Apartment Lease Advice

First time poster here, posting on mobile- my apologies. TL;DR at the bottom.

Backstory: I have lived in my apartment in Tennessee (United States) for nearly two years now, and I just signed a 9 month lease renewal that goes into effect in January (as they require a renewal or written notice if you intend to move two months in advance. Pretty standard.)

Within the past 3 months, the bedroom (which shares a wall with the kitchen) has flooded along the wall. First time it was due to the water heater going out, the second time (tonight, mind you) it was because the apartment two floors above me had an issue with their water heater which caused a trickle all the way down the walls and collected in my apartment (the basement apartment).

Maintenance is quick to respond and get the proper services out to help (in this case, a flooring company that will vacuum out the water and provide floor fans and dehumidifiers to get it all up). I am beyond grateful for this, don't get me wrong. But while I am grateful, I am tired of dealing with this. The property managers didn't offer any option to put us up anywhere or even apologize for our trouble. I'm at the point where I don't want to live in this community any longer. I feel like they are not doing their part to prevent things like this from happening.

And now, the question: Is there anything that can be done about breaking the lease because of these conditions without facing a penalty? Or is this going to be something we just suck up and deal with? Any advice would be appreciated. This is the first place I've ever rented and I'm not super experienced in this.

Thank you in advance for any thoughts, suggestions, or otherwise.

TL;DR as promised: My apartment has flooded twice in the past couple months. Property management doesn't offer preventive maintenance to make sure issues like this don't happen. Is there a way to use this as grounds to break our lease without penalty? *edit to add location

Posted Dec 6, 2018, 12:58 AM UTC · edited

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