***** 10pts***** Having Landlord Issues?

We live in Colorado.

My family and I (I am 18, have younger siblings, and mom and dad) are living in a home that we currently rent. It is a nice home and the rent is really cheap. I have talked to my mom about all the issues I see in the house.

We currently have NO gutters on our house. The landlord decided to put siding on the house, the siding people had to take the gutters off to put the siding on and apperantly disposed of them. So when it rains, ( I come in through the front door) I get dripped on while I am trying to unlock the door. It is like a faucet turned on - a stream of water.

We get mold in the basement. I along with my sister have our beds pushed up against the wall in our rooms because there is really no other place to put them. Whenever we get rain or snow (moisture) the wall facing the outdoors gets mold on it and the carpet gets a little damp. My sister currently has permanent mold spots on her carpet and I on my wall. Occasionally my sister and I get sick from the mold.

The basement window wells typically fill with water and stream in through into the basement. We think we might have fixed it by digging around the windows and putting rocks in, but not sure. The last bed I had had mold growing on it because of the water coming in through the window. I now have a new bed with a mattress protector on it, but am afraid it still might be volnerable to mold.

There are other issues as well, such as the linoleum is coming up, but these issues are not as big as the other ones.

My mom has written several letters explaining the big issues, but nothing ever gets done. It seems like the landlord is just in it for the money. This is just and income property for him.

Please! How do I motivate my mom to do something more than write letters [that just get ignored anyway].

Do we have any rights as tennants? I am just scared we might get evicted or something. We signed a one year lease when we moved in three years ago, but never signed another. There was a verbal agreement that we would just abide by the old lease.

Finally, in the old lease we agreed with the landlord that we would only have one dog, which we also had to pay extra monthly rent for. I recently got a puppy, but never told the landlord. Is this really a bad thing? I kinda feel dishonest, but then again we currently only signed that one year lease when we moved in three years ago.

I know I am venting a little, because we have had quite a bit of rain this year. I am just being nit picky, or is this typical of rental properties? Please give me detailed answers if you can - please don't tell me to just go look it up for the state, give me a link or something at least!

*******10 points for detailed answers*********