Landlord tries to evict tenants after being legally forced to repair apartment.

"Take care of it myself? Alright."

My apartment is not up to code. Most of it I was willing to deal with, but my stairs were falling apart. I brought this to my landlord’s attention, and they said there’s nothing wrong with the stairs and to keep using them.

My wife fell because of how unsafe the stairs were, so we again told the landlord, and they once again said to be careful the stairs are acceptable. We explained that they were not safe, so they told us, 'you can deal with it yourself if you want, but we aren’t doing it.'

Those were the magic words. I called the county and told them my stairs weren’t up to code, and they got an inspector out here fast. He didn’t even look the stairs over that well before saying, 'nothing here is up to code.'

These real stairs need to be torn apart and replaced. The inspector said, 'they’re so bad I’m condemning them,' so they now only have 15 days to tear down and replace them. I was surprised at that but not upset.

I told him, 'there’s also stuff inside that isn’t up to code.' And he wrote all of it down, and in total, it’s thousands of dollars of repairs required within 15 days. I would have been happy if my landlord had just done minor repairs to the stairs that would have cost a couple of hundred dollars, but now they have thousands in repairs they legally have to do within two weeks. They shouldn’t have told me to take care of it myself

OP added an update:

The landlord is trying to evict us. Police got involved and told us to go to court, and we’ll win. So that’s just what we’ll do.

The internet has some advice for OP:

dr3wapictur3 says:

Good for reporting it, but you should start looking for a new place. If the work doesn't get done by the deadline (from the sounds of your landlord, it won't), the place will likely be condemned until it is completed.

blbd says:

Depending on the jurisdiction, if they don't have it fixed in the time window provided, then you can withhold rent for lack of habitability.

wind-river7 says:

Start looking for another place for two reasons: Landlord tries to evict, and the work is so extensive that you can't stay there during the repairs. Check out your local laws for landlords to pay for you to stay elsewhere while repairs are being done.

BunnySlayer64 says:

Good for you! I work in property management, and slum landlords like yours boil my blood. It's the landlord's responsibility to provide a well-maintained rental unit, just like the tenant/resident's responsibility to pay the rent and abide by the lease terms.

That's how the system works; your rental dollars allow the landlord to pay the debt service on your unit and all necessary and required maintenance. I doubt your landlord will learn anything from this, but hopefully, you have knowledge that you can pass on to others in a similar situation.