What's your state? I can only give general advice unless you tell me what laws to look up!
1. Unless you had a written lease requiring you to pay 15 days rent after giving 30 days notice & vacating, you owe nothing. I assume wife's notice was for both of you.
2. You were a month-to-month subtenant. If your state requires notice 30 days before the next rental period begins, and you paid rent on the 1st every month, you owe rent through the end of the month. If you paid rent on the 15th, you owe rent through the 15th of the month.
If your state just requires 30 days notice (California), you owe no rent after the notice time ran out unless you held over.
3. Regarding the first 15 days you lived there: the issue is whether you were just a guest for the first 2 weeks, then became a tenant, or were a tenant from the beginning. I lean towards the guest argument, since the others never asked for any rent for that period. If they really thought you should be paying from the day you moved in, they would have asked then.
4. Your wife's security deposit was her separate property & is not subject to your debts. Even if you owe the full $250 they're demanding, they CANNOT take that money out of *her* deposit unless she gave them permission to do so. In writing. Wife can sue her "landlord" (the guy she gave the money to) for 2-3 times the amount wrongfully withheld + attorney fees. 'Wrongfully withheld' usually means not refunded within 14-45 days (varies by state) or that L made improper deductions. In her case, both my apply.
5. Unless the lease said she'd pay for the extra 15 days rent AND the utilities for that time, she owes no utilities. In fact, a contract that requires her to pay the extra rent but says nothing about the utilites is presumed to mean that utilites are not due.
6. The guy who deposited her security deposit in his personal checking account broke the law & may not be able to withhold ANY of the deposit under any circumstances.
Wife should sue the guy who took her money. She should do so separately, without your name in the court caption. That way, no one can counterclaim that *your* allegedly due rent should reduce any judgment she receives. (If they try, she should move to dismiss the counterclaim as improper.) They will have to sue you separately. These are 2 separate cases. Don't combine them -- it gets too confusing & encourages the judge to award wife just the $250, instead of the full triple damages in an effort to be 'fair'.
Even if you lose & end up having to pay $250, wife should recover at least $500, so you folks come out ahead. Get copies of your state's residential landlord tenant act & security deopsit act & take them with you to court. Hand the xeroxes up to the judge during your argument, with the pertinant parts highlighted. The judge will have a harder time ignoring the law if you hand it to her!
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This is not legal advice and you are not my client. Double check everything with your own attorney and your state's laws.
