My question involves landlord-tenant law in the State of: Ohio
I recently moved into a new apartment, and from about day three of living here we noticed a really awful, sewage-like smell that seemed to originate from the drains. Upon complaining, we were told that the apartment below us had problems with a water main and had flooded, so the smell would be taken care of within a week after they fixed it.
About a week later, the smell went away, but a few days after that, an even worse problem showed up: drain flies. SWARMS of them. They're coming from the bathtub drain and the kitchen sink's drain. When I say there's a lot of flies, I mean to the point that the bathtub/shower is unusable: all our loofahs, soaps, etc had to be thrown away because they were covered and infested with black flies, and at any given point there are easily 10-20 of them swarming around in the tub and shower, in addition to the ones 20-something a day that our flypaper is catching (we have to replace it daily). The flies are also all over the sink and mirrors and towels.
We've tried pouring bleach down the pipes, to no avail. We've tried using Drano to no effect. We sprayed everything down with Raid and within a few hours, there were just as many flies as before. The landlord sent their maintenance guy over today and he did the Drano again, even though we'd already tried that, and seemed VERY resistant to the idea that there might be a problem with a broken pipe or the trap causing stagnant water, or that this could be tied to the broken water main that had flooded the apartment below us.
My question is, how can I get the maintenance guy and the apartment company to do whatever it takes to fix this? We just signed the lease last month and it's for a year... I don't think I can deal with going to my in-law's house every time I want to shower. It's so bad that I hate even going in there to use the toilet or wash my face!
And if they continue to ignore us, what legal recourse do we have? Can we hold rent in escrow or break the lease? It's disgusting!![]()

