[Danielle1228]

My fiance' and I moved in to our 2 bedroom apartment with a one year lease in August. We live in Pennsylvania. Our landlord, at the time, told us that we could move in a roommate and even a second one in our small extra room for lower rent. So we found one and she moved in the large room a week later. We paid half the rent and her the other half. It was 432 at the time and was supposed to increase to 448 in October. She paid directly to the office (landlord).

Well she told us two weeks before that she wanted to move out. She left one day when we weren't home. We wouldn't let her throw parties and drink in the house (both prohibited) and she was underage. Anyhow, that isn't our issue right now. Any advice on that subject would be nice. We plan on taking her to court (no lawyer, we're college students).

Two months later we found a new roommate, Ill call him Bob (not his real name). He got kicked out of his old home and needed a place to live. He said he'd sign the lease, and we bothered him about it a million times. We allowed him to move in around November 7th. He was also in school for the same program as my fiance' (ATC) and we thought it would work well. We have a cat, and he knew this moving in. He is allergic. His parents knew all about the cat and we agreed we would split cost on an air filter if it got too bad. He never brought up the allergy again.

We kept bugging Bob to sign the lease, again and again he said I will. As our old landlord told us we could, we wanted to have a fourth guy move in. We had one ready to move in a few days from now. He paid us $66 dollars around December 26th. We now have to give this back to him, because of Bob. Bob decided to call the cops on my fiance' and I tonight. Bob told us less than 48 hours ago that he wanted to move out because of the cat allergy. This was the first time he brought the cat up since he moved in. She was here first and she isn't leaving, that's not fair.

He also agreed (we have this recorded) that he'd help us find a new roommate prior to moving out. Tonight, like I said, he called the cops because my fiance' wouldn't let him take ALL of his possessions. My fiance' said he could take a few things but not everything, because we hadn't found a new roommate.

So the cops come, and find alcohol in bob's room, he's only 19, and do nothing about that. They ask us to let him get his property. We don't want trouble and let him get his property, afraid he'll get us kicked out over the other guy, we didn't know we couldn't have live here (because our old landlord said it was OK to have the 4th). He wasn't even living here yet, just brought a few clothes. We aren't 100 % sure on what we're allowed because of the new landlord, but the other guy has to take his clothes now, as well.

Anyway, he just left and we have no one to help pay the rest of next months rent. The other guy doesn't want to pay $224 a month. We are stuck (again) with no one to help pay rent and we can't afford the apartment alone anymore (I may need surgery). What are our rights? He never signed the lease, the other guy is mad at us because he has to go, what can we do?

To sum up everything with our problem now, Bob moved in about 2 months ago, but never signed the lease and had told us that he might move sometime. With this in mind we were only told this 48 hours ago and he has now left the apartment. Now we are left with nothing but bills to pay. Even though we have a recording of him making a verbal agreement to find us a roommate before he leaves, along with alcohol found by the cops in his possession (which nothing was done) (He's 19 Years of age). Now the 4th guy can't move in due to the expense of the room. So If anyone could please help us out with some real legal advice on this topic.

Please help, we're stuck and is he allowed to do this?
ANYTHING will help.

[Danielle1228]

Sorry giJ I deleted the last profile I was rushing to get to work, but here's my response to your answer.

The cops had said they couldn't do anything (they couldn't make us let him take his things) and no we didn't try to steal his possessions. We could have said no in regards of him taking his belongings. He agreed to find us a new roommate. We just came home one day and noticed that he was taking all his belongings out of the apartment. He could have move his stuff out we don't want it, he just agreed to help us in finding a new roommate before he had left. The bedrooms are actually the same size (exactly they were measured) It's in the description of the apartment before we rented. The extra room the other guy was going to stay in was 3/4 the size of the bedrooms.

The guys actually did know each other. We told bob the other room would possibly be taken/rented, before he moved in the apartment. This would ease the cost of rent.
The truth was told to me before Bob had moved in. The reason why he needed a new place was the old house that he lived in prior to our apartment was due to the claims that he had pulled a guy out on his old roommates (He lived in a house with all guys). We were helping him out because he was living out of his car We had other people who wanted to move in, we let him because we felt bad for him.

He only gave us 48 hours notice that he “MIGHT” be moving out. Than he and his friend came here and went into his room. We heard him moving stuff around and we asked him are you leaving? He replied yes. We asked if he had found another roommate and he said no.

So now we're the bad guys? Either way he didn't give us 30 days notice and owes us a months rent. It's on a police report that he only gave us 48 hours notice.

[Fr_Chuck]

Ok,

Note in the future, don't have anyone move in, unless they sign a lease or have a written rental agreement to sub rent though you.

Always get a deposit and rent paid before they move in.

For the other people, yes you can sue them in small claim court since they would be on a month to month rental, You owe according to your written lease no matter what else you are doing with sub renters.

I would have course worry about moving men ( that you don't know) into an apartment with a girlfriend living there.

But let us say you go to small claim court and win, if the people don't have any money winning don't mean they will pay.

If youi want to help homeless open a shelter, if you want to pay your rent, find people who have money to pay