My question involves landlord-tenant law in the State of: North Carolina
I have been renting a house for a couple years now, my landlord works for the Housing Authority in my town. The house was built in the seventies and the wiring has been doing some strange things. An outlet had a cell phone charger and a cable signal booster plugged into it. I didn't think that was an excessive load, but the power went out one wall of the house tonight. We checked the breaker box and none of the breakers were tripped. A foul smell was coming from the outlet in question, and we discovered that the outlet was melted, the wires were half fused together and broken off, and the insulation on the wire was melted. This is actually the second time this has happened, an outlet in another room did this once last year. I'm afraid there is a deeper issue with the wiring of the house that may result in a house fire if something isn't fixed soon. When I told my Landlord about the last occurrence he didn't think it was a big deal, he just replaced the outlet.
Here is my paranoid concern, but I'd like to do some checking to put my mind at ease. I am actually afraid the house was never inspected by a building inspector, and isn't really safe as far as the wires go. Because my landlord works for the city housing authority he may have some way of pushing the legal inspection through the system. This may not be the case, but I would like the house to be safe to live in. I don't feel like it's safe now, and I want to find a legal way I can either insist my landlord have the wiring inspected or brought up to code before I call him (and he just replaces the outlet again). At the least, I'd like to find a way to verify that the house was inspected and verify that it does in fact meet city building codes.
I have heard that if a house is not up to building codes or was never inspected, some compensation may be due, or paying rent may be suspended until it is back up to code. Any information about this would be most useful. I would like to live in a safe house. If I can get some rent refunded, reduced, or suspended in the mean time, it would be a real bonus.
Thanks for your help.

