My apartment flooded for the second time this week. The first time was last summer. This time it was much worse, It's now 3 days later and they still have my carpets pulled up with fans blowing underneath them to dry them out. I went and talked to the employees in the leasing office, and they said that it probably has something to do with a stream runnig nearby, and that my and 3 other buildings get this occasionally. Is this grounds for me to break my lease without penalty, since they haven't been able to fix the flooding problem?

Also, Maintenance was in my apartment yesterday without my permission, or giving me notice. They came in and moved my furniture so the other parts of the carpet would dry. When they originally came to wet-vac the carpet, they said they would be back "tomorrow to check the carpet" and then 2 days later they entered my apartment without notice of permissions while I was at work. I went to the office to talk to them about this today, and explained that I wasn't okay with them entering without notice, and they told me that "in situations like this, they have to" and didn't seem to care. Would this be grounds to break my lease?

By the way, I'm in the state of Michigan.

Hello r:

Can you break you lease?? Probably not. They have the right to enter your apartment with notice or in the case of an emergency. They're calling your wet carpets an emergency... Ok...

Plus, I don't think the flooding you're experiencing is enough to break your lease... It MIGHT be, though. The only way to find out for sure, is to actually BREAK it, move, wait till you're sued, and see how the judge rules.

excon

How long have you lived there? I doubt if this is enough to break your lease, but its certainly grounds for not renewing.

It also appears that they are working at dealing with the issue in a timely basis. As for entering the apartment, this would qualify as emergency maintenance.

I lived here for about 18 months. I had a 1 year lease, and then renewed for another year. When I renewed, I assumed that since last year, the flood problem had been fixed.

There have also been 2 fires, which I didn't include because I know they can't control that, and several power outages to the building. Not the area, just my building and one other. For about a 6 month period, we would regularly lose power for about 5 hours once every 4-6 weeks. It'd been stable for about 2 months now, so I believe they have that fixed finally...

I guess I'm not really planning on staying, though. I don't think I can handle the threat of this happening again, or the musty smell I've been forced to sleep in for the past 4 days. It's amazing how different this place is from last year...

Hello again, r:

If you have ANY hope of breaking your lease, the events you describe would have to be DOCUMENTED, so when and or if you are sued in court, you can show a PATTERN of mismanagement, wherein the total of that mismanagement is sufficient to have breached the contract...

But, if you didn't complain THEN, complaining about it NOW ain't going to work.

excon

The key to breaking a lease is to show that the landlord has allowed conditions to deteriorate so as to create an uninhabitable condition. I don't see that being the case here.

You can ask if they will let you out of the lease early or offer a buyout.

I'll take those into consideration. Thanks guys!