Losthorizon
Junior Member
Last summer I was leasing a place with two other guys (both close friends). One guy broke the one year lease a month and a half early to move to Arkansas, contacted our landlord, and found another guy to fill the last part of his lease (we will call him roommate A). For our move out, the remaining original roommate (who we will call roommate B) and I had to take one day off work and one day of our weekend to completely clean and empty the house, including some material that roommate A had left behind (such as an entertainment stand, cookware). This clean-up included me with my head in an oven for hours trying to clean out the mess left behind when roommate A foolishly tried to cook an entire chicken with no grease pan. The replacement guy (to his credit), stayed for a few hours and cleaned the bathroom as his contribution, but then left very early on the first day of cleaning. After move out the landlord asked who to give the security deposit to, and I volunteered myself. Shortly after I received the funds and bills of cleaning. We were charged for dumping (due to the trashcans being overflowing), basic wall repairs, and a 420 dollar cleaning bill. I split everything up between the responsible parties, and upon consulting roommate B and the replacement roomie, decided to deal out 2/3's of the cleaning bill to roommate A because he was completely absent from the 2 days of cleaning and because the landlord had mentioned the oven constituted a "substantial portion" of the cleaning. I sent the breakdowns via mails to everyone and immediately roommate A (who is notoriously hard to get a hold of) contacted me and berated me for "stealing" from him and being unfair (he got about 830 bucks back, I had 960, and the roommate who stayed had around 940, we all originally had about 1066 put into the deposit). He threatened to take me to small claims which I said was fine, told me he'd contact the landlord and find out the exact damage to the stove which he didn't believe to be extensive, and etc etc). I tried to contact him and resolve the issue for the first 2 weeks, but I didn't hear back from him. I finally sent the checks when no word came from roommate A (after withholding them for roommate A's sake since he was disputing everything). I saw in my account that he cashed his check, and for 2 months I haven't heard a thing and have moved on but now he has sent me a message saying that we will pay him the money or he will seek legal action. I am fairly certain that by him cashing his deposit check he can no longer seek recourse, but I would like some light on the whole issue anyway. Roommate B plans to stand by me, and we are wondering are chances of winning should he come after us (if he can come after us?). The amount of money (~200) is so minuscule I think its insane for him to take us to small claims. We are in California by the way. Thanks for any advice.What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)?