Roommate w/no written agreement refuses to pay I have the house and roomates stuff?
I rented a room in my rented home to someone I thought was a friend. I've known her for over 10 years. We've always gotten along well, I thought I could trust her and we've talked about her living w/me before. We made an agreement, verbally. I was trying to help her out a little but I also needed the money and could not afford to support her. It was to be a short term thing, perhaps 6 ms or so. We agreed that she would pay me $50 a week to live w/me for rent and contribute to food by either buying some groceries every month or paying me $20 to $30 per month towards our food. When she first moved in she had no car and was coming from another State just prior to beginning her job so her money was tight. Out of consideration and being generous I told her to just pay me $20 a week for the first two weeks and once she was getting her regular paycheck after two weeks we would begin at the $50 a week rate. All was fine for the first month as far as her paying me, we had other difficulties but she was paying me on time the full agreed upon amount. Then she decided to got out and buy a car she couldn't afford, her controlling mothers idea and the mother co-signed. She could barely afford to pay me and she buys a car for $300 a month that she absolutely can't afford and makes and agreement w/her mom that she will hand over every paycheck to her mom and her mom will control where it goes. Right away she tells me she can't afford to pay $50 per week so we talk about it and I agree since she is looking for a second job and a better paying full time job that I will temporarily lower the rent to $40 until she gets more money coming in. Then a couple weeks later she decides to go live w/mommy for $20 a week and is trying to stiff me for about $200 which is a combination of rents for a couple weeks, grocery money, money I loaned her and money my daughter loaned her. She is threatening me and says she will not pay me. She never got any of her stuff out before this all happened and I want to know if I have a right to refuse to give her her belongings if she refuses to pay me what she agreed to pay me? Should I call the police? Am I breaking the Law?