California: Los Angeles County
So in April my gf and I moved into a house in Winnetka, CA. We signed a 12 month lease and it has been a complete nightmare.
I am a licensed cannabis grower and during the application I disclosed this to the owner and established that I would be growing on the property. It's RA zoned and a pretty large lot and so this was not out of the ordinary for this neighborhood. There are 6 other growers on my street.
I paid $6k deposit and $3k first months rent at move in. Everything seemed OK but the landlady liked to come over pretty much daily to hang out with my gf and they became friends. I build an additional room onto the garage and put up drywall and remodeled the existing garage. All in all I invested about $15k into the remodel with the Landlady's permission.
About two months into the lease our water and power was shut off. Apparently she had been stealing water and power since November and owed LADWP $14k!! After a week with no service we and LADWP refusing to allow us to establish service in our name we ended up loaning the Landlady $10k towards her bill and they turned us back on. We paid the bill and deducted it from the next few months of rent. We also deducted $1400 for 7 days with no water or power (prorated rent at $100/day + an additional $100/day as per state code for uninhabitable conditions). So then a week later the gas company came out and shut us off for the same reason. Mind you, we had switched the utilities into our name.. They apparently did an investigation and somehow determined that we were using fake identities to get her out of paying her bill. Not the case. So she went and paid the gas bill of around $1,000 but it took them over two weeks to come out and turn it back on. We didn't deduct anything this time.
Fast forward a few months and suddenly there is a for sale sign in our front yard. She'd decided to sell the house in the middle of our lease. Meanwhile I've got over $30k invested in my business operations here and have no intention of leaving early. Turns out the neighbor is interested in the property and agrees to buy the place and let us continue to rent for an additional 12 months. Great.
Turns out the Landlady received $30k in some government bail out and isn't supposed to rent the property. She has already spent our deposit money and hasn't paid on her mortgage since last November. She also owes taxes. She's $29k behind on her mortgage and suddenly she puts a stop to the sale and tells the neighbor she's not selling until we pay her $44k for the most ridiculous list of made up crap I've ever seen. Things like $10k for her dead parrot who bit my gf the day we moved in and died a week later after being bit by her own dog over at her mom's house where she currently lives. And an additional $1000 per month from the date we moved in for having guests over. And extra $250 per month because she had to get a storage unit to store her things at now that we live in her house??! $2000 per month for running a business out of the residence. Oh.. And I forgot to mention that she sold all of the appliances the day after we viewed the property so when we moved in the fridge and everything else was gone. EVERYTHING. Still have yet to see the pool guy and gardener we were promised as well.
Where was I? So the neighbor kindly explains that our existing issues have no relevance to the sale of the property so she says we will be evicted in a few weeks and then we receive a 3 day pay or quit for $9000. No idea where she came up with that number but it's not an official notice so I ignore it. A few days later a car drives by and yells something about robbing us because we're f'ing with the Landlady. 20 min later two cars in front of my house get vandalised and a day later $4000 worth of grow lights get stolen from the shed out back. Next day another friend gets his registration and ID stolen from his car out front. The following week the Landlady shows up late at night and returns the stolen registration and claims that a crazy neighbor kid did it all and she was unaware until his dad called her and let her know. I still haven't seen my lights. She says she thought we were trying to scam her and says she's going to go through with the sale of the house to the neighbor.
Two days later she shows up again with McDonalds and as she leaves she opens the gate and in come the DEA to raid the place. She told them we had an illegal grow operation and that she knew nothing about it. They took about $40k worth of plants and destroyed the last 6 months of work I had put in. My girlfriend and I get arrested on cultivation charges with $60k bail. We drop $6k on a bondsman and another $10k on a lawyer who quickly had the case dismissed. We run a legitimate operation here. Still I'm out all that money, our house has been destroyed, and I don't have a penny left to my name and more debt than I can fathom right now.
The day we bail out the Landlady shows up late that night with two huge men and try to force us off the property. We call the cops, who never show up, but we locked the doors and they left once they heard the cops were on the way.
So now I'm broke and can't afford rent or anything else for that matter.. Especially not prepared in any way to move in this financial state.
