State Specific Question About: DELAWARE (DE)

File a police report for the first two. You may also want to ask police how to protect yourself from your room mate doing you (and your stuff) further harm until you can legally get them out of your house.

You need to check with DE attorney about legal ways to evict a room mate. Am guessing laws for room mate eviction will differ from regular the LL/ tenant situation but am betting you can't just lock them out and put their stuff on curb. The attorney will probably tell you that you first have to serve the room mate with some kind of notice to get out in X days.

As far as the lapse of payment and destruction, take lots of pictures of damage and itemize what is owed to you. Try to find pictures that show what the damaged area looked like before. Am guessing that you'd have recourse through small claims court, but check with attorney how to proceed with trying to collect your money.

LL's have no rights. Around here the police would not do anything except say that its a civil matter.

"While living with me" is the operative phrase here. What you had, I presume, was a roommate. Roommate relations are an altogether different topic from LL/Tenant relations.

I hope you have kicked the person out now. Beyond that there may not be much you can do. Yes you can contact police about theft or destruction of property...but they are unlikely to get involved in a he-said-s/he said situation. If you have proof beyond your word that the property is yours (for example, it was registered somewhere as belonging to you) then you have a better case.

You could take the ex-roommate to court to get a judgement for property damage -- good luck on collecting it, though.

My conclusion on the situation is exactly as Red River[NY] stated. Key words are "While living with me".

My suggestion: Since Pam did not file a police report on stolen cash and car usage, my suggestion is to install a good commercial grade lock on her bedroom door and keep all cash and keys behind the locked door until the roomie is kicked out of the house by what ever legal method allowed.

John

Was this just a roommate or a live in boyfriend/girlfriend? You stated that he/she lived with you, not necessarily speaking of a roommate.

It may be that personal issues may be involved if this is more than just a roommate situation.

I agree with the others here,to do more research on roommate situations. Did you file a police report? Otherwise it may seem like you were friends, etc, and you didn't want to get them in trouble.

Are you the owner of the property> If so, I would assume that you would need to evict him/her as a regular tenant, by filing for eviction, leaving the money judgement until after the tenant is out. If you do not own the property, I would talk to the owner/landlord and explain the situation, so he is aware of what is going on. If he is the other tenant's landlord and the other tenant is on his lease, he would need to do the evicting. Otherwise you would need to take them to court legally. You could try giving them a 14 day (or whatever your state requires)for them to vacate or you will file for eviction. You may want to take your valuables and keep at a friends or relatives that you totally trust, so they will be safe. You can also do as suggested and lock items in your room, although the person could break down the door to get to them, if determined.

File police reports on everything you can, so you will have a record of what happened and take LOTS of pictures.

It was your boyfriend, right?

This is NOT a landlord tenant issue. Just don't make stupid choices in the future.

Whether a boyfriend or a roommate, you must be able to demonstrate with irrefutable evidence your charges. Just saying "He used the cars without my approval" won't cut it. Saying someone took cash is almost never provable after the fact. Lapse of rental payments requires a record of payments received, and then the burden shifts to the other to prove he paid. Destruction of property will require before and after photographs.