Repair Request Escalation Skill

The difference between a repair that happens and one that doesn't is rarely the landlord's character — it's whether the request exists as a dated record with a severity the law recognizes, and whether the tenant knows the next rung. Texts evaporate; written requests start clocks. This skill builds the record, triages by habitability (a broken heater in winter and a dripping faucet live under different rules), and decodes the remedy options — with their strict prerequisites flagged, because the tenant remedies that exist in most jurisdictions also have procedural tripwires that convert self-help into an eviction case.

What This Skill Produces

• The repair request — written, dated, specific, severity-framed, sent through the channel that counts
• The severity triage — habitability-level / major-function / quality-of-life, because the ladder's speed depends on it
• The escalation ladder — reminder → formal notice → the leverage rungs (inspectors, remedies) with letters drafted
• The remedies decode — repair-and-deduct, rent escrow/withholding, code enforcement, lease-termination-for-uninhabitability — each as a category with its typical prerequisites and its risks, verify-locally flagged

Required Inputs

Ask for these if not provided:

• The problem and its history — what's broken, since when, what's been reported how (verbal counts for nothing going forward; the skill converts history into the first letter's recital)
• The severity facts — does it affect heat, water, electricity, locks, leaks, mold, pests? Season and household (a baby in an unheated unit changes the framing and the urgency)
• The lease and the landlord shape — repair clauses, the official notice channel, individual owner vs. management company
• The tenant's risk posture — month-to-month vs. long lease, rent-current or not (remedies generally require current rent — a load-bearing prerequisite), and how much relationship they want to preserve