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?
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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