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Enough Cause to Break a Lease?

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MMA616

New member
I'm in Illinois and I live in a horrible apartment. We've toughed it out for a year and a half (with half a year to go on our lease) because it's cheap, but we've finally hit the last straw. We have freaking bed bugs in the apartment! My question is, can we break a lease without penalty based on quality of living even if the landlords have fixed or attempted to fix the problems?

We had a fly infestation when we first moved in, which they called an exterminator for within the week and resolved the issue.

Then we have neighbors who smoke weed and cigarettes and the smell permeates every inch of our unit. We complained via anonymous note to management and nothing happened.

Our complex is made up of 4 apartment groupings with a common entry for each of these groupings. That common entry door lock has been broken (where you can just push and it will open without a key) since shortly after we moved in a year and a half ago (broken by our neighbors when they moved in). We had maintenance "fix" it once, which did absolutely nothing. But management walks in and out of that door every month or so when they post announcements on our doors and they haven't bothered to notice the knob is literally hanging straight down.

The walls have dents, scrapes, and paint color transfers from when the neighbors moved in and it hasn't been fixed or painted over in this year and a half.

Every time we shower (even though we keep them short, use the exhaust fan, and try not to let them get too hot), we get orange mineral deposits growing on the walls and ceiling.

Speaking of the exhaust fan, our upstairs neighbors flooded their toilet and, thus, our apartment through this fan. Maintenance was called on the emergency line around 4 am, they didn't bother to show up and clean until 12 pm. All the single worker did was wipe down the walls and floor with paper towels, vacuum the carpet, and bleach clean the interior of the toilet. Nothing was sanitized, he missed spots on the walls, and he didn't even touch the exhaust fan (I cleaned the grate myself out of desperation, but I think there's still chunks inside the fan).

There is a spot over the tub/shower that looks like a large wet/mold spot that got painted over. We didn't notice it until after we moved in and we're just hoping it's dead since it's painted over.

None of the baseboards in the entire apartment are fully adhered to the walls (probably because there are so many layers of paint that nothing can stick any more). We have flakes of paint that come off every time we open and close doors, they stick shut because of the layers, and the hardware for the lock has had to be moved out to still function with the increased thickness.

I truly don't think the apartment has enough outlets to meet Code. There is one outlet per wall in every room (and some walls don't have any). There is not enough power going to the outlets either because if you run the dishwasher and the coffee pot at the same time, you run the risk of blowing the fuse for the entire kitchen.

Taking all of that into consideration, do we really have to prove that management tried to fix everything or is there some type of law where if there's enough stuff that's wrong, you can just count it all against them and break the lease? If we can break or sue, how do we do that if we're in a tight spot financially, but can't qualify for free legal aid?
 
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MMA616

New member
I should clarify, we are finding a single bedbug every week or so on the ceiling and nowhere else, which is leading us to believe that they are migrating from our neighbors.
 

FarmerJ

Senior Member
If management has not addressed your concerns in the past then call your city building inspections desk ! BTW stop calling management and if your going to contact them use written on paper real letters sent via confirmed mail delivery or certificate of mailing ( they don't have to sign for those and IF by chance they decided to try to claim in court they didn't get letters from you , you will get to show the judge your receipt (s) and llok like a fool to the judge ) doing written on real paper letters No texting, NO emails either but on real paper sent with a way that shows you did indeed put mail into UPSP system to them gives you a paper trail , which carries far more weight in a court than a he said she said nonsense that can happen with other methods of communicating such as phone calls or text.
 

MMA616

New member
If management has not addressed your concerns in the past then call your city building inspections desk ! BTW stop calling management and if your going to contact them use written on paper real letters sent via confirmed mail delivery or certificate of mailing ( they don't have to sign for those and IF by chance they decided to try to claim in court they didn't get letters from you , you will get to show the judge your receipt (s) and llok like a fool to the judge ) doing written on real paper letters No texting, NO emails either but on real paper sent with a way that shows you did indeed put mail into UPSP system to them gives you a paper trail , which carries far more weight in a court than a he said she said nonsense that can happen with other methods of communicating such as phone calls or text.
The office building is literally right next door to my building. And the only way I can get a response from them is if I go there in person to complain. Nobody picks up the phone, they don't have an email address, and they don't have a website.
 

FarmerJ

Senior Member
Well you have seen how far you get showing up in person , Use written on real paper letters from now on sent in a way that gives you a receipt certificate of mailing, confirmed mail etc and keep a copy stapled to your receipts for your paper trail proofs .
 

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