How to deal with renegade management

Hi, Am dealing with a building operator who is doing everything in their power to screw us over. Our heat went down for over a month, causing us to live, essentially, in squalid conditions for the entire period. They initially ignored our repeated requests to fix it. Finally, they started sending minions in daily to "fix" the issue, which resulted in countless hours of strangers running around our... [more]

Hi, Am dealing with a building operator who is doing everything in their power to screw us over. Our heat went down for over a month, causing us to live, essentially, in squalid conditions for the entire period. They initially ignored our repeated requests to fix it. Finally, they started sending minions in daily to "fix" the issue, which resulted in countless hours of strangers running around our apartment, a huge inconvenience. The problem remained unfixed. Now, as it seems a resolution is finally approaching, we have asked, in a very reasonable manner, for some rent credit to compensate us for the huge inconvenience. However, our building manager is attempting to bill us for the work completed on the heater. My question is, what should we do in this situation? What strategies do we have to (a) extract credit, (b) not pay for "damages" we did not cause (c) destroy this buildings reputation (it's become personal)? Thanks in advance for any tips. [less]