My Partner Left

• Discuss and practice a safety plan with your children for when you are not with them.

• Change the locks on your doors. Landlords are legally obligated to change locks within 24-hours if you have a court order excluding someone on your lease from your apartment.

• Install locks on your windows. If you are a renter, check with your landlord first.

• Discuss other safety measures with your landlord, such as motion sensitive lighting around the property.

• Discuss removal of your partner from your lease with your landlord.

• Consider whether to break your lease. Domestic violence survivors who are being stalked can end a lease if they have a valid Protection Order, or a record of reporting the incident to a “qualified third party” such as law enforcement, medical providers or domestic violence advocates in a community program.

 

For more information about landlord/tenant issues for domestic violence survivors, here is some helpful information. 

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*Adapted from guidelines by the National Domestic Violence Hotline. Some of this information is adapted from: Copyright © 1998 by the National Center for Victims of Crime.