Advice on facing eviction in CA

[Andrew Jones]

Hello, BP community! I’ve been living in an illegal in-law unit built into the side of my landlord’s house for 6 years. During this time a leak in our bedroom closet has consistently gotten worse with each rainy season. I also have a good portion of the corner of my room that floods from under the floorboards when the rain is bad. I’ve told them several times over several years and nothing ever got done. I know I can pay the repairs myself and deduct it from the rent, but I haven‘t had enough money at any given time to pay repairs and pay for another place to stay while this is happening. Seeing as my rent was significantly below market, I didn’t want to ruin it by forcing my landlords to do it. Since then, there have been many other factors contributing to a deteriorating relationship between myself and my landlords. I will admit fault in some of it, including not always being on time with rent, even though I was within my rights to withhold it anyway. This weekend they texted asking when to expect rent, as it was late, and also included a list of things upsetting them about my tenancy. Mostly including the cleanliness of my side of our shared yard that they themselves routinely trash. I responded with an apology, promise that they would promptly receive the check (it had actually been ready to go for over a week, but our schedules never lined up for me to give it to them, and our neighborhood has seen mail and package theft), but I also included a list of things I wanted them to fix. This escalated quickly to them serving me a 30 day notice to vacate. Seems this is something they’ve been looking for an excuse to do for a while, in my opinion. Side Note: somebody purchased the house for them and has some sort of seller financing deal. Their names are not currently on the records at all. As of now, I have no intentions of giving them the rent I “owe”, or leaving within the 30 days, as I don’t currently have the funds to do so. Does anyone have any advice on how to go about this, from experience? I’m currently speaking with attorneys, but I want to know if anyone has been through an eviction process concerning an illegal and uninhabitable unit?