As a result of the COVID-19 court operations have been put on hold except for very important or emergency type items such as ‘restraining orders’ I found out.
In any event many may fear taking their landlord to court while still living on the property fearing eviction. The law prevents that from happening if there has been an event such as a leak or mold found due to landlord neglect or refusing to take necessary steps to take care of the situation. The law refers to this as ‘retaliation’ and prevents landlords from asking tenants to vacate or leave or even evicting them if such an event has occurred within a 180 day period or is even ongoing.
Not all landlords are aware of this and still may try to get you to leave anyway. As long as you are paying your rent there is not much they can do until their obligations are taken care of.
And then they will likely have to wait the 180 days or end of lease to give you a vacate notice.
The price to file court papers and then have these served on your landlord may cost up to about $350 give or take depending on which service you use. Assuming you win the case you can get these fees back by court order. The scheduling currently is about 1 to 2 months for this type of small claims filing.
It is always best to try and work things out but if the landlord is unwilling then you need to do what is necessary, within the law and moral principle, and take legal action as has been mentioned.