Tenant Built a Large Shed and Hooked wiring with Permission

[Chandan Singh]

Hello Everyone, Thank you for your advice in Advance. 

Here is the Situation. We are in California. Our lease ended with tenant who is mexican and they moved out of the house. We went inside and found missing and broken appliances, missing 2 doors, damaged and broken 2 doors. Hundreds of holes in the wall, filthy carpet, leaking roof and number of different kind of modifications on flooring. Like Vinyl tiling fixtures all over.

4 other concerning things, please give us your input on point 3 if you know anything related to that in our situation:

1. The tenant was living under Section 8 (subsidized renting program) and we now know that they were and are still committing fraud with section 8. Let's assume our tenant's name is 'abc' age approximate 43. So abc is claiming section 8 subsidy by demonstrating herself as a single mother of 3 with not enough income. The lease was on her name. But in reality, she lives with her husband and 3 kids, 1 kid who is a minor also has a kid. At many instance she referred her husband a s her husband but is taking subsidy claiming she is a single mother with not enough income. Now they drive Luxury Cars Like 2- Mercedez S Class, Honda Sedan, And an expensive, modified huge pick up truck. So their so called below poverty income claim with section 8 doesn't match with their luxury lifestyle.  

2. Based on what we know and found out from neighbors, although we don't have any abstract evidence, Tenants were misusing the property to run a Prostitution type of business, massages service etc. They had those professional massage tables, a bar at the entrance of the home where people usually have living room. The house is turned into a fort with like 2 door each, front and back with 2 locks on each door. Total 8 locks for 2 home entry points. 2 locks on the door leading from garage towards the home. Painted the lower level extremely dark. Neighbors claim that there were  several men who would come to the property for 10-15 mins and park the vehicles a bit away from property. Neighbors have been watching over with state of the art security cameras but they said they didn't want to get involve so they didn't report anything. 

3. Tenant erected a 12 x 12 outdoor extendable living accommodation shed in the backyard without any permission installed permanent tiles, ran wiring in the shed for lighting, fans, for electrical devices and also for air conditioning. Hooked up electricity lines to the main line. Installed a window in the shed. We were surprised to see that there and she said she was going to use it for her business. She never took permission from us for any of that. She never took permission from us to run a business from the rental property. Based on what we feel either she was going to sublet that living shed or use that in her adult business. She vacated the property almost at midnight and said she will send her guys to remove the shed next week. We don't want the shed there but we dont want to let her in or anyone from her side after she sent us profanity filled text messages when we very courteously gave her details of the damaged we saw on property. The situation is like we want to request a restraining order against her from court. The living shed is installed on concrete tile like bricks in the backyard and if thoroughly hooked up with wires and is also hooked to main line of the home. Is that not a permanent fixture now.  Also since they have moved, so does that living shed becomes our property now. Again we are in California. Please let us know.

4. Our backyard was lush green with beautiful grass. They installed a above ground swimming pool in the backyard, that damaged the grass and backyard completely. There is just no grass there now. We don't know if we can claim damages on that?

Thanks again for any advice you can offer.