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Updated over 5 years ago,
Am I doing this the legal way?
We have had a renter move in a week ago, did a walkthrough of the place, Signed the contract, and gave me the money(security deposit and first month rent) Our contract is a month to month. Since then this lady has complained about the simplest things and has already did damage to the home(Spray painted the baseboards half way with brown paint which got on the flooring) and we don't know what else since shes mad. We told her NO painting different colors unless it's only white on the walls. Other things shes complained about is the toilet having a black ring in it which could easily be cleaned off, that's only from water sitting in it for a month, Water heater being tripped and power being tripped because she tugged a adaptor out of the wall and broke it off into the outlet. MIND YOU this all has happened in just a week. She has even bothered us after our business hours (7pm) wanting stuff done now and seemingly demanding it even though weve told her over and over the same thing that at 7 PM we are getting ready to eat, and then sleep because we get up at 3 in the morning to get ready for work. She is very demanding about wanting things done and during the walkthrough the lady seemed happy with everything, now it's like nothing is satisfying. Well. Today we finally got fed up with it after she called early in the morning complaining about the hot water heater being tripped(Sunday is when that happened and she wasn't home, she didn't even have her stuff moved in if I'm correct and told us it was ok to wait till she got in) so we were gonna do that for her and she started complaining about the bathtub being an off-white. These are old bathtubs but clean !! No soap scum, cracks, nothing of that sorts, then she was repeating about the toilet and about the paint on the outside of the mobile home being half done which my 65 year old husband has not had the time to finish just yet. So we finally told her that she will be given a 30 day eviction. She wasn't satisfied at all and called back later in the day with her boyfriend demanding that we give back the month rent and the security deposit (both are 750 and we are located in South Carolina if anyone needs this info) Then started saying she will take us to court with a lawyer shes hired. From there she has kept calling back to back seeming like she is threatening us with a lawyer, claiming she talked with the magistrate, told us shes recording us on the phone(which I did the same since she kept switching her stories up alot) then at 8:36pm we got a call from a policemen saying we were refusing to turn her water heater back on which we were not refusing! So we sent our friend to turn it back on because we knew if I or my husband went, she would be cornering us about the rent which she already has once we called back like the policemen told us to do to settle things with her. From there on till 9 or 10 PM she called 18 to 20 times. Then has gotten out in the yard screaming . Are we doing the right thing for holding her rent and can we end up in trouble for doing so? We promised her the security deposit back but she kept refusing and wanting it all. There is damage and we know once she leaves there will probably be more.