Eviction

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xlatinonuevox

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To whom it may concern:

My girlfriend and I have been staying in an apartment for approximately six months. For the past six months, we have had problems with mold in our apartment on five different occasions. The management of the apartments has shown no effort to take care of the problem besides offering us a new apartment after we put in our sixty-day notice. Also, the maintenance has not been able to resolve our mold problem.
My girlfriend and I signed the lease to our apartment on June 9th, 2008. After completely moving into the apartment, I noticed a leak in the toilet and under the sink which maintenance fixed right away. I expected minor problems like this to occur. But, I was very surprised when I noticed mold on the bathroom wall on June 29th, 2008. Additionally, the next day, I spotted mold in the walk-in closet and on some of our wood bedroom furniture. I called the office to put in a work order for the mold.
After two weeks of calling the office and finally making a visit to talk to the assistant manager, the manager of maintenance came to the apartment at last. Even though we had asked for a new apartment, the assistant manager claimed that there was nothing available for us to move into and that we should wait to see if maintenance could fix our problem. So, after examining our apartment, the maintenance manager said that the mold was only on the surface and sprayed a treatment to kill the mold. My girlfriend and I had to be out of the apartment while the manager of maintenance did this, and when we returned, the mold appeared to be gone.
Needless to say, the mold returned two more times. Each of these times, a maintenance man came into the apartment a week or two after our work order was put into the system to spray a mold treatment on the walls. Obviously, the mold was worse than what the manager had originally thought, and when the mold returned for the fourth time much worse than it had the previous times, the mold covered the wall behind the toilet, the wall under the towel racks, and was found in the walk-in closet.
Once again, my girlfriend and I waited for a maintenance man to come. We wanted to let him know that spraying a treatment would not be enough to get rid of the mold this time and that we would not be satisfied with him doing so. When the maintenance man finally came by, he said that professionals would come tear out the walls to get rid of the mold.
So, we were living in an apartment under construction for two weeks while the professionals attempted to rid the apartment of the mold. During this whole time, the Landlord never offered to move us to a new apartment. We had continued to pay rent with hopes that maintenance would take care of our mold situation. Unfortunately, I am fed up with living in a moldy apartment and am worried about my family's health.
Therefore, I decided to end the lease early, and I put in the sixty-day notice. The lease agreement states that we not only have to pay rent until our sixty days is up, but also that we must continue to pay vacancy until the apartment is relent. Only after we put the notice in did the landlord offer us a new apartment. However, I don't want a new apartment there because of all we have had to put up with inside of the apartment, and the fact that the landlord really seemed as though she could care less about the situation, and maintenance was late to respond and inefficient in their attempts to get rid of the mold every single time. My girlfriend and I wanted to completely terminate the lease, but the landlord did not give us this option.
Then, the mold reappeared for the fifth time through all the spray treatments and the new walls that the professionals had just put up, so my girlfriend and I decided that we would no longer pay rent for the apartment. For nearly six months my family and I have been living in an apartment that is, without a doubt, unfit to live in. My girlfriend and I have had to put up with reoccurring mold, construction, and potentially harmful chemicals sprayed to get rid of the mold. These past few months I have been extremely worried about the health and well-being of my family, especially that of my son. He was just born in May of this year and is at a point in his life where he is extremely susceptible to everything. With the number of times that the mold has returned and all that we have had to endure since we moved into the apartments, my wife and I will not pay any more money for an apartment with conditions that could be considered a major health concern. And at the rate that the management of both the apartments and of the maintenance are handling the situation, who knows how long a resolution to this problem could take.
So, as you can see, we are now facing an eviction because we won't pay rent for an apartment with a major problem. The eviction process is taking place right now and I don't know what to do. My girlfriend and I just received the papers from the clerk of court saying that we need to give a motion because we disagree with the amount the landlord is asking for, and we need to send our money that we owe to the clerk of courts in a money order or we will not get to have a trial. I do not know if I need to actually do all of the things on the list or if one of them is okay. In other words, I do not really know where to start...
I've been trying to find advice about whether or not this case would be worth our while to take to court with a lawyer and file a lawsuit against them for the mold issues we have had to deal with. We've hired professional mold inspectors to run tests and have results to help us out in court. Please if you could tell me anything that could help us with this issue let me know.


Thank you very much for your time,
Marcos Rivera
 
What the clerk of court is telling you is that you need to keep paying rent but that this rent will go into an escrow account held by the court, untouchable by the landlord/management until the case is decided in court.

This will negate the actual eviction, save your credit and still allow you to answer the eviction lawsuit, presenting your evidence of mold at this hearing.

If you fail to do this, the judgement for eviction will be made in the favor of the landlord.

Send the money in and answer any motions.

Whether you wish to have an attorney with you or not is dependent on several factors; was this lawsuit filed in Small Claims court (many times they are)? If so, you two can represent yourselves and present your evidence to the court. An attorney is not required (and in some states, is not allowed in Small Claims).

Gail

P.S. By the way, make sure your stories are straight. In your posting your mention your girlfriend but then go on to describe a wife.
 
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