I keep getting a message, about once a day, that "worker destroyed cooked meals in kitchen". I have no idea why he's doing this or how to fix it. I've tried searching here and Google and can't find anything about him even doing this, so I'm very confused...
So my family has been going through a nightmare of a situation with our previous landlord. It all started around a year ago.
We lost our only source of income. We couldn't pay rent. Neither of our families would help us out or take us in. Naturally, our landlord started eviction proceedings after a few months. We got a lawyer. They helped us apply for court based rental assistance through IHDA to repay our past debt to the landlord, as well as 2 months moving forward to give us time to find somewhere to move.
The landlord was supposed to dismiss the eviction case the moment they received the court based rental assistance payment. They didn't. They were also required to not file a new eviction case for at least 60 days. It got to the point of the landlord forcing us out before the end of the last month, under threat of following through with the still open eviction case. They claimed the rental assistance only paid for 60 days from the day they received it, and not 2 full calendar months, despite our lawyer and IHDA saying otherwise. We tried to offer to pay for another month while we worked with our lawyers social worker to find a home. They wouldn't hear it. We finally found a place to move into about 10 days before our time ran out, according to them at least.
So now, 46 days later, they are refusing to return our security deposit. 30 days is the limit for supplying the tenant with itemized deductions/receipts and 45 days is the legal limit to keep the security deposit in Illinois. They claim (in a text message on day 44, no less) that we left the place filthy and they needed to pay for deep cleaning. We didn't, and I have video proof of this. They also claim that since we only gave them 10 days notice of moving out, they lost out on another month of rent getting it ready for a new tenant.
They sent us zero communication whatsoever of any charges they were withholding or any receipts of any kind. I hadn't heard from them until I emailed and texted them the other day to see what was going on. They have both mine and my wife's phone numbers, email addresses, and physical address. I sent out a security deposit demand letter today, so I have a little less than two weeks before being able to file a case in small claims court.
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So I have a few questions...
- **1.** Is there anything else I should be doing to prepare for suing them in small claims court?
- **2.** Do they even have a leg to stand on if they didn't bother to notify us of these deductions within the 30 days required by Illinois law?
- **3a.** Can they even claim we owe them another month of rent for not giving them 30 days notice when they claim they knew when our tenancy would end 60 days beforehand? Also, wouldn't they be required to give ***US*** 30 days notice as well that they were not continuing our tenancy?
- **3b.** Adding to the above, would they have to prove the unit was empty (to the judge) for another month to even claim that? We drove by several times after moving out and noticed pretty quickly that the same car was parked there almost every day. And it isn't one of the landlords vehicles. It really seems like they're full of shit and just trying to get everything they can.
- **4.** And lastly. We forgot to pack 10+ pot and pan lids that we had in the drawer under our oven. I asked about them and got no response. In our lease it stated that "items left behind will be stored at the tenants expense". It has no time limit stipulated, so I would understand that to mean it would be stored for at least a reasonable amount of time and we would owe them for the rental unit or whatever they did with it. They also made no reasonable effort to contact us about them either. If they threw them away, wouldnt they be liable for paying for those too? If so, how do I prove the worth of those if I don't have receipts for them, and they weren't purchased (and are unable to be purchased) separately from the pots and pans?
So my family has been going through a nightmare of a situation with our previous landlord. It all started around a year ago.
We lost our only source of income. We couldn't pay rent. Neither of our families would help us out or take us in. Naturally, our landlord started eviction proceedings after a few months. We got a lawyer. They helped us apply for court based rental assistance through IHDA to repay our past debt to the landlord, as well as 2 months moving forward to give us time to find somewhere to move.
The landlord was supposed to dismiss the eviction case the moment they received the court based rental assistance payment. They didn't. They were also required to not file a new eviction case for at least 60 days. It got to the point of the landlord forcing us out before the end of the last month, under threat of following through with the still open eviction case. They claimed the rental assistance only paid for 60 days from the day they received it, and not 2 full calendar months, despite our lawyer and IHDA saying otherwise. We tried to offer to pay for another month while we worked with our lawyers social worker to find a home. They wouldn't hear it. We finally found a place to move into about 10 days before our time ran out, according to them at least.
So now, 46 days later, they are refusing to return our security deposit. 30 days is the limit for supplying the tenant with itemized deductions/receipts and 45 days is the legal limit to keep the security deposit in Illinois. They claim (in a text message on day 44, no less) that we left the place filthy and they needed to pay for deep cleaning. We didn't, and I have video proof of this. They also claim that since we only gave them 10 days notice of moving out, they lost out on another month of rent getting it ready for a new tenant.
They sent us zero communication whatsoever of any charges they were withholding or any receipts of any kind. I hadn't heard from them until I emailed and texted them the other day to see what was going on. They have both mine and my wife's phone numbers, email addresses, and physical address. I sent out a security deposit demand letter today, so I have a little less than two weeks before being able to file a case in small claims court.
~~~~~~~~~~
So I have a few questions...
- **1.** Is there anything else I should be doing to prepare for suing them in small claims court?
- **2.** Do they even have a leg to stand on if they didn't bother to notify us of these deductions within the 30 days required by Illinois law?
- **3a.** Can they even claim we owe them another month of rent for not giving them 30 days notice when they claim they knew when our tenancy would end 60 days beforehand? Also, wouldn't they be required to give ***US*** 30 days notice as well that they were not continuing our tenancy?
- **3b.** Adding to the above, would they have to prove the unit was empty (to the judge) for another month to even claim that? We drove by several times after moving out and noticed pretty quickly that the same car was parked there almost every day. And it isn't one of the landlords vehicles. It really seems like they're full of shit and just trying to get everything they can.
- **4.** And lastly. We forgot to pack 10+ pot and pan lids that we had in the drawer under our oven. I asked about them and got no response. In our lease it stated that "items left behind will be stored at the tenants expense". It has no time limit stipulated, so I would understand that to mean it would be stored for at least a reasonable amount of time and we would owe them for the rental unit or whatever they did with it. They also made no reasonable effort to contact us about them either. If they threw them away, wouldnt they be liable for paying for those too? If so, how do I prove the worth of those if I don't have receipts for them, and they weren't purchased (and are unable to be purchased) separately from the pots and pans?