I Found A Key To My Duplex Under My Doormat. My Landlord Doesn’t Know If He Left It There Or Not.

Location: Iowa

Hi everyone. I want to apologize for any mistakes or formatting errors in this post as I am very upset about the situation. Maybe I am making it a bigger deal than it actually is. I don’t know.

Today I was putting up some Christmas decorations and swapped my doormat out. This is when I found the key. At first I thought that maybe our neighbors gave someone their key to get into their side of the duplex, but I decided to try it on our door just to be safe. It worked.

Since living here, we have had a fair amount of issues getting stuff done around our duplex. It is like pulling teeth. Our landlord said that the key was probably from when he had the carpet replaced prior to us moving in, and probably has been there the whole time. That was the end of July.

I have changed our doormat three times since we have lived here. Two or three weeks ago, I replaced our doormat with a fall themed one. I swept under the rug before putting it down, so I know the key was not under there then.

I just feel so unnerved that my landlord had no idea where this extra key was this whole entire time. Between our carpet getting replaced and now, we did have someone come to fix a window and a fan unit for our bathroom. We didn’t leave the door unlocked, so the landlord said that he let the guy in. Never in this time did he disclose that he was giving a copy of the key to anyone.

I really would just like to get out of this lease as I feel unsafe. Is this something that I can terminate the contract for?