I thought VA was for lovers not thieves

[Natasha1076]

What is the name of your state? Virginia

My aunt recently moved to Virginia from Chicago, IL. She moved up the road from me in a very nice suburban neighborhood. She moved in her apartment on Saturday, August 25th. Here it is now September 8th and she has had 3 incidences where she had to involve the police.
1. During the day, she and her daughters went out and upon their arrival back noticed someone tried to break into the apartment through a window. She informed the rental office's manager who disregared her claims, the manager equated it to "the wind".
2. She lives on the 1st floor, one evening someone broke into her storage closet and stole 4 boxes. The rental office had noted before this incident they were going to put a lock on the closet. The hadn't and as of today still haven't.
3. She awoke to use the bathroom in the middle of the night and when she got back to her bed she saw a shadow outside of her window. When she pulled up the shade the person ran off. She again called the police (who patronized her) but eventually sent a patrol car to canvas the area....of course the person was not around by then.

CAN SHE GET OUT OF HER LEASE??? And under what legal terms will this be acceptable.

Please help she is a single parent with 2 teenage daughters and they are all living in fear.

 

[BL]

How many police reports have been noted ?

And what you thought ? There are crimes all over , in every State .

Maybe She should get a Gun , in case someone actually half enters .

 

[Natasha1076]

I realize that there is crime everywhere. I just wanted to know if she had any options to get out of her lease. She has 2 teenage daughters and they don't need to live in that environment.

How many police reports have been noted ?

And what you thought ? There are crimes all over , in every State .

Maybe She should get a Gun , in case someone actually half enters .

 

[weenor]

I realize that there is crime everywhere. I just wanted to know if she had any options to get out of her lease. She has 2 teenage daughters and they don't need to live in that environment.

Not unless her lease says so...

 

[Who's Liable?]

I realize that there is crime everywhere. I just wanted to know if she had any options to get out of her lease. She has 2 teenage daughters and they don't need to live in that environment.

No, it is not a legal reason to break a lease. She or you should have done a neighborhood crime analysis, free from most police departments, before the lease was signed. Either way, NO neighborhood is safe from crime no matter where you are.

As for the locked closet, if your grand can prove that she has been notifying the complex of the need to provide a lock on the door of the storage, and they failed to do so in a tmiely manner, she can sue them for the amount lost. Again, she would need to PROVE she notified the managment, calling and asking is NOT sufficient.

 

[thepizzaguy]

No, it is not a legal reason to break a lease. She or you should have done a neighborhood crime analysis, free from most police departments, before the lease was signed. Either way, NO neighborhood is safe from crime no matter where you are.

As for the locked closet, if your grand can prove that she has been notifying the complex of the need to provide a lock on the door of the storage, and they failed to do so in a tmiely manner, she can sue them for the amount lost. Again, she would need to PROVE she notified the managment, calling and asking is NOT sufficient.

You don't know if it is a legal reason to break her lease unless you have seen the lease.

To the OP read the lease from begining to end and see what it says. You would be amazed at all the angles there are in getting out of a lease.

If you want to get creative you can scan it and post a link to it and folks around here will read it and probably reply.

Noone can give you advice without actually seeing the lease

 

[thepizzaguy]

Here is an interesting link for you to investigate. It will take some time to go through, but then this is a self help type of site.

http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+TOC55000000013000020000000

Good luck

 

[Donewrong]

I know on the Texas Apartment Assocation standard lease there is something that addresses this, so I would definitely look into it further.

I am not an attorney. Your grandmother's situation sounds familiar, though. There was who I believe to be maintenance men coming into my house at night and snooping around while I was asleep. I became obsessive about double-locking the doors, which I did not always do, because I would let my cat out and then back in. He then unlocked my window from the inside one day, so he could still come in at night. Two different sets of policemen came to my house. The first set didn't take me seriously at all. The next set looked into it, but failed to discover the window screen sitting on the ground outside my unit. They just questioned me on how someone could get into my double-locked doors. He was wearing all black, one time, including a ski mask, and another time wearing all tan with a tan ski mask. I could see his eyes and I knew it was the maintenance man.

The first time I caught him in the house, the message that was reported to the manager was that I left my ground floor balcony door open and someone came in my door and left (that was NOT what I told them). She never returned my call. The second time, she said her maintenance men would not risk their job to do something like that.

Neighbors reported seeing a man looking through my window blinds at night (if one gets close up to blinds that are flipped down towards the outside, you can see inside). My manager argued with me on this. Try it sometime...

Also, neighbors would see someone open my door, let my cat in my apartment, then close the door and walk away.

Thankfully, I my lease was up by the time I realized it wasn't just my imagination that I wasn't always alone in my house.

I really hope you are able to get your Grandmother away from there - not all places are like that. In fact, when I first met my now husband, his truck had been broken into 3!!! times and then another time, someone put a puppy in the bed of his truck one night and the cops and animal control were called and the apartment manager was banging on his apartment. He had spent the night with me and was not home. There ARE areas that are worse than others.

I've lived in 3 other apartment complexes and never had problems like that.