Any lawyers out there?

I don't own my home - I rent. I live in a little suburb in southern California that I affectionately refer to as Pleasantville. The houses are all Cape Cod style (not easy to pull off on the west coast, but here it works), each one has a white picket fence in front (required by the HOA) and a weather vane. My neighbors spend their weekends working on their yards, having BBQ's in their driveways so the other neighbors know they're invited, and we even have an annual neighborhood block party put on by a local realtor because our neighborhood is so stinkin' cute. The feeling of community in the neighborhood is huge, as is pride of ownership. Then there's my house. Think Brady Bunch landscaping, a garage door that has a fungus (I was told by an expert) and is drooping, and when the HOA got on my landlord to paint last year, instead of matching the pretty blue with white trim, the painters made it this ugly slate grey color. My landlord doesn't like to be bothered with repairs or replacing anything that doesn't need it. I pay $2000 (!) per month in rent, and along with the other utilities I would expect to pay for, I also have to pay for water, trash and the gardener. He is so frickin' cheap that I have lived for days with having to turn the water off at the main every time someone had to even use the bathroom because he wouldn't settle for any quotes from prospective plumbers. My heat went out two years ago in the winter (yes, I realize I live in CA and what am I whining for?)and again, he was not satisfied with anyone's quotes.

I live about a mile from my office so it's easy to run home at lunch if I need something, which I did one day last week. I walked in to find that the sliding glass door leading out to my backyard had been shattered. There was a hole about the size of a basketball in the center and the rest of the safety glass was broken and slowly falling off. I had hired a new gardener who started that morning. I called a glass company and then my landlord, who was convinced that a rock had flown up from the lawnmower. I was bummed because I hadn't seen my yard looking this good for quite sometime and now I was going to have an issue with the gardener if he knowingly left it like that. So I called the gardener who met me at my house and basically denied all responsibility for it. I can't prove it, so nothing I can do. Back to my landlord...I didn't have the money to write a check up front for it, and I was a little wary of taking financial responsibility for it, so my landlord gave me his credit card number the next day to give the glass people.

Yesterday I'm at home and the phone rings. My 10 year old answers it, hands me the phone and says, "It's the slumlord." (love her!) He tells me to read my lease and let him know what I think about Article 16 or some other bullshit, basically saying that he thinks I am financially responsible for the repair. I don't think so. He said, "Well if you have people over and something gets broken..." I pretty much cut him off and said, "I wasn't having a party. I was paying someone to take care of YOUR fricking property!!" I can be very eloquent. Anyway, he told me to ask around and find out what the protocol is on this. Like I'm going to say I asked around and I found out I need to pay for it!

Anybody have any experience on this? Opinions? Voo-doo dolls in the shape of my slumlord?