Dealing with unreasonable landlord.

By Tenant

My son damaged my landlord’s property with his BB gun earlier this summer. I was presented with a bill from my landlord to repay her for the repairs. She did not provide receipts for the ‘alleged’ damages and demanded the money be paid within 2 weeks. ($463). I politely informed her that I did not have the money and she could take it out of my security deposit. She stated “I will not accept that, that money is for other things”. She has proceeded to harass me for the money. My son has offered to help her with yard work, etc. to help payback the damages and she informed both he and I that it was too late that she wouldn’t be “pushing me to move” if she thought it could be resolved. I told her that I wanted time to explore my rights and review the bill with an attorney. My attorney agreed that the damages seemed ridiculously inflated and wrote her a letter asking her to provide receipts or I would agree to pay it by Nov. 25th (without receipts) if she, in return, agreed to let me out of my lease. She will not agree to the termination of the lease unless the money is paid in 5 days or vacate the premise (she slapped me with written notice). She has a history of harassing and bullying past renters. She is unreasonable and irrational. She is relentless. Clearly wants to have it her way, on her terms just to be a bully. How do I know she will still let me out of the lease if I pay it? What gives her the right to demand money and not provide receipts? What gives her the right to tell me when I have to pay it by when I’ve given her a clear date of when I can afford to pay it? Is it worth fighting her? If I don’t, I fear she will continue to get away with this behavior with future tenants. I am working with an attorney but he has limited time and clearly limited expertise in renter/tenant issues. This is costing me time, money and undue stress/anxiety. Please help.

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