[erfleming]

I have a few questions to ask. I moved into an apartment with my boyfriend and when moving in there were things that I wanted fixed that I have yet to get fixed. The toilet sits crooked and overflows at the drop of a hat. I told the office ladies that I wanted to have a new toilet put in and I wanted it to be straight. 3 months later... same old crappy toilet!! Then, I started to get roaches in my apartment. I woke up one day and one had decided to crawl into bed between me and my boyfriend. Not only do we have roaches, but we also have rolly pollies, black ants, spiders, and lady bugs. I do not find this a livable environment because I absolutely hate bugs. I am currently three months pregnant, so I am not able to go to the store and just pick up any kind of pesticide to prevent these bugs from coming in. I was told that the bugman had come to my apartment and sprayed along the outside. Well if that was the case, these bugs are immune to any pesticides. Also, my front room windows leak water in every time it rains. I will go over to the window sill and there will be standing water on the sill and on the floor from a heavy rainfall. We have also notified the office staff of this, and still no sign of maintence men fixing this for us. I am sure if the windows have holes or cracks in the sides of them, then that could be a good route for bugs to take to get into our apartment. And just recently we have tried to use the air conditioning, which is something that determines our rent price I am sure, and of course no cool air came out of any of the vents. This is our most recent complaint, and there is no obvious maintence men coming to the hurry of this complaint either. I am wondering if there is any way that I could file for "constructive eviction". I have talked to an actual leasing agent and she told me to move all of my things out and then tell my landlord that I am suing him for constructive eviction unless I am able to just get out of my lease and get my security deposit returned in full. I am not wanting to do all of this to find out that I do not actually have a "constructive eviction" case here. Please help me with some advise as to if I would be able to do this or not. I am stumped all to heck.

[excon]

Hello erf:

Here's the question, and you'll have to make the determination yourself. They key word, is "habitable".

You used the word hell, and I'm sure it is. But, hell is habitable. I know, because they keep telling me I'm going there. But, I digress….

When you make that determination, please keep in mind that we're not talking about your comfort here. IF you determine that your apartment CANNOT be lived in by ANYONE, and you think you can convince a judge of that fact, then go for it.

The way you would prove a case like that is to provide letters that show you demanded work to be done, and pictures to show that it wasn't. It would be my guess that you don't have anything in writing. If so, I don't think you would win a constructive eviction case.

Or, maybe you do have things in writing. Or maybe this would be a good time to start.

excon

[erfleming]

In reply to excon, I actually do have things in writing. I actually have kept the letters that I have given to the ladies in the office of the current repairs that I am in desperate need of getting fixed. I actually have every phone record of when I even called the office to make a noise complaint on my neighbors or even when I have had to call the police for the noise.

[excon]

Hello again, erf:

I got your message. Call the moving van...

excon

[brandy681]

Don't stay in an apartment like that. We lived in an apartment like that and delt with so many problems and some in which we fixed ourselves. The last straw was no air and them refusing to fix it because they claimed nothing was wrong. After this I still stayed and bought a window unit AC for the apartment which cost over $200 and they said that we had to take them out but we could put up ceiling fans instead. The thermostat was on 90 and they saw this but did nothing to fix it. At first the maintenace man never came and eventually when he did he said that it was low on freon and he filled up, we called back immediately and was told to give it more time to cool and it still did not cool. The same maintenance man came but it took 2 months later and he said the same thing that he added freon again. I guess he forgot that he came and said that he did this already. Finally the third time, the same thing happened and the same words. We cussed them out and demanded a new AC, which ours was so old and they said they would fix it but gave me the run around because they never did and the maintenace guy (There is only 1) made up the same excuses every time. He is a lazy sorry butt, he would be at my unit for 3-5 minutes and say it was fixed. Other people had complained as well! I kept waiting for this man to get fired but it never happened, I guess the management liked that he was saving them money not finxing anything! You can complain all that you want to but you need to pack up an leave, a lot of apartments are like this so do your homework first and inspect the apartment throughouly before moving in because breaking a lease can cost a lot of money and most of the time no matter what evidence you have the courts will rule against you. The bug problem you should have noticed within a few days after moving in and since you were a NEW tenant this should have been fixed immediately or you could have threatened them better and moved out asap but now since you have stayed I am not sure.

[Babyface77]

If you are going to do somethinglegal about it ( which I would ) take pictures, as much evidence as you can...