Do I Have Grounds To Sue My Apartment Complex/apartment Manager?

Location: Logan, UT The apartment complex where I live is very poorly managed and contantly problematic. When something breaks or goes wrong they are very slow to address the issue and often times try to cut costs affecting the repair quality. I have several experiences listed below:

• In july the aprtment above us had a leaky sink which the maintenece guy (not a licensed plumber) tried to fix unsuccessfully. This resulted in water leaking and collecting in a glass light fixture above our sink. We reported this to our apartment and the same maintenance guy came by, looked at it, and tightened the pipe in the upstairs apartment. Later in october, the water began leaking into the same light fixture again and the property manager called an licensed plumber to come look at it. When the plumber arrived he cut 3 holes into the drywall which revealed a continuous leak that had been going on for months. This supported the growth of mold all along the drywall and support beams. After that, the plumber let us know that he needed approval from the apartment manager to fix the leak and left for the day. For 3 buisness days (not including the weekend) we operated in our kitchen with holes in the drywall, exposing us to the leak into our apartment, the mold, and drywall dust over our kitchen sink. We decided to tape a garbage bag over the holes to prevent debris from falling into the sink. This led to water collecting in the garbage bag that rested against an exposed light fixture. After 3 buisness days (and several calls and emails to our property manager) the licensed plumber returned and fixed the issue but the apartment neglected to hire a professional to clean the mold, to call an electrician to inspect for electrical hazards, or patch the holes in our wall. We are unsure what type of mold resides in our walls but it has made both me and my partner feel sick. Instead of calling a professional to clean or test the mold, the manager just had the maintence guy cut holes in the wall of the adjacent apartment and spray bleach on the moldy areas. (which is known to be an ineffective mold cleaner on porus surfaces.) This also led to a strong headache-inducing bleach smell into our apartment for over an hour on several occasions, due to the holes still remaining in our apartment walls.

-At the same time in october, our dishwasher stopped draining and needed to be repaired or replaced so we let the apartment manager know. The next day she sent over the maintence guy who attempted to suck up the dishwasher water using a shopvac. This resulted in dishwater water spraying across our kitchen, soaking the floors, our kitchen table and everything on the kitchen table including my partners laptop (which luckily was not damaged.) The maintence guy then determined that the dishwasher needed to be replaced and let the property manager know. The manager let us know that the dishwasher should be replaced the next week (~4 buisness days plus the weekend). It has since been a little over 3 weeks and we are still without a dishwasher (and still with exposed holes in the drywall above the sink). We have contacted the property manager on at least 3 occasions where has said that the dishwasher will be arriving “soon.”

-On another occasion the toilet started leaking out of the bottom. The manager luckily called a livensed plumber to replace the seal that afternoon. That plumber informed us (around 2:30pm) not to use that toilet for a few hours till the seal cures. We followed his instructions and elected not to use that toilet for 24hrs. Later that day around 5pm, the same toilet began overflowing raw sewage into our bathroom which started soaked under the wall into our living room. We immediately called the after-hours emergency maintenance line to report the issue, and the maintenance guy said he needed to check in with the property manager before proceeding. The apartment manager later called us and told us to “put down some towels” and that there was likely a clog and she would tell the upstairs apartment to “stop using their bathroom for the night” then a plumber would be out to snake the drain in the morning. The plumber reccomended that she hire restoration cleaners since raw sewage has flooded our bathroom and into our living room, but time will tell if she actually does that.

-They also have never once inspected the smoke detectors or replaced the air filters in our apartment while we’ve been living here.