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Washington State tenants have won important legal protections, but these rights don't go far enough. Help build the movement to protect and expand tenants rights and make the promise of safe, healthy, affordable housing a reality: 
Landlord's Obligations
Your landlord’s Obligations and Your Remedies
A landlord must:
- Correct violations of any health code or housing code standard and violations of any other laws and regulations which endanger the tenants’ health or safety.
- Keep common areas such as hallways, laundry rooms, and parking lots reasonably clean, sanitary, and safe from defects that could cause fires of other accidents.
- Provide a smoke detector.
- Make sure the rental is not infested with rodents, insects, and other pests when the tenant moves in, and, except in the case of a single family residence, control infestation during the tenancy.
#. Keep the rental in as good repair as it was or should have been at the beginning of the tenancy, except for normal wear and tear.
- Provide adequate locks and keys.
- Keep the electrical, plumbing and heating systems in good repair and repair any appliances or other facilities that are supplied.
- Keep the rental unit weathertight. (Sometimes you can use this if you have a lot of mold.)
- Provide garbage cans and arrange for trash removal for tenants other than those who occupy single family residences.
- Provide facilities to supply a reasonable amount of heat and hot and cold water, unless the building is not equipped to supply these utilities. (RCW 59.18.060) However, city and county laws are often stronger and most require heat and water.
Some cities and counties in Washington have enacted additional requirements. For example, the Seattle Housing and Building Maintenance Code requires that the locks be changed between tenants, and that doors have peepholes as well as deadbolts or deadlatches (SMC 22.206.140). You can check your own city’s codes by calling the Housing Code Enforcement office.
Posted: Tuesday, December 7, 2004
Disclaimer: The information contained in or linked to the Tenants Union website is for informational purposes only. The Tenants Union makes no claims, promises or guarantees about the accuracy, completeness, or adequacy of the information contained in or linked to its web site.
The Tenants Union cannot act as your attorney, and its staff members are not attorneys. The Tenants Union makes no representations, expressed or implied, that the information contained in or linked to its web site can or will be used or interpreted in any particular way by any governmental agency or court. As legal advice must be tailored to the specific circumstances of each case, and laws are constantly changing, nothing provided herein should be used as a substitute for the advice of competent counsel.