What do I do?
So in April my gf and I moved into a house in Winnetka, CA. We signed a 12 month lease and it has been a complete nightmare.
I am a licensed cannabis grower and during the application I disclosed this to the owner and established that I would be growing on the property. It's RA zoned and a pretty large lot and so this was not out of the ordinary for this neighborhood. There are 6 other growers on my street.
I paid $6k deposit and $3k first months rent at move in. Everything seemed OK but the landlady liked to come over pretty much daily to hang out with my gf and they became friends. I build an additional room onto the garage and put up drywall and remodeled the existing garage. All in all I invested about $15k into the remodel with the Landlady's permission.
About two months into the lease our water and power was shut off. Apparently she had been stealing water and power since November and owed LADWP $14k!! After a week with no service we and LADWP refusing to allow us to establish service in our name we ended up loaning the Landlady $10k towards her bill and they turned us back on. We paid the bill and deducted it from the next few months of rent. We also deducted $1400 for 7 days with no water or power (prorated rent at $100/day + an additional $100/day as per state code for uninhabitable conditions). So then a week later the gas company came out and shut us off for the same reason. Mind you, we had switched the utilities into our name.. They apparently did an investigation and somehow determined that we were using fake identities to get her out of paying her bill. Not the case. So she went and paid the gas bill of around $1,000 but it took them over two weeks to come out and turn it back on. We didn't deduct anything this time.
Fast forward a few months and suddenly there is a for sale sign in our front yard. She'd decided to sell the house in the middle of our lease. Meanwhile I've got over $30k invested in my business operations here and have no intention of leaving early. Turns out the neighbor is interested in the property and agrees to buy the place and let us continue to rent for an additional 12 months. Great.
Turns out the Landlady received $30k in some government bail out and isn't supposed to rent the property. She has already spent our deposit money and hasn't paid on her mortgage since last November. She also owes taxes. She's $29k behind on her mortgage and suddenly she puts a stop to the sale and tells the neighbor she's not selling until we pay her $44k for the most ridiculous list of made up crap I've ever seen. Things like $10k for her dead parrot who bit my gf the day we moved in and died a week later after being bit by her own dog over at her mom's house where she currently lives. And an additional $1000 per month from the date we moved in for having guests over. And extra $250 per month because she had to get a storage unit to store her things at now that we live in her house??! $2000 per month for running a business out of the residence. Oh.. And I forgot to mention that she sold all of the appliances the day after we viewed the property so when we moved in the fridge and everything else was gone. EVERYTHING. Still have yet to see the pool guy and gardener we were promised as well.
Where was I? So the neighbor kindly explains that our existing issues have no relevance to the sale of the property so she says we will be evicted in a few weeks and then we receive a 3 day pay or quit for $9000. No idea where she came up with that number but it's not an official notice so I ignore it. A few days later a car drives by and yells something about robbing us because we're f'ing with the Landlady. 20 min later two cars in front of my house get vandalised and a day later $4000 worth of grow lights get stolen from the shed out back. Next day another friend gets his registration and ID stolen from his car out front. The following week the Landlady shows up late at night and returns the stolen registration and claims that a crazy neighbor kid did it all and she was unaware until his dad called her and let her know. I still haven't seen my lights. She says she thought we were trying to scam her and says she's going to go through with the sale of the house to the neighbor.
Two days later she shows up again with McDonalds and as she leaves she opens the gate and in come the DEA to raid the place. She told them we had an illegal grow operation and that she knew nothing about it. They took about $40k worth of plants and destroyed the last 6 months of work I had put in. My girlfriend and I get arrested on cultivation charges with $60k bail. We drop $6k on a bondsman and another $10k on a lawyer who quickly had the case dismissed. We run a legitimate operation here. Still I'm out all that money, our house has been destroyed, and I don't have a penny left to my name and more debt than I can fathom right now.
The day we bail out the Landlady shows up late that night with two huge men and try to force us off the property. We call the cops, who never show up, but we locked the doors and they left once they heard the cops were on the way.
So now I'm broke and can't afford rent or anything else for that matter.. Especially not prepared in any way to move in this financial state.
What do I do?
