Get out of apartment lease? Please help!?

Question

When I moved in my apartment building it was a smoke-free building. Now there are new owners and all the neighbors smoke in the halls and it seeps in under my door into my apartment. The neighbor above smokes on her balcony all day so I cannot have my windows open. My daughter has terrible asthma and it is affecting her breathing. Is there any way out of this lease? It doesn't end until March 2009.

Answer 1

.    This is what changes people from renters to owners.  No one will smoke near your own house.  You could break your lease for gunshots.  Anything else is not enuf.  You will have to live out your lease with a towel stuffed under the door and the windows closed.

Answer 2

If on your lease agreement it states that its a smoke free building and now its not you should first contact your landlord and tell them that its becoming a problem. Give them a reasonable amount of time to fix it and if they don't they broke the lease agreement not you and you should have no problem.

But if its not on the original agreement that it would be smoke free then you'll have to tell the landlord that your daughter can not have the smoke coming into your house. If you are nice about it then maybe they will let you out.

Answer 3

Go online and search for you specific states tenant/landlord rights.

Also get a good lawyer.(I happen to know the best)

My wife and I had something similar happen to us in our last apartment. It was in a bad area of town and 7 people were murdured in our complex in the first 7 months we lived there. We checked online and found that we were within our legal rights to break lease without penalty if we were in fear of our lives. The VP of the property mgmt co. that ran it said we still owed them and threatened to sue. I called our lawyers and they handled everything for us. long story short we got out and into a safer place without any more trouble from them.

Answer 4

This should be no problem. It was a smoke free building when you moved in and that is why you choose to live there. New owners made it okay to smoke and it's causing your daughter health problems. With a written diagonies from your doctor about your daughter's asthma you should be able to break this lease with a 30 day notice.

Answer 5

I guess my question is why would tenants that are now smoking with the new owners, move in to a smoke free building to begin with?  Or did all new smoking tenants suddenly move in?  It sound like nothing was in your lease about a smoke free building, or none of the smokers would have moved in when the old owners had it. Is any other non-smoker in the building complaining?  You probably can't fight this if it is not stated in writing on the lease.  It sounds like their are more smokers in your building than non-smokers at this point.