Need help with kicking out a sub tenant

[Mike L.]

I am managing a condo in Santa Ana, CA. In Santa Ana, it is common for the tenant to sublet the rooms out to other tenants. Although this is not technically legal, the police know the whole city does this and they turn a blind eye to it.

I never cared that my tenant did this, since she has been doing it for years and always pays the rent on time.

She recently alerted me of a problem. The subtenants (a family of 5) to whom she sublet a room is creating a really bad living situation for her by yelling, screaming, and generally harassing the tenant and her family. I went over to make peace last week, and the subtenants agreed to move out by this past Saturday.

The subtenants didn't move out on Saturday and now they are saying that they won't move out until the end of this month, which I now believe to mean that they won't move out until they are forced out by law.

My tenant did not have the subtenants sign a contract. And even worse, my tenant claims that the family did not pay her any money upon moving in. The subtenants claim that they paid her for a full month of rent.

What are my options at this point? The easy thing is to tell my tenant to handle it all herself and leave me out of it - after all, she caused the problem in the first place. But the owner whom I work for is telling me to help her resolve the problem.

Do I serve a 3 day notice to pay rent or quit? That is only good if they admit that they did not pay rent.

Do I serve a 30 day notice?

Either of these are only good if they are true tenants. In this case, since they did not sign any contract, and since they are illegal subtenants (in strict sense of the law), I don't know if any of these legal notices would be valid in court.

Does anyone have any ideas on what I can do?

Thanks,

Mike