My mother in law asked us to occupy her house as her previous tenants stopped paying their rent for about six months, and the tenants before that caused a lot of damage.

I'm not in the US but to put in in perspective, the average rental goes for the equivalent of about $700-800 for a three bedroom, free standing house such as ours. We are paying $450.

Reason why we're not paying more is:

*We are paying for electricity separate (the previous tenants weren't)

*There is damp in one of the bottom rooms.

*We haven't been able to use the pool since we moved in, the previous people left it in a mess and it's been a mission to get it right.

*There are multiple broken windows that have not been fixed since we moved in.

*The laminate flooring is deeply scratched and pieces missing from the bedrooms.

*The ceiling is literally coming apart from the wall in two rooms.

*Both toilets are extremely old (original plumbing from when the house was built in the 80's) so they are both broken.

*Both bathroom sinks leak when you switch on the taps (the whole sink needs to be taken out and the pipes replaced).

*We cannot use half the garage because it is literally filled with her old cabinets and boxes of books.

*The walls are literally crumbling (shoddy workmanship).

*One of the windows has been welded shut and a handyman told us we'd need to break the glass to be able to cut the weld open.

*The electricals need to be worked on and as a result, none of the outside lights worked when we moved in. The front lights still don't.

*Whoever did the renovations did a horrible job- they've literally drilled a hole though a wall and and plugged in an extension cord so the other room as an "electrical point".

*The interior hasn't been repainted since my husband was in school (it's cream walls and burgundy skirtings).

*There are two kitchens, one leading into the other. They both have sinks and ovens and the second one has the original cupboards from the 80's.

*Some of the light fittings are coming away from the ceiling so the lights are loose.

*There is a recurring blocked drains issue as the pluming is at a 90° angle and not a 45° angle.

*There are some rooms with skirtings, some without and some walls have been patched but never repainted.

*The cupboard doors (bedrooms and kitchens) are falling apart.

* The garage doors locks are broken.

____

Those are just the immediate issues. To date over and above what we have paid for rent, we have also:

*Paid for the plumbers whenever the drain gets blocked.

*Paid for her insurance excess when the hot water geyser element broke.

*Upgraded the front gate for security purposes (you could bend it with your bare hands).

*Replaced the pool pump to try sort out the pool and get it running (looks like a swamp).

*Started repainting the interior of the house.

*Bought replacements to fix the toilets.

*Filled the crumbling walls as best we can.

*Got an electrician to fixed the outside lights (he only got the backlights working but they burn through globes on a monthly basis, literally).

*Opened up a door that was also welded closed for some reason.

*Replaced various locks that had no keys.

*Got the electricity moved over to prepaid so she didn't have to even see it on her account.

*Paid for a plumber to fix a leak in the one shower (it wasn't a simple washer problem, it was another plumbing issue).

*Had the water pressure valve replaced when it gave up.

*Gave the garden an overhaul- the previous tenants were cultivating weeds.

*Secured the kitchen doors- replaced hinges and expoxied them.

_______

Are we being unfair by not paying more? She's fine with it generally but then she goes into these moods where it's not enough and then she tells us we're costing her money, we must come to the party, etc. The house is fully paid up, no bond.

When we tell her all we've done she just said we must keep the slips. It makes it uncomfortable because she claims a company was prepared to pay double what we were to rent the house for their staff and she throws this in our face often.no company will pay so much for a house in this condition in reality. We don't feel secure here.

We've also asked her if we can buy the house but she wants way too much (she wants to buy what the insurance values the property at, not taking into account they double the actual value. She wants what the real fancy houses go for).

We also can't really afford to pay more elsewhere- we moved out from a place where we were getting a really good deal to live here and we'll never get as good a deal in this area, close to work, again.

Are we being unreasonable?

*Edited to note, the previous tenants were only paying $400 and the tenants before $300. That's still quite a lot of money in our currency but way under the general for our area. Not on a lease.

*** Yes we grow veggies, but the garden was a huge eyesore for our neighbours as well. Everyone's garden was well manicured except ours and both next door neighbours had their properties on the market.

We had to do the pool because it was becoming a health hazard with mosquitoes. They were breeding like mad and we were overrun with mosquitoes.

To fix the one window we have to take the whole front doorway apart, because of the design of thing. Because it's solid wood it's a bit of a mission as well. We've gotten people in to quote but they never come back to is- service delivery is horrible here.

The damp is going to cost too much for us to fix- a proper fix is going to cost three times what we pay for rent.

The electrics we're also battling to get someone in to fix properly. The guy who was here to fix the back lights started drinking before he even left and then asked for transport money! We've put up solar lights in the meantime.

We leave the electricity off when we go out.