Breaking the lease

By Tenant

I moved into my first apartment with my girlfriend a few months ago here in Dayton, Ohio. Since we’ve moved in, we have had nothing but problems. Our dishwasher did not work and we had to hand wash everything for nearly 3 months until they finally got us a new one. Mold has grown on our pantry walls and has been cleaned out twice now. It was bad enough the second time to cause the wood trim to pop off the walls. The people that live above us are loud all the time. Every footstep they take can be heard, they constantly stomp around all the time, extremely loud bangs are heard everyday, the little kid can be heard screaming, and the adults can even be heard talking. Within the last month, the hot water heater seems to be going out too. We have asked about just moving into a different apartment somewhere within the same community but were told that we could not do that. I have talked to the boss of my community manager on the phone. She claimed the mold problem had been fixed by maintenance, but I don’t see how it could have been since all he did was simply wipe it off. Drywall was never cut out. She told me the noise was "part of apartment living". Basically, she told me that she was not going to do anything for me. I went to the office today to find out the cost of breaking our lease and it was just over $6000. At this point, we both just want to get out of this apartment and I want to know where we should go from here. Do we have a right to break the lease and move out? Should I be looking into getting a lawyer?

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