Tennant right to break lease to to bed bug infestation

By Brenda

I recently vacated a unit that had a severe bed bug problem, the management company made a half hearted effort to rid us of of this problem. I understand this is a BLOG but in order to answer my questions you will need the whole story.

Lets back track,  moved in April 1, 2011 (1) year lease.

Viewed the unit it appeared to have a semblence of clean, I signed the lease and  moved in.Within a few weeks we find roaches, I contact management tell them I want an exterminator immeditely or I would would be terminating my lease and contact an attorney . I found that the cleaning had been half hearted and found reminance of the previous tennant in places that should be CLEAN before re-renting.  I dilligently set about removing the old tennant and was told they would be coming up to spray as soon as they could post the building. Several days later there is no sign of the exterminator. I contact the mgmnt company to find out the exterminator had posted and sprayed the wrong property. This appointment was rescheduled, the property was posted and I sat for the entire day waiting for the exterminator. they finally showed up and srayed, I was told if we saw any more to call and they would come and spray again, well the bugs dissapeared for a week or so then came back in full force bring all of their relatives with them. I later found that they were remodling the unit below me and had torn out the dry wall thus stirring up the bugs. My son looked through the lower unit window and saw that there were so many bugs that they were crawling on the window, there were barrels of trash and debri including food containers.
 Roaches dont come out in the day light UNLESS there are thousands of them.

Anyway, one day we get a notice on the door that they are spraying for bed bugs I FREAKED. we called the management companay and were assured that this was only preventive and that no actual bugs had been found, THIS WAS A BIG FAT LIE. I found out that a unit on the lower floor (not the one with the roaches ) was infested and had been for months. The tennant told me that they had requested an exterminator several time and the only thing they would do was spray around the perimeter of the unit, this was  not solving the problem. everytime they would spray one unit the bugs would pack up and move to another, not to mention being transported to and from the onsite laundry facilities. Upon hearing this I took it upon myself to purchase a home exterrmination product  for bed bugs. This also did not help. I notified management that I had bombed the unit and still had bugs.

During this time one of my room mates is being eaten alive by this nasty little invaders, we report this to the mgmnt company were are told they will spray again we wait for them to post the building again nothing, we call again they post the building, by this time I am becoming very frusterated so I take time off from work the day before take every item we own for (3) people to the laundry mat wash everything in hot water and seal it all in bags $50.00 later.  we vacume EVERYTHING in the unit and move everything out from the walls, NO ONE SHOWS UP. we call the same day and are told they came but no-one answered the door. This continued until the middle of March 2012. Keep in mind we arent even able to have family over  or visit anyone during the entire years because of the risk of spreading these parisites to other homes. Imagine having to tell your mother you can’t visit her nor can she visit you because you have bed bugs.

they eventually rent this lower unit and by December we find that we have a crazy person living below us, He has moved from another unit in the building into a more updated unit with higher rent and in a few months finds he cant pay his bills they set to evict except the post his eviction notice on my door, well I again notify them of their incompitence and he is posted . well this starts a three day tirade of knocking holes in walls and rantings that are unrepeatable. eventually another tennant contacts the athoritites, he think we called so he starts screaming that four letter word over and over all day every day he waits till he hears us in the bathroom then screams threats and obsenties through the vent. Management is notified of this and nothing happens. I tried to resolve this myself by speaking with this man during a short time of coherance. To no avail he then starts making direct threats. the screaming and yelling daily for the entire  months. We finally call the police on him christmas eve and request he be hospitalized instead of arrested. The police agreed, 3 days later it all starts again. Management still does nothing. this man is aressted several times for the same thing and managements says they can do nothing.

Anyway by the month of March we have only one month left on our lease, we are at our witts end and start looking for another unit to rent at the end of our lease we find one that is clean and bug free but we must move in immediately or lose it.  Now we CLEAN the unit top to bottom we steam clean every surface including the walls, we repair all picture holes dings ect so that the unit is RENT READY when we return the keys. Granted we did not give a full thirty day notice and left one month unpaid, however we were under the understanding that the person who lived in the bug infested unit below was going to move into our unit so I was prepared to pay the balance for April rent and forfeit my $400 deposit. With in 30 days we recieve a notice that we are being charged $1050.00 for two months rent minus my deposit and being charged $80.00 to replace a shelving unit that we were specifically to we could take down and told during the walk through that we did not need to put back up. Great care was taking when this unit was taken down all parts were stored and placed back in the closet before we left. 

Now my question is, do I have a leagal right t dispute these charges and do you think a judge will rule in my favor?

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