[cinderella-82]

My name is Vicky and I like in Rockford,IL. My husband and I rented an apartment in October of 2006 and signed a one year lease agreement. When we moved in there was a dead bird in the living room window (w/the window broken)and infested w/maggetts. The shower leaked,bathroom sink stayed clogged, and the kitchen sink leaked bad. We were informed that these things would be taken care of with in the first week. The only thing that was fixed was the living room window with the dead birds. The arpartment was very nasty. Dirt was in the carpet, trash, food,and old toys were in the kitchen cabinets and all over the floor. We were told that we would not be reimbursed for any carpet cleaning or shampooing that was done to the apartment. Then we found out a few weeks later when it was cold that the heat in the bedroom did not work and the landlord,her husband,maintenance lady, and lady from the rental office contiuously told it would be getting fixed. To this day it still has not been fixed, and it took them 10 months to fix the shower,bathroom sink, and kitchen sink. That was with us calling every week. We came home from work one day in May to meet a realitor at our door with a note from the landlord (no our landlord and the rental office didn't even call us) saying they were selling the house. We have heard that when they put the for sale sign in the yard that broke the lease. Is that true? Do you know with the condition that the apartment was in was anything that could have got us out of our lease? Our lease does state that there would be no loud noises or illegal drugs on the premisses and we did report to our landlord of these things that was going on with the tenants below us and that we were very unhappy of the situation and how they have handled things and we wanted out of the lease and they refused and did not do anything to correct the problems cause they lived out of town. So its like they really did not care.

[rockinmommy]

Hi, Vicky. I'm sorry you've had such a rough go of it with this place and these landlords.

First, the sale of the property... Unless you have some rare clause in your lease that I've never ever heard of, they are not breaking the lease by listing the property for sale. The obviously didn't handle how they've gone about doing it very well, but they are well within their rights to do so. Whoever buys the property is obligated to honor all leases, so unless you can negotiate a way out of it with the current or future landlord the lease stays in effect. When it comes time for showings they do have to give you notice. See what your lease states about that.

As far as all of the other stuff... do you have a written lease? In addition to what your lease states, or if you don't have a written one, I'd recommend looking at your state landlord/tenant laws. There's a link in the first post in this forum. What does the lease/law state about the condition the property must be kept in? What about requests for repairs? Do they "need" to be in writing? Did you make any requests in writing? From your description in your post it doesn't sound like you've created a paper trail that would show that you've repeatedly made requests that have been ignored.

My guess is at this point, like you stated, they really don't care. They want you there because at this point they want to show a low vacancy rate to potential buyers. They probably also want to show low expenses, so the less they spend on repairs, the better the numbers look to potential buyers.

I'm sorry you had this experience. BAD landlords like this drive me crazy. It gives landlords in general a bad name. Those of us who take care of our property and our tenants are out there!! I hope you'll find a good one next time.