You rent, and the AC is out.

This is a practical order of operations, not legal advice. For the statute itself, read the Arizona Residential Landlord and Tenant Act, and for your situation get actual advice.

1. Put it in writing, today

This is the single most important step and the one most often skipped.

A verbal report to a property manager leaves no record. Send an email or a text, keep a copy, and include:

• The date and time it stopped working
• The indoor temperature, with a photo of a thermometer or the thermostat
• Anybody in the household at particular risk from heat
• A clear request to repair, and a reasonable date

Then keep logging. Indoor temperature daily, with timestamps. It takes seconds and it turns an argument into a record.

2. Check the things that are yours to check

Partly courtesy and partly because it is faster. If the fix is free, you get cool tonight rather than in four days.

• Thermostat on COOL, setpoint below room temperature, fan on AUTO, batteries good
• Breaker reset once, and only once
• Filter, if your lease makes it your job, which many do
• Supply vents open

Report what you checked. It makes you credible and it shortens the diagnosis.

3. Escalate in writing, with specifics

If nothing happens, follow up in writing referencing the original date. Keep the tone factual. The goal is a record that shows a reasonable tenant giving reasonable notice.

Where somebody in the household is elderly, very young, or has a condition that heat makes dangerous, say so explicitly and early. In this city that materially changes how urgent the situation is.

4. Protect people while it is unresolved

Do not wait it out in a hot house to prove a point. Maricopa County runs cooling centres through the summer, and a library or a mall works. The extreme heat guide covers keeping a Phoenix house survivable and the warning signs that need 911.

5. If you are the landlord reading this

The cheapest version of this problem is the one that does not happen. A tune-up before the season on a rental costs less than one emergency call in July, and far less than a dispute.

The short term rental guide covers the turnover checks, and most of them apply to a long term rental too. A float switch is a few dollars of part whose only job is preventing the ceiling repair you will otherwise pay for.

Every price here is published before you call, which matters when you are approving work on a property you are not standing in. Every visit leaves readings and photos, which is also the record you want if the tenant’s account and the technician’s do not match.