Nice Tenants Lose Their Deposit. Documented Tenants Get It Back.

Locking you out, pulling the door off, shutting off the water or the power to push you out is called a self-help eviction. Every state bans it, and it stays banned even when your rent is late. A landlord who wants you out has to go through a court.

Some states put a price on it. California charges the landlord $100 for every day the lockout continues, with a $250 minimum. Wisconsin lets you recover double what it actually cost you, plus court costs and attorney fees.

What to do: photograph the door, write down the date and time, and put it to them in writing the same day.

Most states require advance notice — 24 hours is the most common — before a landlord enters for repairs, showings, or inspections. A real emergency like a burst pipe or a fire is the exception. They can come in.

What to do: ask for entry requests in writing. A text thread is a record.

Faded paint. Carpet worn down the hallway where everybody walks. Small nail holes. Loose grout. That's the cost of a place being lived in, and landlords can't take it out of your deposit. Damage beyond ordinary use is a different thing, and that one's fair.

Here's the part nobody tells you. In virtually every state the burden is on the landlord to prove a charge is real damage and not just age. It is not on you to prove you didn't do it.

What to do: this is what Script C above is for. But the move-in photos are what actually win it — without them, the argument is your word against a line item.

You have a reasonable expectation of privacy inside your home — bedrooms and bathrooms especially. Secretly recording those spaces is a crime in most states, and owning the building doesn't change that. In California it's a misdemeanor carrying up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine, and it can rise to a felony for repeat offenses or when a minor is involved.

What to do: don't touch it and don't pull it down. Photograph it exactly where it sits, then call the police and a lawyer.

Both halves of this matter. A lease clause banning overnight guests outright is very likely unenforceable — courts in California, New York and New Jersey have all found blanket bans unreasonable, and one can run into fair housing problems.

But a clause capping how long a guest stays is a different animal, and those generally do hold up. Fourteen days in a stretch is a common line. The reason courts allow it is that past a certain point a guest starts looking like an unscreened occupant, and that runs into occupancy limits and insurance.

What to do: read the guest clause in your own lease. A ban is worth pushing back on. A duration cap is worth respecting.

Landlords have to keep a unit livable. Heat is part of that almost everywhere. Air conditioning often isn't — that depends on your state and your climate.

Many states do give you a repair-and-deduct remedy, and it's real. It also has rules: written notice first, a waiting period, and a cap. Missouri caps it at one month's rent in any twelve months, and that's a typical figure.

The hotel is the part people get wrong. Repair-and-deduct covers the cost of fixing the thing, not a room for the night. A motel bill is recoverable a different way — as damages in a habitability claim, which California puts between $100 and $5,000 — but that's a case you bring, not money you take off the rent yourself.

What to do: put the request in writing, date it, keep every receipt.

A 30-day notice is a real legal step and you take it seriously. But it is the first step, not the last one. It does not remove you.

The order goes: written notice, then the landlord files suit, then a hearing, then — only if they win — the court issues a writ of possession. The landlord can't serve that writ himself. He hands it to the sheriff or the constable, and they're the ones who carry it out.

Your landlord stacking your things on the curb on his own is not any part of that process.

What to do: don't ignore a notice, and don't move out on the strength of one either. Get every date in writing and find out what your county court actually requires.