My friend paid this woman, in cash, for the first month’s stay in the room.
No contracts were signed.
Things weren’t going so well for the room my friend was renting. There was a major flea problem, and a couple of other small problems, and my friend was advised by our college’s Housing department to find a new place because of this.
On Friday morning she mentions to the roommate that she is looking for a new place. She hasn’t found one yet, but she wanted to know her rights and what was expected of her in such a case. Chances are she didn’t communicate this very well, because English is her second language and she isn’t really practiced in speaking it. In the morning the roommate said something like, “Well, you have to do what you have to do.” When my friend returned that evening, however, the roommate’s attitude was quite a bit different. She kept coming in to my friend’s room with random complaints, all the while getting angrier and angrier, until a shouting match erupted. It ended with her kicking my friend out of the apartment.
Now, I can understand kicking someone out immediately if they trash the place, or are found with drugs, or something extreme. The roommate’s excuse that she told to my dad was that she was insulted – but by what wasn’t really clear. First of all, as I already said, my friend isn’t that great at English and can’t really use swear words and the like, and claims that she wasn’t rude at all until she was pretty much out the door. My dad guessed that she was just insulted by the fact that my friend announced she wanted to move. Here’s the kicker though: At some point on Friday evening, the roommate said that she already had a renter who was prepared to move in the next day. In other words, my friend got thrown out not because she did anything wrong, but because her space – that she paid for – was given to someone else. Therefore, there was no notice at all, nothing like, “You have 48 hours to find a new place!” She was just out on the street like that, late on a Friday night.
I seriously doubt it would have ended like this if my friend had signed a contract, rather than only having a verbal agreement. But, she's never lived in the U.S. before, and wasn't clear on customs and laws. So yes, she was partially depending on tolerance from the roommate and laid quite a bit of trust in her.
The roommate said she wouldn’t give a refund on my friend’s money, because my friend didn’t give one month’s notice. That at least is a load of bull crap, since my friend never gave a date. That morning *was* her notice. Besides that, this woman knew she had only recently come to the U.S. and doesn’t exactly know a whole lot of people here. She wouldn’t even let her use the phone to make calls – she had to call my house from a pay phone before she had even packed up. I’m just glad we could let her stay with us for a few days. She still hasn’t found a new place.
And yes, she’s going to see the school’s legal help people.
Part of the problem was that she agreed to rent the apartment while she was still in her home country, so she never got to check it out, and just assumed the other person would handle legal necessities.