Evictions and credit reports

I've got a question about evictions, credit reports, and credit repair.

My new wife and myself live in a one-bedroom apartment that was originally leased by my parents for me when I was in college. We want to move to a larger apartment and we can afford it. We've looked at our incomes and we can easily afford a two bedroom/two bathroom apartment at a decently nice complex in our city.

We applied at the complex of our choice, and were quickly rejected because my credit report, with some company called "First Advantage SafeRent" (I'd never heard of them, just the "big three" credit bureaus), showed evictions had been filed against me.

Now, my mother managed the family finances and she was incompetent at it. She often didn't pay the rent promptly, or was very late, and several times over several years my apartment complex filed an eviction suit. Each time it was dismissed when the eviction summons was enough of a reminder for my mother to pay the rent. Four eviction suits filed over about three years is pretty bad. Never mind that they were all dismissed by the judge.

The thing is, I should never have been named as the defendant. The apartment was leased in my father's name, with my mother signing the papers with a Power of Attorney. My name was listed as an occupant in the lease, but not as the person financially liable for the apartment. However, the apartment complex we are in didn't really care, they just named me and "et al." to include my parents. So, when they did their little background check on me, it shows that I've been evicted four times in three years (their record doesn't distinguish between evictions filed but dismissed and evictions granted).

So, they can't rent to me, company policy. They say it doesn't matter that I can provide proof that I wasn't financially liable for the apartment in question and each suit was dismissed, as long as it is on my report they can't rent to me. After some calls, I've found that pretty much every apartment complex not in a really bad part of town is like this. So, I can't rent any apartment that's not in a dangerous neighborhood because of this matter.

So, is it really possible for me to remove these entries since not only were they dismissed, but they shouldn't have named me to begin with?