Hi! Asking this in retrospect because I already tried to do the repair myself lol.
My single window in my apartment has multiple cracks at the top and leaks like crazy when it rains. I asked my landlord to fix it and he came over and taped some plastic to the top of it and told me to open the window when it’s raining so the water will slide down the plastic and out the window. Obviously, this is not a real solution and kinda ridiculous to even propose. This was in September and he said the old tenants used the plastic solution, but he would try to get people to actually fix it in a month. He then ghosted me.
Since then we’ve gone through two typhoons and I just couldn’t deal with the water flooding into my apartment, especially as the window is above my bed and splashes onto my face… And I’m not leaving my window open during a typhoon. I ended up just buying caulking and filling in all the cracks as best as I could. It looks pretty messy, but it finally stopped leaking.
My landlord finally messaged me today saying he has waterproofing people coming today. Do you think he’s going to try to fight me for putting in the caulking myself before the professionals could come? I have records of me messaging him over and over with no response over the past few months.
Possibly… but then you say something along the lines of what you wrote here — that you had no choice because he wasn’t responding and you weren’t going to leave the window open or get soaked during a typhoon.
My landlady has been fine with me making small repairs (fixing a sagging cupboard, replacing the tubing to a filtered drinking water tap, buying a new gas regulator and getting the gas guy to install it, stuff like that). I think she’s impressed I bother and prefers not to have to deal with the issue herself. She’s usually told me to just deduct whatever I spent from the next month’s rent.
I’ve generally checked with her first before doing stuff, but if you tried repeatedly and he didn’t respond it seems reasonable for you to make minor fixes necessary to make the place livable, especially for something approaching an emergency like what you describe. Besides, the workmen can remove the caulk if they need to, I assume.
Sounds like obvious wear and tear the landlord should be responsible for. Not fixing it could have caused more damage to the apartment (because of water), besides making it somewhat unlivable (because you were being rained on).
Civil Code, Articles 423, 429, and 430:
Article 423
The lessor shall be bound to deliver to the lessee the thing leased in a condition fit for the stipulated use or for the collection of profits as agreed upon. He shall be also liable to keep it up in such a condition as to be fit for such use or collection of profits during the continuance of the lease.
Article 429
Unless otherwise provided by the contract or customs, the lessor shall make all repairs to the thing leased.
The lessee shall not refuse the lessor to do such actions as are necessary for the maintenance of the thing leased.
Article 430
If, for the duration of the lease, the thing leased is necessary for repairing incumbent on the lessor, the lessee may fix a reasonable deadline and notify the lessor to make such repairs. If the lessor fails to make such repairs within the deadline, the lessee may terminate the contract or make the repairs himself with demanding the lessor to return for any expenses incurred therefrom or deducting the said expenses from the rental.
Google does a pretty good job of bringing up most Taiwanese laws because they’re generally translated into English.
Clicking “CH” next to the name of the law gets you the Chinese version.
Clicking “Article Search” at the top lets you copy a link to a specific article. It’s not made obvious on the website, but you can also mess around with the “&norge=” bit in the resulting URL to create links to multiple articles (separating the numbers by commas and/or hyphens):
Obviously, this is not a real solution and kinda ridiculous to even propose. This was in September and he said the old tenants used the plastic solution, but he would try to get people to actually fix it in a month. He then ghosted me. 
