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Breaking my lease, looking for advice

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Breaking my lease, looking for advice

Postby mudkipper » Thu Dec 10, 2009 1:57 pm

Hi all, I've been dealing with the following problem for the better half of a year now and have been doing all I can to try to resolve this. I'm hoping to get a few opinions from others if they have them. I apologize for the length of this, but I want to be sure I'm telling the whole story as best I can.

In February 2009 my fiance and I moved into an apartment in Buffalo, NY. The place itself looked well-kept and clean, and at the time the landlord seemed like a nice enough guy. We moved in and all was well, for a while. The upstairs neighbors were a group of college kids who had a tendency to be loud at night, but we worked it out with them and crossed our fingers that they'd leave for the summer and we'd get someone quieter.

They moved out suddenly in June, and after a weekend of constant hammering and renovation noise from above, the apartment was filled again. After a few weeks, it became apparent that these people were far louder than the previous neighbors. We waited it out for a month or so, hoping that they were just getting settled and things would quiet down soon.

In July, things hadn't gotten better. They had, in fact, gotten worse. Now that they seemed to have settled in, the neighbors began a cycle of going out, coming in at anywhere between midnight and 5 AM, and stomping excessively loudly. I know it's not my place to tell someone what they can and can't do in their own apartment, but there's a very clear difference between someone walking and going about regular business and stomping/pounding on the floors and walls, especially in the middle of the night when most of the people in the building are asleep. At the time, we were planning our wedding in August, and were looking forward to the honeymoon if only to get a little peace and quiet at night. We spoke to the manager one day when we caught him working outside, and mentioned the problems we'd been having with noise. He assured us not to knock on the ceiling or do anything else, but to call him if the problems continued. We said okay, shrugged our shoulders, and went on with our lives.

July passed, and we were happily married and went on our honeymoon for the first half of August. So after two and a half weeks of fantastic peace and quiet all night long, it was pretty terrible to come back to the all-night party going on above our apartment. We were frustrated, and began what would become an endless string of monthly-or-so calls to the manager, as he had asked for in July. However, he developed a tendency to simply not answer his phone and not return phonecalls.

Time passes, and the problem continues. The few times we are able to actually speak to the manager, he tells us he will talk to the people upstairs. We are frustrated, because no change ever arises. In September, we begin the process of thinking about moving and finding a new apartment, since our lease will end in January. We find a small house to rent, which will be perfect with no loud neighbors. It's brand new, so no likelihood of problems with the building itself, either. We apply and are accepted, which is great. In the meantime, we plan to just stick it out and deal with the noise.

As we move into October and November, the problem escalates. There is constant partying and coming and going upstairs, as well as very deliberate stomping above our bedroom. In each room of the apartment there is a ceiling fan with glass lamps. In our bedroom, we had to remove the lightbulbs from this lamp in order to help dampen the sound from upstairs (it made a constant rattling/dinging, which was worse with the bulbs in. It still makes noise with them removed, but slightly less so.) as well as stop using the fan itself, which makes a horrible, very loud humming when there is stomping going on upstairs and wakes us up all night instead of keeping the room cool like it's supposed to. This is frustrating, because now we're losing use of some of the features we liked about the apartment and are paying for.

In early November, the situation escalates to what we thought was a peak. In all these months, we've been losing sleep all night due to the behavior of the neighbors upstairs. We are irritable and tired most of the time. I find myself taking Tylenol PM every night just to be sure that I sleep through the ruckus, which can't really be healthy, but I'm so tired and frustrated that I don't know what else to do. We attempt talking to the manager again, saying that the situation has really not resolved and we are simply calling him as he asked us to. He does not answer, and does not reply to our messages. We left a written note in with the November rent check asking for someone in the office to please call us regarding the issue. No one calls. After a particularly loud night of yelling and stomping upstairs at 1 AM, I phone the police, who stop by, but the neighbors won't open the door and pretend not to be home. After the police leave, they go back to their antics. A few days later, the manager finally calls back, saying that he's "sick of this," and that "we should just talk to him about these problems" and he's "tired of the constant phonecalls." We are perplexed. We have tried talking to him. We have called the police. We have even attempted to talk to the neighbors ourselves, to no avail. Neither of us can make heads or tails of what he wants by this message. My husband calls him back, and they appear to come to an agreement, with the landlord saying that he will talk to them yet again, and us agreeing, although gritting our teeth. As we expect, nothing is done, but now there are retaliatory behaviors from the upstairs neighbors, such as loud music in the middle of the night, and very clearly intentional stomping above our bedroom in the night.

