breaking lease greedy landlord

By Kathy Liu

I moved into a duplex/townhouse on October 18th, 2009. The place seemed nice at first but by around December 09 or January of 2010 there was a near break in through the back door. Luckily we had 2 locks. We were then told by our neighbor that we live next to a half-way house which the landlord did not mention. I emailed/called her about this and she said "well, since they just got out they shouldn’t be doing anything illegal." They shouldn’t but that doesn’t mean they won’t. I then asked her to install a security alarm for the back door and she asked me to pay for this so I refused. Over the course of the 11 and 1/2 months we have had several issues that she either failed to fix to delayed to fix. The owner has two units and another neighbor/owner has his 2 units. We were recently told by the other owner that between us and our next door neighbor (who is also renting under the same owner as us) we have been paying for his water bill for a whole year. Around the end of August our landlord has asked us for a 30 day notice and kept on pressuring/demanding us to give her the move out date. This which was really stressful to us because this was almost 2 months before we have to move out, the move out date is Oct 17, 2010 and we were still deciding whether we can find another place or not. She also demanded more rent for the new lease. In the end we told her we would be moving out. I politely asked her if we can move out by the end of Sept and not pay for the 17 days of October since we will be on vacation for the first 2 weeks of October and won’t be residing in the place we are renting form her. We offered our security deposit wich was the same amount as the 17 days of October ($400) She refused but then emailed me to turn in the keys as early as possible (9/21/2010) which means she would double dip. We even had the carpet professionally cleaned for the place in hopes that she would give us our security deposit if we give her the rent for Oct but we don’t think she would give us the security deposit because of how greedy she is. When my boyfriend called her yesterday (9/26/10) to talk about this situation she asked him why we haven’t sent out the check for Oct’s rent. In my opinion the rent is due on the 1st of the month and not the end of the previous month. We have been curteous enough to send it in a week early for the past 11 and 1/2 months. And since this situation isn’t settled we can’t send her money. She told my boyfriend that she offered me the early move out as long as I returned the keys but that was a lie. She hasn’t called me about this. She did email me that the rent for Oct is $400 and that she wanted me to turn in the keys as early as possible so she can show other possible tenants (and this email was from 9/21/10). We have already moved out and cleaned the place and gave her the notice that we have moved out but can we not pay the $400 for the 17 days of Oct?  

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