Barking dog driving out of our home

By Skye

My boyfriend has rented the same apartment for 6 years, and I moved in 2.5 years ago.  It’s the upper unit of a 100 year old house that has been converted to a duplex.  The house has not been very well maintained and has several challenges, most notably of which is the fact that you can hear EVERYTHING that goes on downstairs.  Up until now we’ve mostly been able to work things out with the downstairs tenants (in the last 6 years there have been 4 or 5), but the newest tenant has a small dog that barks intermittently the entire time the owner is out (as I’m writing this, we’ve been listening to him bark almost non-stop for the last hour), as well as early in the morning.  Due to the amount of sound carrying up to our unit and the high-pitched nature of the bark, the dog might as well be barking two feet from us.

After a week and a half of non-stop barking, it’s gotten to the point where we’ve decided to move.  We’re just tired of dealing with all of the noise from downstairs, and this is the straw that broke the camel’s back.   Unfortunately, we’re past the deadline for giving notice, so according to the lease we’re responsible for next month’s rent.  What I’m wondering is, since we’re basically being driven out of our home by a neurotic dog, do we have any rights about getting out of paying the rent for the next month?  Thanks for any help!

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