My family and I exercised our right to terminate our lease and vacate the rental property after the Landlord ignored repeated requests for repairs over a 5 month period. Mice in the kitchen (dead or alive), a roof leak in the bedroom, and severe rain water intrusion coming through the front walls of the entrance room. We posted our notice on the door on May 31, 2010, mailed it certified, return receipt and moved out that day. Our City Building and Safety Dept. refused to inspect the issues as they stated, "we do not get involved with Landlord-Tenant disputes," We took plenty of photos, pulled phone records, advised with two Attorneys, and mailed two letters to the Landlord in April, asking for these repairs. When we notified the Landlord of our rights under Ca Civil Code SS 1942 to vacate and terminate lease, we provided a forwarding address to him, and asked for a final walk through inspection. Six days later, the Landlord leaves us a voice message and ultimately says were are not allowed back into the house again, but acknowledges we were out of the house, and threatens to file a "major lawsuit" against us, and "file a complaint with my husband's employer." We decided to wait out the 21 days to hear back from the Landlord regarding our security deposit. Nothing.....except a notice from the local Court that we had been named as Defendants in an Unlawful Detainer lawsuit, which was filed June 18, 2010. We have not been served with the summons as of today, and likely will not be as we have not lived at the rental property since May 31, 2010. So, we hired an eviction Attorney to help us dismiss the Unlawful Detainer case which had been filed without merit, and without good cause. To our dismay, and after retrieving a copy of the UD complaint on June 28, 2010, we noticed a 3 Day Notice to Pay or Quit attached to the UD complaint. We had never seen, had any knowledge of, or or been served with this 3 Day Notice. The Landlord alleged that the 3 Day Notice was served on June 3, 2010 (3 days after vacating the property), and was assumed to expire on June 7, 2010 (the day before his voice message, acknowledging we were no longer in possession). Unbelievable!!! Now, we are faced with our credit being damaged because were have been named in a UD lawsuit (public record), and the UD case still has not been dismissed, as the Landlord's Attorney claimed in his email to our Attorney, and we have now filed a small claims suit against the Landlord, since we have not heard from him regarding our security deposit as of yet. Ca Civil Code SS 1942.5 is in place to protect renter's from retaliation BUT this is not so. The laws allow for the Landlord to break the laws that are in place, and ultimately get away with his/her revenge against the tenants. Now we await our small claims trial on August 9, 2010.....we are fairly confident we will prevail. It seems to late to reverse the eviction damage that has already been done to us. A very sad day for innocent renters who have had this happen to them.
