My girlfriend and I moved into an apartment complex in Arizona 3 months ago. Upon moving in, she informed me that her best friend would be moving in with us and she would add him to the lease within a few weeks. He had just gone through a divorce and needed some time to get things together. I explained to her that I didn't want him there and only wanted it to be the two of us but in avoiding an argument I finally agreed. He has been paying his rent ontime as well as utilities. Things have gotten bad though... he is constantly leaving his messes around, has gotten in trouble with security, is always bringing his friends over for days at a time, and recently I smelled weed in the house after having been gone for a few days. I WANT HIM OUT. I asked him to leave and he refused. I threatened to call police and he said to "go ahead" and he didn't care. He still is not on the lease after I mentioned to him many times he needed to be. I want to go to the front desk and explain the situation but I am afraid of being evicted for having allowed him in to our apartment in the first place. What do I do?? I had a friend tell me that they may ask us to leave the apartment but that it wouldn't be an "eviction". Is this true?

First, if he is not on the lease, then the apartment managers have nothing to do with this. He is YOUR tenant and for you to get him out, you will have to evict him.

Without a lease, he is a month to month tenant. Therefore you need to give him one months notice in writing. If he ignores the notice, then you have to start formal eviction proceedings.

Threatening to go to the police is empty since they will do nothing. Also your girlfriend (assuming she is on the lease) has to agree to evict.

Yeah my girl friend and I are best friends... since we were little kids but this is killing our friendship. I've been staying at my boyfriend's house to get away from all of this. This guy has already refused to leave ((with some pretty violent words as well))... how do I start to formally evict him?

Go to the local housing court and ask what you need to do.

I had a situation similar to this. My boyfriends friend moved in with us when we moved into a 2bedroom 2bath. We have a baby due in February so the room wasn't needed. He wasn't cleaning up after himself having his friends over and being loud at obnoxious hours, eating my home cooked meals, all of it, running up our electric bill, constantly taking my boyfriends truck(my boyfriend worked out of town at the time). He'd say it was for work and he eventually burnt out the clutch. He was refusing to move out so I went on vacation in New York, I told him he had until I got back to be out with all of his things, or I will have the cops remove him(in certain circumstances they will do that). Him being there almost destroyed my relationship with my boyfriend however it got worse when he had to leave, but things picked up when he was finally gone.
Lay down rules with him, give him an time to be out and then inform the police. He isn't on your lease so legally he has no say in anything.

I have to disagree with Neurosis. Its often a mistake to apply ONE experience to a general situation. In the OP's case, this person paid rent. By paying rent they established residency and a landlord-tenant relationship with the OP. No police department will do anything about that. At least not without a court order.

To Neurosis,
You got lucky. The friend obviously didn't know enough about the law so he was intimidated by your ultimatum. But if he had refused to leave, you might have had to go through formal eviction to get him out.

With him not paying rent he couldn't really do anything anyway. He was staying with us(supposed to be paying rent), but wasn't. When he moved in with us he was unemployed, I told him he had to have a job within the first two weeks of moving in with us and if he didn't he had to leave, he got a job and blew it off the day he was supposed to start. He wasn't a legal tenant unless his name was on the lease.
But maybe with the roommate doing things in the apartment that aren't exactly legal(the pot thing) that might be something to use against him. It's your and your girlfriends apartment, if he gets busted with drugs or anything you will probably be liable because the place is in your name.

Exactly why I want OUT of there. My other room mate agreed to meet with me this week to either cancel the lease and pay the fees or transfer our lease into separate apartments. I threatened him with a lawyer and told him I would get him formally evicted on my end if he didn't leave and she and I didn't come to an agreement. The Pot thing only happened once so far to my knowledge. If it happens again I will call the police. I won't get arrested because Im not the one in possession. We had no knowledge that it was there... I don't think its in the house actually.

Hopefully not. Good luck.

He moves out today!!