I'm currently living in Bakersfield, CA right now, zip code 93311 for school. My old roommates / landlords in Chula Vista, zip 91911 and I had some basic living together issues. I was paying rent to them. They finally culminated when they turned off the power because I was a day late on rent, which was due to the fact that we weren't sure how much I was to pay, since I was leaving in a day or two (September 9th was the day I was going to be leaving, and rent was due the 6th) So on the 7th of September they turned the power off on me and my boyfriend who was also living there. We had no rental contract with them, and our names weren't on the utilities so we decided that that was an extremely volatile and unsafe living enviornment for us to be living in, so we packed up as many of our things that would fit in our little car and left that day. The next day, when we had access to a bigger vehicle, we went back to get our furniture, planning to have it all out and be done with it, and even planning on leaving the rent for the time we stayed there, but not for the whole month. Unfortunately, they had locked us out of the house so we couldn't get our furniture and told us that Arin, my boyfriend, wasn't allowed in the house (it was all his furniture) and if we wanted it, we had to come when they were home. I went with my brother later that night and moved as much as we could, but we couldn't get all of it due to time constraints and us moving the next day to bakersfield for school. We left a bed frame, which we didn't really need, and at any rate couldn't get.
We decided not to pay for the 6 days we stayed there for the month of september, but we kept getting text messages from them telling us, demanding that we not only pay, but we get our things, which we were incapable of doing from Bakersfield, and we weren't going to pay when we were ousted. Now, they've been telling us they're going to serve us eviction papers, but we moved out over a month ago and gave them notice. According to them, we needed to give notice to their parents, the owners of the property, and they are the ones serving the eviction notice, or at least say they are. However, we only lived there one month, and that month paid cash to our roommates, who we thought were our landlords since we paid rent to them.
On top of that, they are telling us to pay for half of the electricity for the month we were there, but we had all agreed we wouldn't be paying utilities, and that was one of the main reasons we moved in in the first place.
There was no rental contract whatsoever.
My question is, do they have any legal standing to follow through on what they're saying, and what can I do to protect myself? Is it possible for me to sue them for what they did to us while we were living there, and for keeping us from getting all of our things?
We decided not to pay for the 6 days we stayed there for the month of september, but we kept getting text messages from them telling us, demanding that we not only pay, but we get our things, which we were incapable of doing from Bakersfield, and we weren't going to pay when we were ousted. Now, they've been telling us they're going to serve us eviction papers, but we moved out over a month ago and gave them notice. According to them, we needed to give notice to their parents, the owners of the property, and they are the ones serving the eviction notice, or at least say they are. However, we only lived there one month, and that month paid cash to our roommates, who we thought were our landlords since we paid rent to them.
On top of that, they are telling us to pay for half of the electricity for the month we were there, but we had all agreed we wouldn't be paying utilities, and that was one of the main reasons we moved in in the first place.
There was no rental contract whatsoever.
My question is, do they have any legal standing to follow through on what they're saying, and what can I do to protect myself? Is it possible for me to sue them for what they did to us while we were living there, and for keeping us from getting all of our things?
