The situation continues to fall to pieces…
Had a discussion with my land lord and his wife the other day – it last nearly 3 hours.
It started out with him telling me that I was disrespectful and had no right to concern myself with his pets, that I had crossed a personal boundary and was way out of line to even bring up these concerns to him. I was told that it was disrespectful for me to even knock on his door to ask him to have a meeting with me – I was told that I was stupid and naïve child on several separate occasions.
During our conversation, the topic of my lease came up. He told me that I could live anywhere I wanted to but that I would take him at least 3 months to rent out my space. 3 months!!!! I could rend out this room in two days if he would only allow me. Can he throw out an arbitrary number like this? How does this play into the concept of mitigating damages? Is this legal?
Regardless of money and inconvenience, I have decided that I will be vacating the premises by this coming weekend. Thankfully, I have some very understanding friends and family who are going to help me out while this conflict blows over.
This decision raises another set of questions.
I have written (but not yet sent) a letter to my landlord requesting that we meet to discuss the terms of my departure. These are the options as I see them:
1) I could offer him monies upfront – 2 months or 3 months, whatever it takes to get him to sign a piece of paper that says we are square. This could be a problem – I might end up spending waaaay more than I have to – he could rent it out in the next few weeks.
2) I could pay him rent on the 1st of each month that my vacancy isn’t filled. This could be a problem – he could string me on, draw out this process to screw me.
3) I could simply leave – let him pursue me if he wants to. If he wanted to take the time and energy, he could take me to court. In this case, I feel like the evidence that I have of the animal abuse (which includes his admitting to it in our conversation) would be pretty strong. The pros: I wouldn’t have to pay him anything else – I would forfeit my deposit and be done. The cons: obviously – stressful legal proceedings and possibly ruined credit. What exactly can he do to my credit? He doesn’t have my address or SS #. Assuming he hasn’t made any copies of my checks, he has no record of where to track me down.
So…what do you all think? What is the next step here?