Does a Landlord Need to Provide a Doorbell?

[makoshark.livejournal.com]

Apartments in my apartment building do not have street-accesible doorbells or any other way of notifying the people in the house from outside. We had them once in the past but are no longer usable and the landlord will not fix them.

This is very annoying. I want to know if there is a law in Somerville, Massachusetts, or any national building code which would require the landlord/property manager to provide us with doorbells or equivalent.

Comments

[abilouise.livejournal.com]

I have no idea, but I am in the same position.

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

I feel like I read in MA code (back when I bought my house) that units of three or more require not just doorbells but buzzing-in technology.

[somerfriend.livejournal.com]

I don't know the answer but if there is an issue with the wired doorbell that is hard to fix, he could consider using a wireless setup. They are very easy to install but they require changing batteries periodically. Better to have a wired setup but if you can't wireless is good alternative. He may not be aware of this easy option to resolve the issue and may be just overwhelmed by the process of running wires or whatever issue is involved with a wired setup.

[pch1.livejournal.com]

You might consider biting the bullet and buying a wireless set-up yourself. You can find them on Amazon or maybe at Tags for less than $20. They are very easy to set up.

[alphacygni]

I thought about this, when I was in this situation, but I realized that unless all the units in the building (we were a 2-family) got wireless doorbells, I would end up getting people ringing my bell for anyone in the building. Which sounds annoying. The other unit wasn't interested, so we remained without doorbell. I did poke around and found nothing indicating that landlords had any responsibility for doorbells if you have less than four units in your building.

[makoshark.livejournal.com]

We have exactly four units in our building. Did you find something that suggested they do have a responsibility in that situation? I've been looking around quite a bit and haven't been able to find it.

[sparr0.livejournal.com]

Your lease probably says he has to fix them. Something about common space maintenance, electrical wiring, etc. Consider that a doorbell is functionally identical to a lightswitch as far as wiring maintenance goes (and if they are ALL dead then it's not a problem with the bells in the units).

[makoshark.livejournal.com]

They're not broken. They are unusable because the outside door is now locked (because the space was abused in the past) and the doorbell buttons are in a little foyer that used to be accessible from the street but is now not.

[sparr0.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a more subtle kind of defect to me, but still "broken", in the way that board game balance can be "broken". From the perspective of a person trying to get your attention with the buzzer, that extra door being locked is no different from the panel being de-electrified.

[sparr0.livejournal.com]

If that's the ONLY thing stopping them from being usable, simply moving the panel to the outside face of the building seems like a no brainer solution. See how much it will cost, poll your neighbors to pay for it if the landlord won't?

[makoshark.livejournal.com]

This would solve the problem. The landlord had someone look at doing this once but I think concluded that it would be too expensive or something. The person came, looked at it, asked some questions, and left without doing anything.

[sparr0.livejournal.com]

Look into doing it yourself? Don't move the whole panel, just crack it open, find the wire for your own buzzer, and sneakily extend it outside and to a new button you bolt onto the building facade (maybe with some dummy buttons next to it)

[makoshark.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry I was a little vague in my initial post about this and the term "fix" was misleading. By "fix" I really just mean make working again. That could be done by routing them outside, unlocking the outside door again, or maybe something else.

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

Non-doorbells seem more common than not.

Though in my case it's because I was told they route through a phone, and won't go to a non-local number like my cell.