I rent an apartment in Arkansas. I've been a "good tenant", quiet, polite, friendly, and have been here about 4 years. The apts. Here are very nice, pretty new, peaceful, clean, semi-upscale, in the metro area.

All that changed last year when the property owner signed a contract with FEMA to let Katrina evacuees in rent-free. All of a sudden we have a crime rate just in our apartment complex area. We have undercover police living on the premises, as I've been told by the apartment night watchman, hoping to bust some of the evacuees for drug dealing and prostitution. The night watchman also told me not to go walking on the east side of the complex anymore, as I do a lot of walking after work around the complex, and I'm a single female walking alone, and he felt that area was very dangerous now for me. A private armed security company has been hired to patrol parts of the complex. There are shady types, I believe the high-schoolers call it "gangsta", traipsing around here in clothing 12 sizes too big, staring everybody down, loitering on the sidewalks, shouting at the top of their lungs, and standing around in their lawns drinking from paper bags.

Now just in the apartment I'm at - there are two evacuee families living on either side of me. If I had to rank each family from 1 to 10, 10 being the rudest, loudest, most foul-mouthed, raised-in-a-barn types, I'd give family #1 a 5 and family #2 a 9.5. Both families have been called down by the landlords and police dozens of times since they both got here last September. I'm not kidding in the slightest - the combined total has to be somewhere in the 40s range, for the number of times they get called down.

Family #2's door, because of the building architecture, happens to be 4 feet from my bedroom window. Gone are the days when I used to keep the windows open during the spring - because they get out there and stay out there all day and all night, doing nothing but shouting, smoking and cursing and who knows what else. These people don't know the meaning of "quiet". They have one volume level, loud. Obviously this makes it extremely stressful for me to live here, for me to sleep, for me to relax in the bath, or for me to get any work done at home (I run a non-profit from home, in addition to my regular full-time job).

Family #1 have pretty much learned that they have to play by the rules and adapt, and only once in a while do they cause trouble. Family #2 just doesn't seem to be interested in adapting; the mother in fact seems to be mad at everyone, all the time. I've had one confrontation with her, asking her to turn her music down, and that was all it took for me to not want to get into it with her again. They keep their front door open all day and all night, blasting music and shouting profanities at each other loudly. This is what I live with most days of the week. It really started to affect my work months ago, and I lose sleep often, sometimes so much that I'm not alert enough to make the long commute in to work, but I have finally reached the breaking point where I seriously cannot do this anymore. On the commute home, I start to feel more and more upset the closer I get to home, and I just pray that they're not out there by my door.

My landlords are so sick of dealing with them that they have gotten to where half the time they don't even come quieten them down when called. A few times my landlord has come out to tell them to be quiet, and ended up sitting down and having a laugh and a chit-chat instead. I even watched a police officer come to tell them to quieten down, and simply walk off with a smile and a wave when they pretended to be quiet.

I have decided to break my lease and move, finally. My health has started suffering from medical issues, and coming home to this every day, and listening to it all night, and all day on the weekends, has made me so mad that I'm just driving myself crazy and making myself sick, when this doesn't have to be.

I am wanting to know if I go in and tell my landlord the reason I'm moving, if I have a good enough case. I know that I can break the lease and move whether they like it or not; I just don't want to be sued into the ground for losses. Surely being driven insane by neighbors that won't abide by the lease terms, and realizing my landlords either can't or won't do anything to remedy the situation permanently, is a good enough reason for me to vacate. I am just scared that they will treat me like I'm the problem for vacating my lease, and penalize me for vacating the lease, claiming that nobody else has left, rather than the problem being the unruly tenant that's driven me away. Well, I suspect the reason that nobody else has left is that nobody else's bedroom window is 4 feet away from this family's front door.

I have read Arkansas Code about landlords and tenants but it just doesn't cover anything like this. This is an unusual situation, with the federal govt. involved and paying the several tenant's rents in a contract with the complex owners. I am just guessing that even if they wanted to evict them, they couldn't.

I just want to be prepared for whatever happens in a week or two when I give them notice about breaking my lease 6 months before it expires. And I'd like to have some ground to stand on if they take issue with my desire to leave. I'm so unhappy here. I used to be very, very happy here. You can't imagine a more idyllic setting, it used to wash all my stresses away at the end of the day just to be here. Now it just makes me physically ill, and upset that my home is now pretty much just a place I sleep at night, and desperately waiting for the day I can rent a Uhaul and get out of here.

