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Apartment Lease early move-out

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asoverall

Junior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Texas

Our apartment has the smell of cigarette smoke. The smell is sometimes stronger than others, and appears to be coming from the bathroom vent. The smell is strongest in the master bath and bedroom. If we leave the vent on all the time, it helps but still smells.

My wife has chronic migraines to the point of being on Social Security disability. The cigarette smell makes her condition worse. I notified the apartment staff in person on 10/31 regarding the problem. I did not receive any response, and wrote a letter and hand delivered it to the apartment office on 11/7. As no response was received I sent an email with a scanned attachment of the letter on 11/17. I finally spoke with the apartment manager by phone on 11/19, and received a letter.

The only remedy that the management has taken is to ask the neighbors not to smoke in their apartments, and offer to do an "Ozone treatment". The ozone treatment might help, but as the smoke smell comes from the air vent it is bound to return. In order to do the ozone treatment, we have to make arangements to be away for 24 hours following treatment.

As my wife in unable to continue with the smoke smell, we have made other arrangements for a place to live. The apartment manager is unwilling to provide any leeway on our lease. We knew in advance of moving in that we would most likely move in the coming months and got a seven month lease (shortest we could find at a reasonable price).

We have an apartment lease on Texas Apartment Association forms. Does anyone have any advice that can help us with our lease? Thank you for your help!
 


sandyclaus

Senior Member
And thus, a great argument for why you need to check out the apt and neighbors before you move in.

There are no leases I know of that will let you out early without penalty for something like smoking neighbors. If, however, it poses a serious health hazard (such as in what you claim), the LL is obligated to mitigate the hazard, which is what they are offering to do.
 

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