I have a rental lease on a single family home that is not to expire until Aug 2009. I have encountered vast and persistent problems with the home since moving in. When I viewed the house and ultimately signing the lease landlord said house would be painted and cleaned before I moved in. Days before moving in discovered that landlords painting actually meant touch up and with different paint types (gloss with flat touch up). The ceilings, walls, doors are filthly. House has been accessed, without forced entry, three times wherein items have been taken and other times wherein things have been moved around but nothing taken. I feel unsafe and violated. Told landlord his response was basically that it was not his problem. Landlord had had house on sale prior to renting it. The lock box was supposed be removed when I moved in the lockbox remained on house for almost two months only after the first loss of items did the lockbox get removed and only after I forced the issue. When the landlord gave me the key to the house I was told that if I needed another one he would give me one as there "are alot of keys out there". Roof leaked causing major damage to celing and wall in master bedroom and water leak stains throughout house, water heater needed replacing, a/c thermostat needed to be replaced, (landlord ask me after these things if I was subbataging his house) (when I was looking to rent house I noticed discoloration on ceilings asked if there was water leakage - was told no. After roof leaked was told that there had been some water leakage but they thought they had taken care of it. The ceiling were repaired after leak was done well however, the new color on repaired rectangle vs the old color on rest of celing is extremely noticeable and landlord is going to leave it this way and I am suppose to be happy with this. Master bath has shower doors do not slide nor are they sealed after each shower floor needs mopping as there is often 1/4 inch of water on floor after shower (told landlord about this four months ago when I moved in - still problem exists and getting worse, closet shelves are not secured shelves fell on my head causing deep cut, hall shower doors are not secure - doors need to to gentlely moved in order to not bump or jar the bar that holds the doors for doors will fall on person showering, patio door blinds do not operate properly these require manually individually opening and shutting the blinds, refirgerator section freezes - landlord could not provide manual said that it would be researched on internet I asked again was told that one could not be found - I searched found one followed directions for setting temperature on frig side did not work - turned off circuit breaker to frig in hopes of its resetting itself this did not work, dishwasher does not wash dishes first time, etc. There is so much more to this is just highlights to convey problems.

Can I break my lease under these conditions and with no penalty nor financial liablity and with full return of my deposit?

What you uneed to do is document all the problems and give the landlord a reasonable amount of time to correct those problems. You need to do this in writing. If he has not corrected the problems then you can move. He will either sue you or not or you might need to sue him to get back your deposit.

Scott is right.

I would recommend reading your lease. It should state what the procedure is for reporting maintenance issues, and then what your tights are if the landlord doesn't comply. If your lease doesn't address it, or you want to just make sure it's in line with your state's laws, there's a "sticky" at the top of this forum with a link for each state's laws. The process does vary from state to state, as well as what you can do about it.

But definitely making the requests in writing is a standard requirement across the board.

Also, while there's no doubt from your description that the landlord is pretty pathetic, if it comes down to being able to break your lease the only issues that really matter are things like the water heater, furnace, roof leaks (not the stains or bad repairs resulting from them), etc. Cosmetic problems that the landlord just did a poor job on or didn't address won't get you out of your lease. (At least I've never heard of it.) So I'd recommend making a list of every thing that you feel needs to be addressed, and present that to the landlord in a letter that outlines the process I talked about above. Tell him in the letter that the lease says (or your state law says) that if he doesn't rectify these problems within so many days that you have the right to terminate the lease (or whatever your rights are (not every state allows termination - so make sure you know for sure). Just be aware that if he were to take care of the more major issues, but not the cosmetic stuff you probably would NOT have a case to break your lease or whatever at that point.