I'll try and keep this as short as possible. Here is a link to a site that reviews landlords and our guy is one of them. The only positive reviews on the site are false, as he forced my friend and I to write them through threats of making our lives at his property hell for the duration of our lease. http://www.landorslum.com/landlords/dale-trout

That should give you an idea of the type of person our "landlord" is. If you're wondering why the hell we rented from him in the first place, the answer is there were barely any options and we were just unsuspecting college kids needing a place to live (lesson learned).

About halfway into our lease we learned how much of a scumbag this guy really is, and that he steals as much as he can at the end of the lease by charging "$400 to clean microwaves" etc. The house I live in is large and we have 12 of us total. The lease ends in two weeks. Knowing what I do now, I would have taken hundreds of pictures, demanded repairs be made at the start of the lease, documented everything etc.

My question is, since I was too dumb to do that at the beginning, is there any way to protect myself and my housemates at this point? Security deposits are $500 a person (one month's rent), and judging from talks with other tenants of his, he will take every single one. He is also going to try and bill us upwards of $15,000 from what we are told for random damages. The problem is he leaves the house in such horrible condition that things naturally break and fall apart, and he leaves us with the bill when he finally MUST fix them.

If anyone has any legal advice such as how to preemptively stop this guy from running his scheme on us I'd really appreciate it. I understand there's a good chance that it's too late but figured it's worth posting anyway.

We are actually all okay at this point with losing our deposits as we know that's the minimum of what he'll try and hit us with. We tried to give him forms at the beginning of the lease that stated the condition of everything in the house but he refused to take them, saying that he doesn't use them anymore.

Again, my roommates and I now realize how stupid/naive we were but sadly a lot of college kids fall into the same trap. I am cool with losing my $500, but I'm afraid it's going to get to be like $2000 a person with how this guy operates. Thanks for any help/tips.

Is this in Maryland? I know it depends a lot on state law, California (where I live) is very tenant friendly and you could probably **** him in the ass in court but I have no idea about other states

It's in Pennsylvania.

also, contact your local state representative (seriously) and ask him for help... i worked in a state rep's office for a while. they'd go crazy over something like this and will go to bat for you. state rep NOT national rep...

on 2nd thought i see you think he's gunna go after you for the 2k. getting an attorney may not be worth it now until he comes after you. go to your state rep ASAp. contact the BBB. contact the local gov't agency that oversees this stuff.

worth a 2nd post:

as someone who worked for a local PA state rep i cannot express to you how much these guys (assuming you have a good one) will help you out. a lot of people do NOT realize what a resource these reps are.

Thanks for the quick response and good advice. Now I may be sounding REALLY stupid, but could you point in the direction of where to find these contacts? I will get right on this - this guy's already abused us enough.

http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/home/find.cfm

im not promising you these guys will bail you out and do backflips.... but if you have a SOLID rep (like the guy i worked for) at LEAST he will point you to a gov't agency that will help you. we used to go WAY out of our way in our office to bail people out of situations like this. i hope your rep is helpful to you.

contact your rep first, but put in a call to your state senator as well if the rep is not helpful

highly highly suggest going to see the rep in person (they should all have local offices)... if he isnt there make an appointment to see him, but explain to situation to the seccy or staffer in the office before you leave

Great, I will do this ASAP and will keep you posted. Really appreciate the help. Hopefully even if this guy gets our money we can drive him out so he can't **** over more kids like us in the future.

who is your rep?

also if rep is no good contact the BBB

Some colleges have free legal services for students, and I'm sure landlord disputes are the biggest cases. Even if that isn't an option, you should go to your school administrators. They'll believe their students, and might be able to help. It's bad for them to have students repeatedly screwed over.

Also going to a school paper can't hurt.

+1

This is excellent advice. So is the advice about going to the state rep and BBB.

Thanks guys- will look into those other avenues. Sent a long email to our rep, Kerry Benninghoff, with the intention of calling/visiting him if I didn't hear back quickly. He already got back to me this morning with a copied email:

"Check with Don Grell on this. Should go to State 0college Housing authority and maybe eventually the DA? Need to get this kid some help asap. Thanks. KB"

So looks like we should hear back soon and get some help from our local government. Will keep you all posted.

Wow, that was quick. Nice rep!

That's pretty awesome that you got such a quick response. Who was he sending the email to? (I'm guessing you were CCed on it.)

Yes I was CC'ed. It was Holly Wilson, to be honest not sure if she's another legislator or part of his staff or whatever. In any case, she called me and was very friendly and seemed like she wanted to help. She gave me the number for the Attorney General and for the housing/building inspections office and said to call them. She said most likely we can't do much until we actually get the bill, so I have lined up everything and kept my housemates updated.

My plan is to write up a long letter tomorrow addressed to our landlord. Almost right after he sends us the bill, I'll send him the letter via certified mail. It'll be signed by all housemates and their parents (cosigners). It will outline everything we have against him, what we're willing to pay, and what we're willing to do in the event that he refuses to revise his bill to a more reasonable amount. I will mention our willingness to send in inspectors, issue formal complaints with the BBB, and with the Attorney General as well as the housing commission.

I'll also mention that we'll happily take him to court, as well as contact the school's administration, the local newspaper, and all past and present tenants of his we can get a hold of. I think by the end of the letter he'll realize we're not ****ing around and that he better take what we owe and move on.

Depending on how things go, we should probably still file complaints after even if he does cooperate with us, as otherwise he'll just abuse future tenants without consequence.

Thoughts?