In a fit of frustration, I turn to the internet to see if I have any legal options. After printing out the entire NYS real estate legal code, a few other suggestions about dealing with this sort of problem, and comparing it all with the lease and other written documents, I believe that what he is doing is breaking the Warranty of Habitability by not resolving the noise issue. I believe that by placing himself responsible for the noise by asking us to call him, the problem falls on his shoulders. We have also kept a written log of the noise issues, our phone calls and notes to him, and the results, over a period of months. Using what I've learned, we draft up a polite, but to the point letter stating that we'd like to break our lease and leave the apartment in December instead of January. The problem has gone on long enough, and we have both lost many nights of sleep due to the problem. We realize that he has made an effort to resolve the problem, but the situation is simply unlivable, and we'd like to amicably break the lease, if possible. We also ask him in the letter to respond to us with the feasibility of our request. He never does. Two weeks go by with not a phone call or letter, so we send the letter again via certified mail with a return receipt. We do not recieve the return receipt, and no acknowledgment of the letter from the manager.

Until yesterday. Suddenly, he wants to show the apartment to a prospective tenant. He leaves a particularly nasty message on my husband's phone saying that we "have to" comply with what he wants, and that our lease ends in January and we will leave in January. He says that the noise issue is not his problem and he doesn't care, and he also goes on to imply that if we want to see our security deposit, we will go along with the showing. Meanwhile, I am sick and we are in the middle of packing to move, and it's just not a good day. We call back apologizing and offering other days, but to no avail. He shows up at around 7 PM at our door, knocking. Being home alone, I have no interest in talking to him face to face, alone, so I choose to not answer the door. I hear him go down to the basement to listen (presumably) and quickly lock the deadbolt. When he hears the lock click, he runs back upstairs and pounds on the door again. This kind of behavior is just borderline creepy.

Am I wrong in believing that a showing needs to be done at a mutually agreeable time? I am now afraid that he will enter the apartment when we aren't home. Our lease agreement also never states any kind of penalty for breaking the lease early, or makes any mention of it. While we know it's not really the best of ideas, we're at the end of our rope due to the strain of the situation.

At this point, we don't know what to do. The situation has not been resolved, and it's practically torture trying to live under the party house that's developed above us. I can't remember the last time I got a full night of sleep as a result of the noise upstairs, and it has really been wearing on both of us. We are absolutely moving out in a week, because we just really need to get some sleep. This has become an unhealthy situation.

At this point, we would only have the rent for January to worry about. Would it be foolish to withhold the rent under the circumstances of the situation? I can see little reason to pay for an apartment I'm not living in when we have given ample notice by sending the letter that we will not be renewing our lease and we intend to break the lease early. We are also afraid that we will never see our security deposit again because of the way the manager words his messages, and we just can't afford to be out that money. We haven't made any damage to the apartment, and have every intent of leaving it as clean as the day we moved in.

I believe I've done my homework, and by everything I can see, we're doing everything right. I have no problem taking this guy to small claims court if he decides to keep our security deposit (as reviews of this place we've later found online seem to imply he may try to) but I'd rather just solve this amicably if possible. I am just not sure how to approach this at this point, and we're afraid of what he will do next. Any advice or thoughts on the situation would be very much appreciated.
mudkipper
 
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Dec 10, 2009 1:16 pm

Very simple

Postby dealing3000 » Fri Dec 11, 2009 1:40 pm

Do not pay rent for January. Use the security as your last month's rent. The mere fact that he threatened your security leads me to believe you will not get it back either way. You have to allow some access to the apartment but it should be at YOUR TERMS. So define them and then make sure he abides by them. What is the worst that he can do, evict you? You want out anyway and him being able to do it by the end of January is not realistic. He would know this. If you really want to play hardball change the locks and let him know there will be no access to the place before your lease is up, PERIOD. The guy has been a lazy SOB, treat him like one.
dealing3000
 
Posts: 92
Joined: Tue Jun 25, 2002 1:01 am
Location: New York

Postby mudkipper » Fri Dec 11, 2009 5:27 pm

Thanks for the reply, I really appreciate it.

I guess at this point it's all we can do in this situation. I just feel terrible that it's come this far, but oh well.
mudkipper
 
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Dec 10, 2009 1:16 pm


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