ants and noise - need out of our lease. can someone help us out?

18 years ago

My roomate and I have only been in our new apartment for 1 month. 2 bedroom with over 1100 sq. feet and high ceilings for only 735.00 seemed great. We've got sugar ants all over our kitchen and bathrooms. The apt comes by to spray but it's a very tempororay solution. We've got neighbors with kids that jump and stomp on our heads all day and ignore our requests to stop. We've got neighbors below us that bass their music until the late hours.

Upon examining our lease....it was discovered that I did not initial half of the places that required it on our lease. I also did not sign the very important section regarding DEFAULT BY RESIDENT. My roomate DID initial all of these places and did sign. The only portion my SIGNATURE is on....is the deal page where it talks about rent and deposit calculations.

Is there any legal way for us to break this lease without having to pay?

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Comments (11)

GammyT
18 years ago
Talk to the landlord and tell him the noise and bugs are driving you nuts. Be a pain about it and he might let you out of the lease.

In case he doesn't, which I doubt he will. For the Sugar Ants, they are easy. Keep all of your sugary food sealed tight and they will go to the other apartment. To really convince them to not come to your apartment. Before you go to bed at night spritz Windex at their entry point and squirt them when you see them. Not Joking, Windex kills them on contact and if they walk where you left Windex dry, they die. Fourteen years in the same apartment and I think it cost me one bottle of Windex. The landlord paid for an exterminator, Orkin, all those years but a new guy game every month and each one had a new plan of attack. All failed. LOL

The tenants above and below me yelled about sugar ants but they never came to my apartment. I taught those tiny suckers I was armed with Windex!!! LOL

#1, keep your kitchen clean. #2, hide the sugar, if you don't have sealed container to keep your sugar or Frosted Flakes in, buy them at the dollar store. They are Ants, if one finds something to eat he runs back to the nest and tells his buddies. Keep it clean, take away their food source and they will go to the neighbors apartment. My neighbor tried moving all the sugary stuff to the top of her entertainment center. She woke up the next morning to find no sugar ants in her kitchen, when she went to turn on the morning news she found they were covering her TV screen. She had them in her living room anyway, handicapped 6 year old and twin 3 year olds, sugar happens in the living room. The living room ants must have told the kitchen ants where the food was. LOL

Ok, back to the point 1 and 2 done, Spritz Windex around where they come in, water pipes, radiator pipes, gas pipes and just let it dry. Spritz it ever few days for a while, then once a week, then once ever two weeks etc.. I have no idea why but Windex still kills them long after the Windex dries. You have to keep the sugary sealed forever though because if they smell it, they will find a new path.

Exterminators have nothing on me when it comes to Sugar Ants. Have Windex, will kill!!! LOL
lazy_gardens
18 years ago
"Upon examining our lease....it was discovered that I did not initial half of the places that required it on our lease. I also did not sign the very important section regarding DEFAULT BY RESIDENT. My roomate DID initial all of these places and did sign. The only portion my SIGNATURE is on....is the deal page where it talks about rent and deposit calculations. Is there any legal way for us to break this lease without having to pay?"

NOPE! Contracts cover "reasonable interpretation", and minor omissions don't make up for your signing the big spots. I had a tenant try to weasel out of a lease: a typo made it for a negative one year (started in 1996 and ended in 1995) ... and they decided the lease was invalid a couple of months into the term and moved out. I sued them for the rent they owed, they said "the dates are wrong, the lease is invalid" and the judge said "Typos don't count, pay the nice landlord!".

What you can do: whenever the music runs past 9 or 10PM, call the cops about a loud party. Whenever the upstairs kids are stomping and yelling, call the manager and ask him to shut them up.
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kate1
18 years ago
You can look up your rights as a tenant/renter online. It is either on your cityweb site or if your in the countywebsite.It will have what the landlords laws are and what your responsilbility being a renter is.

As for the ants....
Buy a box of Borox washing powder, mix in a small amount of sugar and sprinkle near the ants enterance.It dries their little bodies until they die. They will even carry some of the stuff back to the nest, doing harm to their eggs and youngins.
Go get you a sprial notebook and write in the time and date and complaint. So if you ever have to go to court, you have a well documented book ready to go. Judges like organized people with a plan.Gives you big brownie points right off. Good luck
GammyT
18 years ago
Lazygardens, you are right, music is one thing. She also has the upstairs kids making noise on the floor during the day. During the day, when kids are in school so these noisy kids are 1-3 years old.. The police won't arrest the kids for playing in their own living room during the day.

Joraar23, I am sorry but I think this is a case of you have to learn from it. Next time you will look for bugs more and ask more questions about the neighbors. If the price sounds too good to be true, it is and there is a reason for the price.

Kate I was told about Borax and tried it. It didn't help, but I wasn't told about mixing it with Sugar. That would do it, one of those little suckers runs back to the nest to feed the queen with Borax and Sugar... lol Killing the queen would have worked better than me keeping them out of my apartment with Windex. lol
luxum
18 years ago
Windex really does work on sugar ants. It even works on those big freaky winged carpenter ants. I always assumed it was the ammonia.
wrighthouse
18 years ago
The ants are your best bet for getting out of your lease. Landlords have an obligation to keep the rented premises "vermin free." Check out the laws in your state.
marie_in_wa
18 years ago
Do you have a wooded area nearby? I've had good luck getting rid of sugar ants by buying one of those *really* big bags of sugar, poking a few holes in it, walking slowly, being sure to leave a trail of sugar behind me, to the woods. Once far enough away from your place you cut the bag of sugar open and dump it on the ground. They will make a new home for themsleves below the sugar and won't bother you for many years to come :)
jennmonkey
18 years ago
You can buy ant-killer, we got the kind that is a little container with a hole in the top. The ants come and go into the container, take the stuff back to the nest and it kills all of them. After 3 or 4 days, we haven't seen another ant. It works great! No advice about the noise, good luck!
Str8dyme
18 years ago
BORIC ACID does the trick! In my first apartment which I swear was only a box, I had a roach problem. Lay the boric acid on the edge of the walls and cabinets. The ants will eat the boric acid and die. They will also take some of the boric acid to their 'hideout' and they will feed on it, killing thousands. Be carefuly with it if you have children because it is poisonous. Don't lay the acid down in common areas. It's better to lay some down behind furniture, etc.

As for your lease, it is illegal to break a lease no matter where you sign.
Adnama
18 years ago
Boric acid is actually pretty safe, compared to most ant-killers.

Chalk works really well, too. I drew a chalk line all around the baseboards (and along the counter/wall border in the kitchen) of my apt. Ants won't cross a chalk line. Little bit of a PITA in the carpeted areas, but the line only needs to be refreshed every 6 weeks or so to keep the ants out. I read about that trick in Toni Morrison's Beloved and tested it by drawing a chalk circle around ants on the sidewalk. They went nuts; it was kinda fun!
cutlass
18 years ago
Call the health inspector and main office.

ants and noise - need out of our lease. can someone help us out?

Comments (11)

GammyT

lazy_gardens

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