Terrible landlord in Massachusetts BREAKING LAW! What can I do?

My landlord first decided that she wanted to move back into my apartment, so after 7 months, I had to move. THEN she changed her mind and said I could stay. That was great, BUT she refused to weather-strip the apartment last winter and I wanted her to weather strip it for THIS winter so I wouldn't be paying to heat the outside again. Curiously, she then decided to stick to her original plan and move back in.

Then I ran into her husband in my basement (they enter all the time without telling me beforehand), and asked him why they had changed their mind and he said "Heidi said you had all these demands, and we didn't want to deal with it".

So, I was retaliated against for wating repairs to keep the elements (wind) out the apartment.

This is only the latest of their terrible management - what can I do? How do I report them??

Frustrated in Massachusetts

As I just said, there is no state requirement that they give you prior notice before coming to your unit. Your state law does not say they have to notify you beforehand.

No state law requires weatherstripping. She can just deny your request for this. It isn't a repair, it is an improvement. You rented the unit without weatherstripping. Asking for it to be installed now is an improvement that the LL doesn't have to make.

If you have no lease, the LL may terminate your M2M tenancy for any or no reason, as long as it is not a disriminatory one. Terminating a demanding tenant is normal. Sounds like you have no lease. You would be better off giving your required notice and moving to another place. You have no receourse.

No, you have to check your facts - they are required to keep the elements (wind, rain, snow, etc) out of the apartment. There is WIND in the apartment.

And retaliation is against the law as well, as long as the request was IN WRITING, which it was.

I thought there were supposed to be lawyers on here?

Retaliation
You cannot retaliate against your tenants for exercising their legal rights such as complaining to you or the Board of Health about problems with the apartment, joining a tenant’s union or lawfully withholding rent or repairing and deducting. It will be presumed that you are retaliating against your tenant if within six (6) months of the tenant’s exercising any protected rights as briefly stated above, you terminate the tenancy, increase the rent, or otherwise attempt to change the terms of the tenancy. In order to then avoid penalties of up to three (3) month’s rent, attorney’s fees and costs of the action, you will then have to prove in court non-retaliatory reasons for doing these acts.

Structural Elements: Landlords must maintain the foundation, floors, walls, doors, windows, ceilings, roof, stairwells, porches, chimneys and all structural elements so as to exclude wind, rain, and snow; so as to be rodent-proof, weather tight, watertight, and free of chronic dampness, in good repair and fit for human habitation at all times.

Now that you have the facts, who do I notify??

This tenant didn't ask for a repair. He / She asked for an improvement. It is not retaliation to deny an improvement and terminate a m2m tenancy. The poster gave no details of how big the gaps were in the unit so there is no indication (as of yet) that they were severe enough to warrant structural elements clauses. You're jumping the gun.

No, a repair to seal the cracks between the frames and doors/windowsows. The landlord has a responsibility to provide protection from the elements.

the gaps are large enough to allow wind to enter the apartment.

In the email I sent, I told her "If you stand in front of the windows/doors, you can feel the cold coming into the apartment"

If you stand in front of my windows you can feel cold air too. But it's from the conduction of the cold through the glass, not from gaps. Cold air in front of a window is not a indication of a gap. How large are the gaps? Measure them!