I copied and pasted the post below with an additional question about the ethical practice of leasing an apartment at the bottom:

I will try to be as concise as possible. I signed a lease with a roommate for 12 months in an apartment complex in the Tampa, FL area. Since I recently graduated college with overwhelming debt and have not landed a decent paying job I knew I would only be able to comfortably afford paying rent if my roommate paid his share. We were living together previously and I never had a problem with his share of the rent so I assumed this wouldn't be a problem. It became a huge problem and he never paid any rent money minus $100 on one occasion. I paid for up to 3 months until my mother convinced me to break the lease. She stated that she would help out with whatever fees might come up until I learned that I was required to pay for all vacant days until the room was rented out again.
I understand some lease agreements are more strict but figured most places require you to pay last months rent as a fee. I need to know if the landlord takes me to court if I have any chance of the Judge having mercy on me and forgiving this debt or atleast dramatically reducing it. It took this apartment complex over 2 months to find someone to move in and now I am stuck with the whole bill equaling upwards of $3,000.00! This is a huge problem for me considering the main reason I moved out was because I couldn't afford it. What options do I have? Should I just dig up every last penny I have to pay this? My fear is that I will go to court and my bill will be twice this because of court costs and attorney fees. please help

In the contract, like stated above, I am required to pay for vacant days. It would seem to me that this is a conflict of interest considering that the apartments may have additional rooms that need to be leased out that do not have money coming in. It has the appearance of making my room a low priority of being rented out. It bother's me that, if they wanted to, they can avoid showing my room until other rooms are sold. Do I have any case here at all. I have reason to believe they will take me to court and I will argue this, with an attorney, if it is a legitimate concern.

So why don't you find a new roommate yourself?

Who's on the lease? The person on the lease is liable to the landlord.