$800 Gas Bill Not Just Because It’s Been Cold + Fire Risk

I rent a 115 year old house. Last month the bill was $800.00 (usually $50 on warm months). I assumed it was just because it's a big old house and we had a cold snap last month but I wanted to check in the attic with a heat sensor see if any heat was escaping the vents. - sure enough, I didn't need a heat sensor to find it. There was about a 7 inch diameter hole cut in the main vent coming from the furnace and heat blasting into the attic. The hole was cut for maintenance in the past and a slab of metal had been sloppily taped over it. Since tape doesn't stick to decades of dust, the metal flopped open as soon as our furnace fan kicked on and has been blasting our gigantic attic with heat for two months. - Then I noticed whoever our furnace maintenance person was decided it's totally safe to put a stack of filters on top of the furnace with a huge flame inside it. I could see where some of the filters had been on fire. Had the flames been taller or caught the other filters on fire, they would have reached the roof and the old dry wood would be up in flames in seconds. - I should have checked earlier because we're halfway through the month of less than 20 degree weather and next bill is easily going to be $1000+, but I really wasn't expecting a huge hole to have been cut in our vent. I thought maybe I'd find a crack or somewhere one of our prior attic raccoons bit the vent or something. - Since I rent, I don't know who the furnace company is that's responsible for this. It may likely be more than one company over the years I've been here and I suspect they will deny responsibility if confronted. - Question: is this a situation in which I can get some compensation for the astronomical gas bill and almost having the house burn down, or at least have the company pay for half of the next gas bill? In Kentucky for reference.