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sex offender

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sex offender

Postby shellbell » Sun Aug 17, 2008 9:21 pm

Hi,

I'm looking to break a lease with a minimum of hassle, and I need some help. I'm a single mom, and I recently signed a year long lease for an apartment in central NY. I gave them the first month's rent and security deposit, and a week later, got a move in date and picked up my keys.

Well, on the day my daughter and I were moving in, I found out that a registered sex offender was living behind us! I won't go into the details, but the offense was against a young girl the same age as my daughter, and it made my hair stand on end. We returned our boxes to the moving truck, I droped my keys off at the office, and told the manager we were out of there, never to return.

We never spent a single night there, and I never will. But the landlords want to hold me to the entire lease, although I'm willing to let them keep my security deposit. As a single mom, I don't have the resources to maintain two residences, and I cannot in good conscience let my daughter live next door to a child molester. All I want is to walk away (let them keep the $ they already have), without my credit being trashed. If I refuse to pay the rent, what could happen? I've never done that before in my life, but I'm at a loss.

Oh boy. How do I get out of this as gracefully as possible? Any ideas are welcome, although the landlords are not open to compromise.

Thanks!

Carla
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Postby TenantNet » Sun Aug 17, 2008 10:12 pm

Do you know if the LL knew about the offender before they rented the place to you? Did they know you had a child?
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Postby shellbell » Mon Aug 18, 2008 2:30 am

Thanks for the reply...

Yes, they knew I had a child, I'm not sure if they knew of the offender before they rented me the place. When I asked the LL about the sex offender she said she had just found out herself the day before. He's been living there since May 2008, but according to the LL they were unaware of his criminal background.

When I looked up the man in the NY sex offender database, it listed his (current) address and stated that it had been verified as of May 2008. Since this is now August, is it possible that it takes that long to be notified of an offender's presence?

I'm not sure whether to believe her or not, but it seems suspicious to me.
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