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Can I terminate my lease due to rat infestation?
Anonymous7 views1 answers
After several verbal complaints from myself and from tenants in this building of 6 units to landlord about the rats being in the walls and now coming inside units. she had pest control come out and evaluate the situation. That was 4 days ago, and we haven't seen pest control since.
Landlord told me they would trap and bait to kill rats, but can't/won't get into walls and ceiling to clean out/disinfect the left behind, toxic, virus spreading, feces. In which has caused a foul odor in some of the units in our building, occasionally urine odors when a/c runs.
This has been an ongoing frustration, and health risk for my 2 children, pets, husband, myself. I refuse to live with rats taking my home and want to terminate lease & move out immediately! with out fees. Can I make this happen?
Thank you for your question! Under the Texas Property Code, rats can be a big deal. Here is the thing, if the rats have come into the building, because of something you have done, then you are out of luck. That will have to be determined by someone with knowledge of these things, such as a health inspector. If they are, because of the landlord, and he has failed to remedy the problem, you can try to break your lease. The deal being, if there is a legitimate problem with a home, that results in it becoming uninhabitable, i.e. unsafe to live in, there is a possibility you can break the lease. Rats fall under one of the specific statutory reasons for uninhabitability. You can, if you want, call the city health department and have them come out and investigate. That will give you some good and free grounds to get out of your apartment. If you want to leave immediately, you will want to give written 30 days notice and call an attorney!
