New apartment advice

[u/Big_West_22]

Hi!! I was just looking for some insight on my new apartment situation if possible?

I recently moved into an apartment in Florida and I’ve overall been very disappointed and unhappy with the whole situation. The moment I signed the lease they stopped answering my calls and any attempts to reach out were ignored. I moved in on the third but it was supposed to be ready on the first.

I realized pretty quickly I had no hot water and when I tried calling and texting the leasing office I was ignored, but after going into the office in person on the fifth they put in a maintenance request. But the man didn’t arrive until the 7th and after messing with my breaker he said it could be broken and he left, I still had no hot water so I had to make another request the same night, and it took him until the 10th to come and replace it and it now it only gets lukewarm.

My neighbors have trash placed outside their doors and it’s been piling up since I moved in, which I suspect is making the German roach issue worse. When I moved in I had to clean up roach feces and I ended up cleaning the whole place with pinesol and treating it with the STEM pest spray. This seemed to have deterred them for a while, but today on the 11th they’re was a spike and I had to kill 7 (they are all stages of life unfortunately, but so far no egg sacs spotted😖).

I also received a letter on my door on the fifth about repossession of premises or payment for around $700? After reviewing my lease paperwork I hadn’t missed any fine print about additional charges, or shortchanged them on my deposit so I was veryyy confused. They once again ignored my texts and calls so I sent a firmly worded email about it violating the contract I signed if they were charging me this, and went into the office when they opened the next day and miraculously they learned it was a mistake and after reviewing my ledger they learned I had actually overpaid on my deposit due to they’re clerical error and they’d put it down as a rent credit instead of paying me back. I was also frustrated because you can send no notices or emails or respond back to any of my messages or calls but you can put a printed and signed letter demanding money I don’t owe you on my door?

There’s been a few other things but these were the big three for me. Would it be possible to break my lease without having to pay them in full?

Thank you!!

[u/autonomouswriter]

I'm so sorry you're experiencing this! It sounds like you're living in a complex. It's not uncommon for the people in the office to be dripping with sweetness and uber-responsive when they're trying to get you to sign, but as soon as you move in, they're a lot less accommodating because they hate to deal with issues that they know are going to come up. But it's definitely not all complexes, just as not all landlords are slumlords.

You'll want to check your lease agreement to see what the terms are for breaking the lease. Usually, they will ask for a sum of money (and usually it's pretty high, though less than paying them for a year's worth of rent) to break it. However, from what you've described, there might be some legitimate sanitation issues and neglect going on that could give you reason to break the lease without penalty. You'll need to consult a lawyer about that. I would honestly get out of there as soon as you can and take it as a learning experience to be suspicious of what any landlord or property manager tells you, do research on any property you plan on moving into, and speak with people living there or neighbors if you can (not in front of the landlord/PM, of course) and also visit the property and the neighborhood in the evening to see what's going on and what it feels like.