Hi All,

I have a question I would like to bounce off folks here. My fiance and I live in MA and are renting a condo. We came here from another state and were looking for apartments when we found this place. It seemed like a great place to be. We came down and took a tour with someone representing it (who turned out to be co-landlord). Unfortunately the previous tenants were still living there so it was hard to do a thorough inspection but what we did see we pointed out. At each example we were told that the current tenants would be cleaning the apartment through and through so that it would be very clean. In the lease it also states the carpets were to be professionally cleaned which, according to the person showing us the apartment was being done. Actually, we had to be careful walking around because the carpets had just been "cleaned", even though none of the current tenants' possessions were gone or had even been moved out of the way. We also saw the garage and found it to be a complete mess; dirt, cobwebs, leaves, dust, etc were everywhere in the garage (keep in mind, a live in garage due to the presence of washer/dryer. We specifically asked if that would be cleaned and we were told yes. My fiance and I agreed, with the agreements made by the landlord showing us the place, that it would be acceptable to move into.

A few days later I sat down with the other landlord (husband/wife team) to sign paperwork and had a discussion with him regarding a few of the areas we wanted cleaned before we moved in. These included the entire house (we were also assuming the current tenants would clean it before they moved out) and the garage specifically. I asked him to check on the garage to make sure it was clean before we got there. He verbally agreed, more than once that the entire house would be cleaned before we arrived (another 3 current-tenant free weeks away). Not only did he verbally agree but the lease specifically stated that the carpets were to be professionally cleaned, paid for by the tenant and the entire house (with specifics named, windows, walls etc) was to be cleaned by the tenants themselves.

Fast forward a month and we are moving into the apartment. Turns out the garage was never cleaned, it was worse than when we saw it on the tour. We then found numerous issues with the condo when all the previous tenants possessions were gone. The place had definitely not been cleaned by either the previous tenants, or the landlords (whose responsibility I believe it falls to if the tenants did nothing). The walls, windows, cabinetry, refrigerator and others had not been cleaned. The carpets somehow were dirty, even though they were "professionally cleaned" and had numerous stains in them. The bathroom was a mess with dirt from previous people still sitting in the shower needing to be scrubbed out. We called the landlord immediately to alert him of the situation. When he arrived the next day he felt that it was not in need of cleaning and showed great disinterest in our concerns. He did not offer to have it cleaned for us, and he did not offer to reimburse us for any cleaning we did.

We feel we were misled and lied to about the condition of the apartment. We specifically mentioned and received confirmation that the entire apartment would be cleaned thoroughly before we arrived. We arrived to a disheveled condo that looked like no one had cleaned it in a year. We feel the lease was breached on the part of the landlord before we even moved in by them not cleaning it (or in the case of the garage, not even checking on it before we moved in as promised). We are completely disgusted with the apartment, even after trying our best to clean it ourselves, and want to terminate the lease and move out. We explained our situation to them and asked them to modify our lease so we could leave within a few months but they flatly refused and threatened suing us if we stopped paying rent/walked out.

Does anyone have any kind of advice on a situation like this?

Thanks