My question involves landlord-tenant law in the State of: Ohio

I will attempt to make this as concise as possible.
Other details are below, for context where required.

· At what point should I consider contacting a lawyer?
· What blame do we truly have in a burst water pipe event?
· Should we even consider petitioning for recompense of purchased repair equipment, or personal effects?
· What sort of Lawyer should we regard? ACLU, or something more immediate?
· Does this sort of situation demand ASAP, or is waiting on something like the ACLU acceptable?



I am sorry for the breadth of this, but I am admittedly worn now from lack of sleep
and panic. Thank you very, very, very much for your time and consideration / opinions.







Summary of events :

My room-mates and I reported a leak from our radiator at 4am, soon as found.
The building sent out a repair-man who turned the water off entirely, and left,
claiming he would fix it later on, which he did, some 14 hours later.

The problem is this. His turning the water off resulted in the pipes freezing and bursting.
Once turned back on, the water sprayed through multiple lines, and at that
point had bulged a break into the outer-wall, as well as flooding our apartment
and those below us.

Since this event, the management has blamed us religiously for the break,
given we have not now nor ever heated the apartment, due to low income.
Nor were we ever given any amount of information suggesting we should do
so for any reason.

Now we've been served with a 30-day remedy notice, blaming us for all damages.
We've lost roughly $3,000 in possessions. Since the event the management has
been badgering us, yelling at us ( quite literally ), blaming us, threatening that
we've broken city ordinances ( which I cannot locate any of ) and so on.

Furthermore, they have accused us of being horders, given we could not move
all of our possessions out of the apartment for immediate repair, given we have
no place to put them. The management at this point told us to throw possessions
out to speed the process, glibly informing us that we would be compensated for
absolutely nothing lost either, given it was entirely 'our fault.' All stories given
by management change from ' It is your fault ' to ' we are dealing with this in
several other apartments right now, we know what we are doing.'

Were this not enough they demanded we work to shop-vac all possible liquid up,
claiming they would normally do it, but they found our dwelling to be impossible.
While not clean due to post-holidays, it is far from slovenly. We were often told
" we will contact you with further instructions " only to be left waiting for 6 hours
or more, then berated for not doing what they wished without instruction.

The 30-day remedy is no trial as the place was dirtier than typical, and can be
fixed easily. What concerns are the blames of all the damage entirely to our fault.
I am left wondering if they will attempt to make us pay for it, on top of all of this.
Additionally they asked if we could start spending the nights else where, moving
our possessions out, and became irate when we responded we had no other place
to go.