So, here it goes: We moved in with friends because they told us we could live with them "rent free" until my husband got through training at his new job which they encouriged him to take. We have 3 little girls by the way!! So we move in I leave a good job making 50,000 a year but it was going to pay off with an increase in my husbands salaory and I was going to finish school. Well not even one day since we had moved in they were lecturing us about our kids wasting food, we had to train them to stay out of their living room and not to talk to them while on the computer, the girls are 5, 6 and 17 months. So, a week goes by and they storm out of the room when my 5 year asks them repeated questions, and act childlish making me feel like a bad mom. So I decide to take my and girls back to MI. They deny acting that way and say I need to stay to support my husband, they love my girls, my girls can't do anything that would make them mad, we just needed "rules"!! So, another week goes by to continuing harassment by them on how our kids it, rude comments, totally need to get out of there. They set my husband and tell him I'm lying and taking their comments out of context but I'm there mom and they act like I just let my kids trash their house. So in the end we leave that weekend. Now we received an email they are threating to take us to small claims saying I broke their diaper genie, they have to change their locks cause we didn't leave the keys, like we are going to attack them or something, um one of the girls set their gum on the window sill which they say we have to pay them to clean, OK I'm sure it just involved them picking it up and throwing it away, oh and they say my girls scratched their wood floor where their baby's bouncer was that their baby used not mine. I just want to know can the really sue us for this when none of it was done by us and if it was it's a cheap fix and would cost more to go to court??

Anyone can sue anyone over almost anything. The real question is can they win.

On the issue of the locks, yes they can. You should have turned over your copies of the keys before leaving. On the other charges, its he said/she said. Without proof that you broke their diaper genie or left gum on the sill or scratched their floors its not going to be easy to get full remuneration.

So my advice is to ask them how much it cost to to replace the locks. Tell them you will be happy to reimburse them for that. Tell them you will kick in the cost of a quart of paint to repaint the window sill to not have to bother to go to court over this.