Last summer '07, I moved into a one bedroom efficiency apartment. My apartment was the other half of my landlords house.

I was financially tight at the moment and I needed a place to live asap and an older lady, at the age of 83, who would soon be my landlord, asked if I would like to rent out the other part of her house. I agreed and I explained that I had no money to pay for my deposit or anything. She told me that if I came over and cleaned up her property everyday for about three weeks she'd count that as me laying down the $375 deposit, I accepted the bargain. I raked the lawn, cleaned the gutters, re-did the garden, planted grass, painted, power-washed, you name it, I did it all. I worked hard because I needed a place to live. So she gave me the thumbs up that I could move in and so I did, with no written lease or documentation whatsoever of me being a tenant renting or of how we managed to deal with the deposit. I figured no lease would be a good thing, being that it was my first apartment and I wasn't sure if I'd enjoy it being that I lived in house beforehand. She told me that rent was due on the 25th of each month and to pay her cash, the rent was $375/month. She marked my paid-rent-receipts down on a 2008 calendar being that it was still 2007.

Time passed and I got in a bad month and my car broke down and I lost my job due to lack of transportation because I worked downtown at a restaurant and I was new to the area. I needed a job, I needed a car, I needed money to give to my 83 year old landlord. I explained to her my situation and she said no worries. Well three days later I get a note on my door demanding rent. Yeah, no worries? So I gave her all I had and paid off half of the last months rent I owed. She left me another note the next week, telling me that I owed her for the deposit still (which we made that agreement of slave labor) and the other half to last months rent which I already knew. She said she'd evict me if not paid by the end of the week. Well that wasn't happening. So I went over, questioned her about the deposit and such and she simply replied that I hardly did any work. Well damn, her property was the finest on the block due to me. I got a new job, started catching up on my rent which was only two weeks from last months and I got caught back up. Well, she was still complaining about the deposit, again. She wrote a letter telling me to move out, yeah not to evict me, but to tell me to leave. I was busy everyday working and she was an elder so she went to bed early, I never really got to see her much. Well, I started to notice that my bank statements from the mailbox (which we shared) we're being opened, then wrote on "I'm sorry, I thought it was my mail again". Yeah, illegal. I still have proof she wrote on my mail, I saved it.

One day coming home early from work to talk to her, I notice some old guy moving my stuff out into the day-porch. I confronted him and he cussed me out and he's lucky I kept calm, especially because he kept throwing my belongings violently into the day-porch, I'm talking $1000 guitars and such. I called the cops and they came. Well he got arrested and apparently he told the cops so they said, that he was my maintaince man a.k.a. my landlord's son. Well, if I recalled correctly, all maintaince was unfortunately done by me. The officers explained to my landlord that she couldn't get me out without an eviction notice and that I had quite sometime AFTER an eviction notice to get out. That made her upset because she can't help but break the law obviously. Well, I was pissed. I felt as if my apartment and the stuff in it was no longer safe. She filed a court day so I found out after it already happened. I found out because she came over to my apartment and handed me my summons paper by hand, she had held onto it so I'd miss the court date assigned. I moved out three days later and never said a word. I haven't spoke to nor seen my old landlord since last winter, when I moved. And here comes my question.

I received a letter in the mail two weeks ago regarding my old landlord trying to sue me for about $700 or so regarding rent that I apparently didn't pay including that deposit. Well, since I didn't go to that court date that she hid from me, that doesn't look too good on my part. I have opened-mail with her writing on it, no receipts because she demanded cash, and majority of the notes she put on my door.

What can I do about her trying to sue me?

Frankly, you don't have much of a leg to stand on. However, neither does she. Your only option is to go to the hearing and tell your story to the judge. Bring the police report of the illegal eviction and copies of the mail she illegally opened. Show them to the judge as evidence of her not adhereing to the law. And hope for the best.

Frankly, you don't have much of a leg to stand on. However, neither does she. Your only option is to go to the hearing and tell your story to the judge. Bring the police report of the illegal eviction and copies of the mail she illegally opened. Show them to the judge as evidence of her not adhereing to the law. And hope for the best.



There was no eviction notice. She had an attorney type up a paper, no legal backing whatsoever, that ordered me to get out in five days, which I was out way before I received such a letter. But by law, in an actual eviction notice, I'd have at least 30 days to vacate the premises right? So yeah, no clue. Thanks though, I appreciate it. I guess only time will tell.

Not necessarily. The rules for the eviction process differ from location to location, but they go generally like this:

Notice to vacate: This notice is not from the court but from the landlord. It can specify any period generally from 3-7 days, but it must list a cause (generally non-payment of rent).

Eviction Hearing: If the tenant does not vacate by the date specified, then the landlord has to go to the local courts for an eviction order. This then involves a hearing. The tenant can, at this time, fix, the reasons for the eviction (i.e. bring their rent up to date) and the eviction would be dropped.

Eviction Order: The court will then issue an eviction order generally with a date less than 10 days in the future. If the tenant still hasn't vacated, the landlord hires a sheriff to remove the tenant and their belongings.

Now you say that she told you to leave AFTER you had caught up the rent. Since you had no lease (were a periodic tenant), she had the right to do this but she needed to give you notice. Generally, she had to give one rental period notice that she was terminating your tenancy. This is not an eviction but a termination of tenancy. You would have no recourse but to move out.

So, she still did some things wrong. The removal of your belongings without an eviction order was an illegal eviction. The termination order needed to give you more time. All these examples point out that she did not do her homework about how to remove a tenant and may help your case.