Actual Email I Sent Today to New Landlord

Hi -- do you know about the leak in the furnace/water heater room? You said you never used that room (and we won`t, either, because of all the dust and the mildew on the wall), but yesterday I opened the door because I heard water dripping. It was raining hard outside, and it was "raining" pretty hard inside the room, too. I think it`s a leak (or several) in the pipe that drains water from the air space next to the upstairs bathroom -- when the rain let up, the "rain" inside the room let up, too. I put a bucket under the main leak as soon as I noticed it, but beforeI did there was about a half inch of water pooled in the low places on the floor, and the wood all along the baseboard was wet. We still look forward to living in your house -- the first thing I am going to buy for it is a dehumidifier to put next to the "rainy" room. Happy birthday to (landlord`s little daughter) ---

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No response yet. The leak is in a closet-sized space (not even a room, really) that contains just the furnace and water heater, and I don`t particularly care about it. But I would guess the landlord might care -- I mean, if they`re worried about parakeet allergens, wouldn`t you think they`d also be worried about dampness and mold? Just a little???

I purposely avoided taking a "please-fix-this-immediately" approach. I thought my "you-really-should-know-this" approach was very understated, don`t you?

I was going to buy a dehumidifier, anyway.

One more development: we asked the real estate agent if we could have a two-year lease, and she asked the owners and she said they said yes, and when I met the husband, he said he would be glad to rent to us for two years (this was when they still liked us, before they found out we were filthy pet-keeping people).

But.......I just noticed today that the lease I signed is the standard one-year form, reverting to month-to-month tenancy after the year ends. The eldery real estate agent prepared it, and she had a few other mistakes in there that both he and I pointed out to her (such as getting the landlord`s current address and the spelling of one of my kids` names wrong), so I`m guessing it was just her mistake and nothing more nefarious.

"Didn`t you read it over before you signed it?" asked Hub.

"Yes, but I was too busy reading all the fine print to read the big print," I said.

"Aren`t you a copyeditor? Isn`t catching things like that your job?"

Well, um...(ahem)...what can I say?

But I decided I`m going to see how the new landlords react to my email about the leak, before I bother asking about the term of the lease.

Much as I hate moving, and really like this particular house, I can imagine circmstances in which moving again might be the lesser of two evils.