What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? KY
We rented a duplex for nearly 3 years. Our landlord is a lawyer and slumlord, but we lived with it since the rent was cheap and the neighborhood was nice. We had a one year lease which went to a month to month lease after the year.
The other side of the duplex was initially occupied by a ncie single woman and then sat empty for over a year. Eventually he traded services with a rental management company who rented the other side of the duplex out.
Once the new tenant moved in, things went downhill quickly. On the first day they moved in, a desk was stolen from our side of the shared garage. They chain smoked and it made our side of the home smell strongly of smoke. I have asthma and 2 young children, so this was a problem. We tried calling our landlord several times but were unable to reach him. 3 weeks later, the new neighbor told us that someone walked into his home and stole $900 cash. He refused to call the police, citing that he did leave the door open. We did call the police who monitored the neighborhood for a few days and again called the landlord who did not return our phone call. This same neighbor also told us he had warrants out for his arrest and moved to escape harassment.
At this point we did not feel safe and started looking for a new home. We found a place and were going to try and give notice. Then we started to smell something suspicious next door which through research and describing to the police is suspected to be crack. They also were in and out of the
house alot and acted suspiciously.
We cleaned the house and left it in good condition, the rent was paid for our final month. We tried again to reach our landlord to let him know what was going on and finally left a message stating that we were moving out at the end of the month.
The landlord now wants another month's rent since he did not have 30 days written notice. I feel that given the situation and problems, that this in unreasonable. He is threatening us with legal action if we do not pay the rent. We felt that our safety was in question and worried about criminal activity and the environmental hazard of exposing my young children to crack cocaine which was strong enough to be smelled on our side of the home.
My biggest regret is not sending written notice of what happened and instead trying to reach the landlord by phone. We do have phone records showing that we tried several times to contact him and did write a note documenting these events to which we got a response to the tune of, oh well you still owe a month's rent.
Should we just make small payments of the rent or allow this to go to court? I am not in a position to pay the whole months rent at once and feel like I should not have to pay it after the stress and danger our family was placed in. Could we sue for negligence on his part? I feel that he is bullying us since he is a lawyer.
We rented a duplex for nearly 3 years. Our landlord is a lawyer and slumlord, but we lived with it since the rent was cheap and the neighborhood was nice. We had a one year lease which went to a month to month lease after the year.
The other side of the duplex was initially occupied by a ncie single woman and then sat empty for over a year. Eventually he traded services with a rental management company who rented the other side of the duplex out.
Once the new tenant moved in, things went downhill quickly. On the first day they moved in, a desk was stolen from our side of the shared garage. They chain smoked and it made our side of the home smell strongly of smoke. I have asthma and 2 young children, so this was a problem. We tried calling our landlord several times but were unable to reach him. 3 weeks later, the new neighbor told us that someone walked into his home and stole $900 cash. He refused to call the police, citing that he did leave the door open. We did call the police who monitored the neighborhood for a few days and again called the landlord who did not return our phone call. This same neighbor also told us he had warrants out for his arrest and moved to escape harassment.
At this point we did not feel safe and started looking for a new home. We found a place and were going to try and give notice. Then we started to smell something suspicious next door which through research and describing to the police is suspected to be crack. They also were in and out of the
house alot and acted suspiciously.
We cleaned the house and left it in good condition, the rent was paid for our final month. We tried again to reach our landlord to let him know what was going on and finally left a message stating that we were moving out at the end of the month.
The landlord now wants another month's rent since he did not have 30 days written notice. I feel that given the situation and problems, that this in unreasonable. He is threatening us with legal action if we do not pay the rent. We felt that our safety was in question and worried about criminal activity and the environmental hazard of exposing my young children to crack cocaine which was strong enough to be smelled on our side of the home.
My biggest regret is not sending written notice of what happened and instead trying to reach the landlord by phone. We do have phone records showing that we tried several times to contact him and did write a note documenting these events to which we got a response to the tune of, oh well you still owe a month's rent.
Should we just make small payments of the rent or allow this to go to court? I am not in a position to pay the whole months rent at once and feel like I should not have to pay it after the stress and danger our family was placed in. Could we sue for negligence on his part? I feel that he is bullying us since he is a lawyer.