I'm very sorry about the length of this post... I guess it at least shows how fed up I am with everything that's been happening. Thanks in advance for any advice.

Wow, you are in the thick of it. Unmotivated landlord, ineffective police. Hard to know where to turn.

Honestly I would hunker down for four and a half more months, if possible. Spend as little time there as possible. Say nothing to anyone. Move in the fifth month and take the one month hit. This is the least risky.

Breaking leases take documentation. Despite all the police activity you have seen so far, you would need to call the police every time the noise is excessive so the report was citing your actual apt address. Its clear the landlord won't do anything. You have to risk making a nuisence of yourself to the landlord, the police and an enemy of these people in order to get enough documentation for when you end up in court over breaking the lease. That is a tough call in my book.

If you can afford to lose the money, just leave after giving a short-to-the-point two week notice that is not open to discussion and let him come after you. He may have his hands so full, he won't. He isn't going to accept your breaking the lease. If you think you can amass enough evidence in two weeks to convince him, I think you are in for a surprise. Your landlord is motivated to do everything in his power to see that you don't leave "unpunished" since he has others like you and he doesn't need all of them suddenly leaving too. But if you leave quietly and no one else gets wind, he might not pursue you - it takes effort to do that and he doesn't seem to have it in him. This is however definitely risky since if he does come after you, you will lose unless you have enough real evidence.

Whenever I balance money against my mental health, I end up spending some money, like it or not. Can you see yourself moving in 4-1/2 months instead? Can you leave now and afford to be wrong later? Its really your call. If you choose to fight, then think how you are facing a judge who needs to see tangible evidence of the place being unfit to live in... police records, journals, photographs, complaint letters sent by registered mail etc.

Sadly most landlords are afraid to do too much, the ACLU and other groups are begging for chances to sue people over the "victims"; And I say "victims" not because I am not sorry for what happened but in normal ways, the government has not helped the majority of smaller problems, a tornado wipes out 30 homes, these people have no one paying their living expenses and so on.

Plus it has been months now, and people who want to make a better life have, what you are seeing were either the homeless or the welfare loafers that are now living higher on the hog and don't want to give up their free ride.

Personally I would sue the landlord for all the rent you have paid up to this point since they have lived there because of unsafe living conditions and a loss of peaceful use of your home.

And yes I would be calling the police for every issue and every problem, several times a night, I would video record all of the problems while they were happening as evidence.

And then I would talk to the landlord and tell him basically that if he does not allow you out of your lease, you will have to sue him for all of the mental anguish you have received.

Yes while some of the people where good people who used this to get a new start, we have learned ( while the medial won't show it of course) that they were glad to get alotof these people out of N.O. to live ( as long as they an still vote for local N.O. offices.

Hello can't:

I looked up Arkansas landlord/tenant law and the subchapters are listed below. Clearly marked is the chapter on how the LANDLORD can enforce the lease with his tenants, but nowhere is the chapter on how the TENANT can force the landlord to do anything!! That's a shame. I think Arkansas ought to join the United States.


>>>Subchapter 1. General Provisions.

Subchapter 2. Actions Against Tenants.

Subchapter 3. Security Deposits.

Subchapter 4. Self-Service Storage Facilities.<<<


In any case, your state law doesn't appear to give you any relief. However, in landlord/tenant law, there is a concept called “warrantee of habitability”. That means that, in the first instance, the landlord must provide a “habitable” premises. If they don't, then THEY are in violation. The term "habitable" of course, means different things to different people. Ultimately, if it comes down to it, all you have to do is convince a judge. In addition to that, there is another concept in the law called “quiet enjoyment”.

I suggest, that if your home has been rendered “un-inhabitable” because you no longer live in “quiet enjoyment”, then you have been “constructively evicted”. That's another legal term meaning that you aren't BREAKING your lease. Your landlord is, in effect, EVICTING you.

If you take the position I outlined above, you need to send written notice of your intent to vacate, citing your “constructive eviction”. If your landlord sues you for the balance of the lease, then all you can do is offer the above defense. Document everything you told us, and take plenty of pictures.

excon

Document your living situation. Tape record your neighbours. Do you smell drugs? Holes in the walls? Increased crime?

Afraid for you life and limb is easy justification to move. The nieghbourhood and environment has chaged and you are scared.