No signed lease, landlord threatened to evict us, and now is saying he is keeping security deposit even if we give notice?

By Alyssa

My boyfriend and I both were relocated to work in another city, so we found an apartment and moved in. We have had issue after issue.

We were promised upon the apartment tour that the apartment to the right of us would be vacant, save the actual owners occasional trips, for the duration of our lease.
Two months in, a miserable woman moved in beside us. She has never asked us to be quiet, but has apparently called the landlord numerous times, to the point he threatened to evict us for noise complaints. He has not checked back with us, but today he once again said he still recieves calls.

Secondly, we never recieved our lease agreement. I emailed the landlord and got no response, no lease, over and over again. We have never SEEN a lease, nor have we ever signed a lease. Are we still bound into a lease if this is the case?

Upon receiving this threat of unfounded eviction, we decided maybe it was time to buy a house. Since then we placed an offer on a home and the apartment has had numerous issues. The land lord never answers our calls, responds to texts, or emails. This week a drain was clogged under our apartment and everytime anyone in the complex used water it flooded our kitchen with kitchen waste water. YUCK.

Finally it is fixed, and they are stating we are breaking the lease and they will be keeping our security deposit. Furthermore, they hinted at forcing us to pay for the repairs to the plumbing. (Supposedly WE put a plastic bag down a drain. Never mind that these apartments are 70 years old and were section 8, nor that other tenants have had the exact same problems and were not forced to pay for repairs.)

So I suppose the issue is, we have an inhabitable apartment (AC has broken over and over, no water for days, etc etc), have been threatened to be evicted, have no written lease, and are now having our land lords threaten to charge us for plumbing repairs and attempting to keep our deposit. Is this legal?

Any advice?

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Holy Cow, we couldn't find any other related post. Sorry. :(