That is a bad for you. I would first say to keep your child safe from backyard of the house as it has dangerous dropping run down along with filthy waters. so it can catch him some flu or any viral disease or some kind of it illness.

It’s also your problem of not checking the property thoroughly before renting the apartment, even and anyhow is the owners behaviour because you are paying the rent to him, so you have all rights to check the apartment before renting.. nevertheless if any problem occured by gone is by gone.. now you can break the lease agreement by having words with your house owner and his approval, that he can allow you for the early termination. You and landlord can settle for new tenant and handover to new tenant the rental functions. or else agree to a settlement amount that will be less expensive than the balance of the lease amount.

Do not consider this as a legal advice.. I can help you with my personal knowledge and personal opinion.
Please let me know any information needed.

Nicole,

First, congrats on getting married. Hope you’re still able to get your wedding worked out.

Breaking a lease can have some penalties as you have mentioned. Here, it appears that the right hand (management office) and left hand (billing department) have no idea what each other is doing. You did stop in and make multiple efforts to resolve the early termination fee, but because the “Left Hand” (management office) failed to communicate this to the “right hand” (billing office) you got stuck in the middle.

The biggest problem is that the billing office had most likely acted within their legal rights. As a landlord I can send any money that is past due to collections. I don’t do it too often, but I can. The only real requirement I have to have is what is called a proof of debt. In your case the billing office would have provided your lease agreement as a proof of debt showing that if the lease was ended early that you would owe one months rent. From there, the collection agency would have been required to comply with the Fair Debt Collection Act that requires then to give you some type of notice or chance to bring the bill current before hitting your credit report.

The collection agency and or billing office can send statements to your old apartment address as it would or should forward to your current address. So, legally if they sent the notice to your old place and you forgot to forward your mail, it would still hold up in court.

I’m not sure what to tell you… other than the fact that you have a signed lease that shows you would be required to pay the early termination fee and didn’t. The only way you would be able to get out of this would be if you could get someone in the management office to write you a statement stating that they had told you that you did not have to pay the fee. I don’t think you will be able to get anyone to risk their job for you… so good luck.

I think you’re stuck. Not sure you have many options here. I’ll follow this post to see what others come up with.

Breaking a lease is more difficult than one would think. Having bed bugs is a major issue and would most likely justify the termination. However, it may require some type of legal assistance.

What ever you do, DON’T MOVE IN!!! Having bedbugs can destroy your belongings as they will lay eggs in dressers, beds, etc

You should probably file a complaint. This will get you an RPA Agent that will help you get out of your lease… it will set you back $35 bucks.. but its much less than getting stuck in a bedbug infested apartment!!