Since I'm still up with three pots collecting water and calling the landlord every half hour, I talked to Aunt (Uncle) M this morning. I told him about the leaking hallway and the ginormous crack in the living room and he introduced me to a new legal term:Constructive Eviction. According to him:

"That is when a place becomes so uninhabitable that the court regards it as if the landlord had evicted you. That is, it is a breach of contract by the landlord, not the tenant. Therefore, if you feel the conditions are so bad that you want to bag it...you can without being forced to pay the remainder of the lease or other penalty for what would be YOUR breach of the lease. Other aspects of it are that you can choose to not pay rent for the time that the apt. is a hellhole. Of course, you need to provide reasonable notice to the landlord, give him/her an opportunity to ameliorate the breach and so on...but the law is (generally) with you."

So, I'm hoping to, at the minimum, get my carpet cleaned because of this or, at the maximum, be able to move out if she does her usual "fix the symptoms but not the cause" job.