Landlord suing for false damages

By Foiled2006

I rented a home from landlord from May 2009-May 2010. Previously she rented the home by room and she still lived in the house with her dog and daughter. Her past tenants did not pay rent and she asked if i wanted to move my lease from her other rental to the house. The lease stated that only I and my boyfriend would reside in the home. We agreed that she could keep one bedroom for her stuff for one she would be in town. Which was said to be maybe once a month to check on properties and then she would be out of state all winter. The first month we mvoed in her daughter had not moved out. We paid less rent so that her daughter could stay till June. In June her daughter was still living there and the landlord was back and forth from out of town. This pattern continued throughout the lease. The landlord would say she was comin in town and end up staying in the house weeks at a time. She brought with her each time her dog. She would consistenly call me at work to tell me what drama she had in her life or what my dogs did or didn’t do that day while they were put up. she would go upstairs in our bedroom and use the bathtub. She freely used our internet and cable. i at one point told her that if she was going to stay there she would have to reduce our rent by $300 a month. She said she could not afford that. However, while she didn’t stay the ngiht she would come over and use the internet, do laundry and work on clients. My frustration was through the roof. Towards the end of the lease I told her we were going to rent someplace cheaper and she tried to get us to stay and we would pay less cuase she would move in permanently downstairs. Which in my mind she already had. I told her no. At taht point things got worse. As April approached, i said that we would pay for carpet cleaning cause we had pets. I had witnessed her dog urinating in our bedroom twice so my dogs also marked that area. I thought it fair to clean the carpets. The carpet upstairs was 19 years old and the downstairs bedroom carpet had to be over 20 years old. She agreed that was fine. Mind you this whole time she was dointg all kinds of large improvements to the property. New sidewalks, landscaping etc. She fora  week straight woudl use the tub upstairs in our bedroom after doing all this work at the end of our lease. We started staying at our new place early April, but paid rent on both places. We came back to move stuff out to find she had started remodeling the inside. She had packed up some of our belongings and shoved them in the corner. She also went upstairs into our bedroom and was going thru stuff up there and started tearing up carpet saying the house smelled like urine. She called and said I would not get my deposit back becasue she had to replace all the carpet. I told her the carpet was past the useful life and she could not do that. In the end she sent me a bill for $5000 for damages to her home. We never did a move in since we couldn’t completly move in, and when were to move out she had already started tearing the place up. We were not allowed to paint, we only hung a few small items. There was not much we did to change the home. She even billed us for 10 year old dish towels she packed up in our boxes. Should I sue her for her portion of rent and utilities and does she have a case. I have plenty of emails stating how grateful she was for us letting her stay there etc. She was all fine until we decided not to rent from her anymore. I feel like we were tenants who paid rent and now we are the ones she wants to pay to renovate her home so she can sell it.

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Holy Cow, we couldn't find any other related post. Sorry. :(