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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Mar 2009
    Posts
    1

    Default Early Lease Termination in NYC Due to Unsafe Living Conditions

    My question involves landlord-tenant law in the State of: NEW YORK

    My lease does not end until August 2009 and I am renting an apartment in Washington Heights. In the interest of full disclosure, I have been living in this apartment for over 2 years. The first year and a half, I barely stayed there as I used to work out of town a lot. Also, I could not afford to move to a better place. However, for the last year, conditions in the building have really started to get to me. I would really like to terminate my lease for the following reasons:

    - Primarily, safety. For the last 2 months, there were probably 2 times when the cops were in our building. Last month, at least one of my neighbors noticed that there was a man hanging outside my door (I wasn't even aware of this as I was indoors the whole time) and they called the cops on him. A police officer knocked on my door and basically, this guy was looking for a woman who used to live there. Obviously, she wasn't there anymore so that got settled. It was creepy, though, that this guy was just hanging outside my door! Last week, I heard screaming outside because a woman was getting arrested. I just feel very unsafe there.

    - For the last year, the glass in the entrance door has probably been broken and repaired at least 5 times.

    - For about a month, maybe close to two, towards the end of last year, the lock to front entrance did not work. Probably the work of some vandals.

    - The buzzer to be able to let guests/people in has not been working for at least the last year. I have complained many times to the super and the super barely spoke any English so I couldn't even understand what he was saying. I tried calling the management a couple of times to no avail and eventually just gave up since I hardly have any guests and I'll just come down whenever I get food delivered.

    - This past winter, we've barely had any heat. Heat should be on from 10pm - 6am but it's not on everyday and most days when it's on, I only get it for maybe a total of 4 hours a night.

    - For about a week within the last couple of weeks, I did not have hot water. I kept putting off complaining thinking that they will have it on within the next few hours or at least, after I get back from work. Finally, when I called the management, they told me "oh, your line was down". It was fixed remotely but if I hadn't complained, I wouldn't have had hot water for god knows how long!

    - The common area is barely habitable. I would see litter and garbage around the stairs sometimes. I see people mopping and cleaning in the morning but I live in a building with questionable tenants and I can imagine that they are the cause of it.

    - The cleaning people try to repaint the elevator every so often but the vandals wouldn't leave it alone and after a few days, you'd see writings on the wall

    Do I have fair grounds to request early lease termination? If yes, how would I go about it? Do I call the management first? Do I write a letter?

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Sep 2005
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    Posts
    98,846

    Default Re: Early Lease Termination in NYC Due to Unsafe Living Conditions

    Do you think your landlords are psychic, and will miraculously know about and repair problems you don't report to them? When you do report problems, such as the water, it appears that they're fixed promptly. Have you even bothered to complain about the heating issues?

    Is this NYC or elsewhere in New York?

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