Rocio Fuentes weighed up the cost of getting some new sofas for her new apartment in Pasadena, Texas, and decided the family budget could just about stretch to it. Just one month after moving in, Hurricane Harvey swept through and the Fuenteses were left not only with the ruined furniture but also an ongoing rental demand for a dwelling they had to flee.
“At first we didn’t think it would be that bad, but then the water came through the wall and up through the carpet,” Fuentes said. “Once we saw the water wasn’t going to stop, we left.”
Fuentes, her husband Jaime and their five children, ages ranging from seven months to 14 years, were plucked from the floodwaters by her mother, who arrived in a truck. They are now crammed into her sister’s apartment and with no insurance have little idea where they will live next. Jaime is unable to earn money because his construction job has been paused due to the flooding.
But while everything has changed for this family, they are still expected to pay for their abandoned home.
“Our landlords say we have to pay rent and late fees and every day it is going up,” Fuentes said. “We are paying rent for somewhere we can’t live in. They said ‘you aren’t the only ones in this situation’, but what are we supposed to do? We don’t have any money. We don’t have anything.”
Capitalism is evil.
Like some of the other comments in this are saying, legally a lot of landlords can’t actually charge rent in a situation like this, so if you find yourself in this situation, you do have legal recourse.
In Texas, the tenant law dictates that you have a right to demand that the landlord repair any condition that materially affects your health and safety. Under Texas law, by renting you the property, the landlord guarantees that the unit will be a fit place to live.
So if it’s dangerously flooded and unhygienic THEY have to fix it, not you, and you can break your lease with no penalty or have the landlord court ordered to repair it. Most states have laws like this, so actually the landlords here are risking lawsuits and people legally nailing them to the wall by trying to charge on units that are unfit for habitation.
These landlords are really stupid because apartments that are flooded out and growing black mold are going to be impossible to prove as healthy and safe. They’re just trying to take advantage of people not knowing their tenants’ rights to eke rent out of them for as long as they can before the tenants realize they actually can’t do that.
They’re probably just counting on the tenants being too poor to afford lawyers.
IF YOU NEED DISASTER RELIEF ASSISTANCE, PLEASE CONTACT THE STATE BAR OF TEXAS’ LEGAL HOTLINE AT (800) 504-7030.
THE STATE BAR ALSO HAS A PAGE WITH MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE DISASTER RELIEF RESOURCES AVAILABLE. YOU CAN FIND IT HERE.
