Hoarder In Nj, Landlord Doesn't Know How Bad It Is

Location: New Jersey

Trying to be discrete, it is hard to admit. My wife and I have been living in a rental for over 10 years. We moved 13 months ago into our first house and haven't been back to the cottage since then, until last week. We had a small problem that snowballed into a big problem.

We are generational hoarders, both our parents have had hoarding issues. While ours wasn't as bad at first, it got worse when our toilet backed up into the tub. Instead of letting the landlord know, we lived with it, ending up showering outside of the rental at family's, hotels, etc. If we had to use the bathroom while at home, we were using trash bags in buckets, then we left the bathroom in it's state, never opening the door. On top of this, we had a lot of stuff piling up. We'd buy stuff and leave it all around. At our worst, we were sleeping on the couch with a small path in and out.

During these 10 years, our landlord never came around for maintenance, the heater hasn't worked in 8+ years because we don't know where it is. Each winter we'd have electrical heaters running. The hot water heater stopped working 5+ years ago, likely due to the roof leaking on it. When we stopped living there, the mice and mold took over. Everything was trashed by the mice and the mold got most of the valuable electronics.

Basically, the long and short, we know we won't get our deposit back. The place was a "quick fixer upper" behind another 2 family house that is on the property. We've paid more than double what the whole property was purchased for, think a flipper landlord. Dry wall wasn't straight, cheapest brown paint, sub-par plumbing, basically the bare minimum to be habitable. The place will need to be redone, new drywall, new sink fixtures, new kitchen appliances.

Given the short comings of them providing any maintenance, for the record we never requested any, how much would be "on the line" for if they had to remodel the whole inside? Would they be able to sue us for all the repair costs? Being we were residents for so long, are they required to float the bill for things like the water heater, leaking roof, etc?

Thank you in advance for any insights.