Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in Ohio

In Ohio, under R.C. 5321.07, if you are current on the rent and you have sent the landlord notice of the problems at the apartment, and he has not fixed them within 30 days or a reasonable amount of time (whichever is sooner) one of your options would be to terminate the lease agreement if the issues are seriously threatening to your or your family members' health. But you do need to be current on the rent to exercise this option under the lease.

But nothing prevents you from calling the building code inspector and getting him out there to inspect the premises. If things are as bad as you say, they may issue an emergency 24 hour notice of eviction to your family and come back the next day and board the place up. This will naturally end any future lease obligation you have to the landlord, though you will still be liable for past due rent.

You will naturally want to time this so that you have a place to go and to store your belongings in case the code inspector issues the 24 hour notice to vacate.

You may also want to talk with your landlord about your wish to voluntarily vacate and terminate the lease. If he is agreeable to this, you will want to get your deal in writing, signed by him and yourself. If he will not agree, you could mention that if he is going to force you to live there until the end of the lease, then you will insist upon its being up to code and that you will be calling the code inspector to make sure that this happens. This may make him a bit more amenable to a deal.