

4th, ..."if" you decide to pursue this, you may want to

remain totally anonymous, as any complaints documented

to you could result in the apartment complex deciding to

not renew your lease.......Been there, done that!

: - : - :

 

[cda]

Does the city have a code enforcement department or apartment inspection department

Some of these items may be handled by different departments

The ceiling maybe a sewer/ drain line leak

Is any of this property section 8 housing??

Do you want to say what state or city you are in??

 

[Daddy-0-]

Yes, city and state would be very helpful.

 

[Otis3118]

Hey guys, city and state are listed in my post info/profile. It is Newburgh, Indiana(Warrick County) just out side city limits.

 

[fatboy]

Again, check with the AHJ, the Authority Having Jurisdiction, find out what codes and ordinances they can, and do enforce. Otherwise this is a civil issue. Do some homework..........

 

[cda]

so you live in the county?

may be some state law::

http://www.ai.org/legislative/ic/code/title32/ar31/ch8.html

you might ask a real estate company that does rental management

 

[ICE]

Move......

 

[Otis3118]

Again, check with the AHJ, the Authority Having Jurisdiction, find out what codes and ordinances they can, and do enforce. Otherwise this is a civil issue. Do some homework..........

I came here because I have doen all the homework I can do short of contacting AHJ. I came here because it is a more anonymous platform then contacting the AHJ even by phone(tried via email and the secretary said the Building Inspector and said the inspector himself does not have email and I would have to call).

so you live in the county?may be some state law::

Indiana Code 32-31-8

you might ask a real estate company that does rental management

Actually, thats some what the case here. Owner have a real estate company that handles the admin side of things(rent, noise complaints, evictions, and possibly other aspects.) However, there is a person, who who lives on site. I call her a property manager(PM) for lack of a better term, but realistically she has 0 power according to one of the office girls. Maintenance requests are passed to her and the maintenance men show up at there convenience to make repairs IF the PM actually bothers to inspect the issue. I have had several communications with the reality company owner regarding the almost daily domestic disputes from the former tenants next door. After having the cops called 3 times, and giving them numerous verbal warnings and a final written warning, the dispute/possible domestic violence continued. Eventually the owner had it and evicted them. The PM, however, had an attitude like I should feel guilty for calling the cops when I heard the guy threaten to punch his girlfriend.. The owner, whil tired of it, did still show concern for the girl and seem sympathetic. So my goal is to gather the proper info, take it to the leasing company owner and make the current management see that she understands the severity and the neglect. I am hopping to include any building codes to stress the seriousness of the matters.

Here is another example. Notice the lean? Yeah, the wall budges with a slight push, but the other walls don't.

http://i.imgur.com/qTPKMdi.jpg

Move......

You want to pay to break our lease? How about pay our rent for our new place? No? Then I guess that can be considered when our lease is up.

 

[fatboy]

"You want to pay to break our lease? How about pay our rent for our new place? No? Then I guess that can be considered when our lease is up."

Sounding like a civil issue............

 

[Otis3118]

"You want to pay to break our lease? How about pay our rent for our new place? No? Then I guess that can be considered when our lease is up."Sounding like a civil issue............

I am sure it could be, but that was more of a tongue in cheek comment based on the "move" comment. When some one says they live in apartment building, I think it is safe to assume they are under lease, and it is not usually cheap to break these leases.

That said, I am not quite looking to escalate it to that point yet. I am hopping the owner of the reality company forces the property managers hand and simply repairs things properly. Furthermore, I feel it is unfair to the soon to be new owners to have these burdens dropped on them. Maybe we just got an unlucky unit and unless they properly inspect all units, may not truly be aware of the scope of the problems.

Anyway, the county seems to have done some work to their website. I found this short 2 page pdf: http://bit.ly/15KpR3D My understanding it that they general;ly just follow the state and international codes. Does this sound about right?

 

[cda]

what I meant is to call a real estate company, not the one for your property, that does rentals, to see who they can put you in touch with that handles apartments in your county, state

 

[Otis3118]

Well I already know who to contact in the end, Warrick County Building Code Office. The main codes I am curious about are:

Fire Extinguishers(I forgot to mention this earlier) - It seems like there would be a fire safety code or build code stating that extinguishers must be supplied. Seeing as they did not provide working smoke detectors when we moved in, which looks to me like a violation of IC 22-11-18-3.5 and IC 22-11-18-5.5(1), I woudln't be surprised if they throw caution to the wind on this one as well. The only reference i could find was carnivals must have working extinguishers.

Living Room Window - Like I said, this is worse then it looks on the out side: http://i.imgur.com/wr983Cb.jpg http://i.imgur.com/Cr4xWSk.jpg This was the initial repair. When air was still leaking in, the PM offered to put more duct tape on it.

Seeing as this is a forum about building codes, I figured I would find some one knowledgeable here.