I need some legal advice or at least advice from someone who has gone through this or at least knows what to do.

On June 15th the apartment above us water heater broke and caused bad bad bad water damage to us. The water leaked through our ceiling, fire detector, and caused a lot of damage to our carpet, our doors and clothes. We washed the clothes so they didn’t mold no biggie. But I have to girls under three and we knew there was going to be mold under the carpet.

They came over after spending a good hour trying to get ahold of them. The fire detector had been going off the whole time (probably from water damage) because water had been pouring through it and I couldn’t get it to stop going off. My toddler was screaming because she was scared so I took it down and covered it to make it so it wasn’t so loud.

Anyway they came over to fix it. They spent forever trying to find the source of shower noises in the apartment. The guy left to get more people to help. While he was gone for 30 minutes (keep in mind the fire detector was still going off) i looked around. There were literally puddles in my carpet. The Hallway was soaked, my living room was soaked, my daughters carpet and clothes were soaked. It was a mess. I then found the source of the shower sounds on my own. I honestly wish I could post the video I took when I found it. It was in my daughters room next to her closet. There’s a closet next to her closet that has the water heater and all that. Inside there was water pouring from the ceiling like a shower. It was so bad, in the video you can hear my kids crying from being terrified and the fire detector still going off. And you can see the carpet and floor inside soaked and the water coming down like a shower.

They came back and I told them I found to source. They checked it out and said they had never seen anything like it. They ran upstairs to figure that out and the guy took the batteries out if the fire detector in the meantime.

They fixed the upstairs and then said they were gonna have someone come over and clean up the carpet. I was leaving with my mom and my girls to help my grandma move, I asked if it were alright so I can get out of their way and we left.

My boyfriend comes home from work and is furious. He is a carpenter and said that this would cause mold to grow under the carpet, so cleaning it wouldn’t help. That day it was humid and smelled, you could just feel how gross it was.

We contacted them and said if everything wasn’t fixed they wouldn’t be getting rent that month. We looked up our rights and it says you can withhold rent if they wont fix the problems. They finally came over THREE WEEKS LATER and checked the damage. It smelled, the carpet was gross feeling. My girls room was the worse (I wasn’t letting them sleep in there) They said we couldn’t hold rent from them blah blah blah wouldn’t hold up in court. She was trying to talk down to us because we’re younger (25 and 24) we paid that month to avoid everything as we don’t have the money right now for a lawyer and all that. They sent over a humidifier and a guy to clean the carpet...again. Even after my boyfriend said multiple times mold is under the carpet and cleaning it wont help.

Keep in mind these are the things we’re dealing with and have told them about.

1. Mold under carpet, needs to be ripped out and replaced.

2. Fire alarm is damaged and has to be taken off and taken batteries out or it goes off randomly. It dangerous not to have one.

3. We have bad ants now because of all this and the landscaping they’re doing outside. Apartment is ALWAYS clean because I have two girls under 3. We were told they’d spray outside and told us to buy ant traps and if it didn’t help to let them know. Well it got even worse so we told them. Haven’t heard anything in a month.

4. We had mice when we moved in, they poop under the sink and in our food pantry. All they did was set traps and gave us a giant vacuum to clean up the poop.

5. Two doors were damaged and one got so bad it almost broke off on top of my daughter. Now we don’t have a bedroom door because we took it off.

We have called and called, gone over there to talk to them. We’ve done everything. They’ve seen the damage, said they’ll do things and then haven’t heard from them. We told them they weren’t getting rent in July and we held to what we said. We haven’t until they fix things.

This is why I’m posting this. On the 17th we got a 5 day notice to pay rent or leave. My boyfriend is stubborn and still wont. But I’m scared of What will happen after the five days are up. Because I will be home by myself with the girls all next week since he works till 4:30. I don’t have a car right bow at the moment we only have one.

What are they going to do after the five days are up? Are they going to have police arrest us or kick us out right then and there? I’m having such anxiety and bad panic attacks because I don’t know what to do and I don’t want to go to court. My boyfriend cant afford to miss work and I don’t have anyone to watch the girls.

Please help before I pass out from anxiety.

Also: other people have been moving out because of the new owners. People who have been here longer than us (we’ve been here for a year) They say they talk down to them. Aren’t easy to talk to or negotiate. And they worry more about the park they’re building and fixing stuff outside to look nice for new people instead of caring about the people who are already living here. We have talked and talked to them about our problems, we’ve called gone over there in person. Etc. My mom even talked to my uncle who owns and rents out apartments and houses and he said they’re unprofessional. Things have should’ve been fixed right away and they should NEVER make the people living there clean up the mess (etc pay for damage or clean up mice poop) He was furious told me to file a report against them that they’re putting my children’s health in danger and all that. The landlord lady says we have no case and we’d lose ( like i said she talks down to everyone)

My mom has even talked to the landlord and said we were going to sue them and all that and the landlord had the nerve to say we haven’t filed a complaint so they haven’t come over to fix it. Even after saying we didn’t have to since we’ve personally talked to them and they’ve seen it. Even if we got kicked out wouldn’t they want to keep this apartment nice for new people? Also wouldn’t it be cheaper to just fix the carpet instead of constantly paying to get it cleaned?

Well we said we weren’t paying rent till it was fixed.

Until the 17th we hadn’t heard anything. We then get a 5 day notice on our door.