Four years ago I moved into my current apartment, a basement one. A few months after I moved, my ceiling started to leak during a rain storm. I called up maintenance to let them know what was going on, and he showed up with a bucket and scraped off the plaster where it was leaking to find out what was going on. After a bit of investigation he determined that the rain was being blown under the balcony of the apartment above me and travelling over the boards where it started leaking in my living room. He said he couldn't fix it while everything's wet, so in a couple days after it dries he'd go out and plug everything up. No problem, things happen.
A few months pass, we get another leak. I call up maintenance, they said they'd fix the issue.
A few more months pass, it leaks again. This repeats a few more times, each time I tell maitenance about what's happening, (including how the celing is leaking in more places), they keep saying they'd fix it, and it happens again.
Last summer I wake up and find in the corner where most of these leaks have happened that the carpet is damp. It's near where one of the leaks were, so I assumed it was from that. Then as the storm continues I realize the damp patch is spreading - my apartment is flooding. I move the furniture from that area and let maintenance know what was going on, and a guy comes out, peels the carpet from that area, removes the padding and puts a fan there to help dry it. He tells me he'll take care of the leak.
Last winter we had another big leak, and like usual I call up maintenance and a new guy shows up. He explains what has caused all the leaks: basically the previous guy replaced all the balcony doors a few years ago, but he angled them wrong so that when it rains the water doesn't run *out*, but are angled *in* so that tha water puddles and floods the aparments below, and that I'm not the only one dealing with leaks during rains. However, he can't go in and fix everything until the spring when everything warms up again. Until then, "Keep buckets out in case it leaks again."
Well, it's almost July and it's still leaking - in fact, it leaks at least a little EVERY time it rains, rather than just occasionally. Last Friday we had another huge storm and I felt the carpet damp in the corner it flooded in, and moved everything from that area and discovered that entire corner was flooded. That's when I realized that it had likely flooded before - once I removed furniture I could suddenly smell mildew really strongly.
Of course, I called maintenance about the flooding. They didn't show up that day. Or the next day. It's now Tuesday and the only thing done was me trying to soak up as much water as possible on my own.
Also, remember at the beginning when I said the first guy scraped plaster off where it was leaking? Well the ceiling has started to turn grey at that spot - I can just imagine the amount of black mold in my ceiling right now.
I'm about to renew my lease, and when I do I'm going to talk to management about either not paying rent until this is taken care of, or getting a damn good discount because of all the mold we're bound to be breathing right now. This is getting ridiculous.