PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Landlords in Pennsylvania and New Jersey are required by law to provide tenants with a heating system that can keep living spaces at 68 degrees or higher to prevent people from freezing and for the benefit of the building.
During these colder winter months, an unheated building could be deadly.
Rachel Garland, co-manager of the Housing Unit at Community Legal Services in Philadelphia, says you should not waste time if your heater is on the fritz. Contact your landlord immediately, and be sure to document all conversations.
"If you have a conversation with the landlord, it's great to then follow up on the conversation in writing either a text or email just to confirm what was discussed during the call," Garland said.
If heat repairs take days, Garland says you should ask your landlord for a space heater.
"The landlord might be able to drop off some space heaters, or the tenant might be able to purchase some space heaters and deduct the cost of the space heaters from the rent as a short-term solution to get some heat into the unit,” Garland said.
The Philly Tenant hotline says a lack of heat should be treated as an emergency, and any ongoing outages should be reported to the Department of Licenses and Inspections.