Start with the health department, but more than that, start looking for another place to live.

You can probably get in touch with the county health inspector. get ready for huge rent increases. The fact that they purchased the house for 50k is irrelevant. If the electrician was there and nothing was wrong at the time the owner can say you are making things up. As far as mice in a home they can point to the occupant or I have seen it done, one thing I can say is if they start making upgrades get ready for the house to be sold flipping a place after dropping 30 grand and at $ you mentioned a cool 80k in there pocket and then you need a place, I have seen it done to extended family members

@ed beal - they had two diferent ple out here. The first one was after i had the home inspected after they offerd to sell it to me, and that was when the electric was still working and issue could not be found. The second time, was after the electric went out, he was here on Sunday 5-15, the electric suddenly came back on when here. So there is no way that they can say it's a made up issue as i have vid proof of such from the last 3 years that it's happened and they done nothing about it. i do expect if they were to start fixing, that the rent would go up, and i'm prepared to pay more.

@ed beal also i have videeo of a baby mouse climbing up a curtain in dinning room 2 months after i moved in. we see baby mice all the time in the living room in spring. its unfortunate no matter what i try to do

There is a device called dunk the mouse or rat, get one, or poison or a cat, or snap traps. the fact that you have mice 2 months after moving in is just going to hold up what I mentioned, my 1930 farm house gets mice every winter, this year is exceptionally bad possibly because of the mild winter if I was renting there is nothing other than the extermination routes above or simple snap traps. I have heard my friend that has a lot of rentals laugh when people talk about mice and cockroaches and saying he should charge more for pets.

@ed beal i have poison pellets out in the basement and going down towards the basement as it is now. Along with under the sink and some areas in the kitchen. I've found one dead mouse so far, but i'm positive more have died and they're somewhere in the house. The peole who owned the house before me have commented on how the mice were bad, and they'd place snap traps at top of basement stairs. i used to do the snap traps but figured pellets would be easier and id not have to constantly check traps cause they'd snap every hour.

@solar mike - i understand that. But with them being protected does that mean you can't seal off their entry and place bat boxes outside?

Depends on the law, but often the bats will have more rights to your attic than you do. Had bats where I worked and the only way we could continue was for me to get a bat license, which came with lots of conditions.

Why did you ever move into that in the first place? Two years & you're saying there's no improvement… I'm not really sure what you expected, that someone would be round straight away to turn it into a show home? I wouldn't have got right in the door before turning around. You actually signed a rental on it. Time to move out. Let it be their problem, not yours. So long as you're still paying them, they don't care.

@Tetsujin at the time i lived next door to the people who own this house. The house i was renting, the ppl decided to sell it. so my neighbors purchased this house, as they have several dumpy rentals, and offered it to me to move into. There was no other available rental at the time. and it has been longer than 2 years. a couple was vague. it's been closer to 5. also, there is NO contract. nothing signed.

@tetsujin, they've honestly only been in here a cpl times. the wife once, just after purchase. the husband, a total of maybe 5. once to replace water heater, once to fix heat. and 3 times for electrical issue.

So you've literally nothing to keep you there. if you've made no progress in 5 years, what makes you think you'll get a sudden refit now? They have absolutely zero incentive unless you put a court order under their nose. Worth it? No. Leave as soon as you can. Leave your clothing & bedding behind.

let it also be known i live in a vacation resort area. our area survives off of tourists, and rent is sky high if available at all. 90% of all rentals are weekly based in summer and they offer locals access through winter months (oct/nov-may/june). its next to impossible to find yearly rentals available.

If you insist on staying, the first thing you need is a lawyer. Nothing a group of DIY enthusiasts can help you with.

Well nobody's renting that property to tourists any month of the year! The problem is, precious few cities in Michigan have rent control, and they're not in tourist areas. So even if you found a way to make them fix it, they would simply raise your rent. If I were you, I'd buy that place and then get all "This Old House"/Norm Abrams and DIY renovate it into a dream.