Hello, I just signed a new lease and I h...

Asked by the Customer on 15-07-2014 19:15:13
Question posted in the Landlord Tenant Law category relating to Gauteng

Hello,



I just signed a new lease and I have not stayed at this place for even a month. It is a commune. On my first week I got mugged at the gate and several of my valuables were taken from my car during the robbery which almost became a hi-jacking.



I tried to get over this but now there are also problems within the commune itself. I am an LLB graduate and I am currently doing a post-graduate course under one the SA Law Society's L.E.A.D schools. This is the reason I moved into this house; it is close to the school. Be that as it may, this place has not been enjoyable.



The walls are prefab, the building is divided into close to six blocks and each block houses four people. So there are three tenants living in my block. Due to the intensity of the course I am doing I need to be studying a lot. It is almost impossible to do that here, my block mates are music and drama students, they always play loud music. They smoke a lot of weed and drink a lot of liquor. They make a lot of noise and due to the walls being boards that are even badly joined together the noise comes through easily. It almost sounds like they are in my room. The worst thing is that the weed smoke comes into my room when it is being smoked in the next room or in the common areas. I inhale it when asleep or when I cook or move around the common areas. I am not a weed smoker, I cannot afford to be high while I study. Sometimes I wake up feeling intoxicated. The house also gets very messy, the kitchen sink gets so messy that I cannot use it (they leave dirty dishes for days).



I feel unsafe when these guys drink and smoke weed, and invite their friends over for this. The commune gets filled with lots of high and drunk people who are strange to me. My presence becomes emphasized to them because I am new, the only professional and I don't join them. When my girlfriend visits I get concerned about her safety due to all the staring from the high group. This bothers me, most especially after I read a criminal law case wherein a group of guys smoked weed and drank booze and then later gang raped a young lady who they also beat up so bad she was unrecognizable.



Long story cut short. I want to move out and find a place that accommodates me, my lifestyle and my studies. I sent an email to the landlord. Do I have valid reasons to terminate this lease? Are the reasons I gave above good enough? Do they defeat my reasonable use and enjoyment of the property? Is this place reasonably fit for in-habitation? Has the landlord breached his duties?



Thank you.

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