one of my roommates has stopped paying rent and utilities and owes me over $400. what can i do to get back the money he owes me and have him remove his stuff from the house? to make sure rent and utilities were paid ontime, i wrote a check for the full amount due and then they would pay me back. i haven't had any problems with one roommate, but the other one has gotten used to me fronting the money and has only paid me part of what he owes me. lately he has been spending the little bit of money he earned to party or just buy unnecessary things. i have asked him numerous times to start paying me back what he owes me but he keep giving me different excuses. my other roommate and i have noticed that he hasn't been working lately and spends all day at home chatting online (which is bringing up the electric bill) and sleeping instead of looking for a more stable job to get back on his feet. on 7/2 i asked my 'friend' for his part of the rent and he said he'd get a money order for it. after 5 days, i asked him for the rent again to which he replied that someone was coming over that night to lend him some money. the next day i asked him again and he gave me another excuse. he finally received his paycheck which he signed over to the other roommate and left it on her dresser. the check was $111 short of his part of the rent. at this point the rent was already 10 days late so i told her i'd put up the difference 'cuz the landlord had called a few times. when we confronted our roommate about the balance of his rent and electric bill due, he said he's been trying to get the money but still doesn't have it. we expressed our disappointment with the way he has been lately but he started making more excuses. we have been helping this 'friend' since december '04 and hoped that he would get back on his feet (financially) but nothing has improved. we're fed up with the excuses and runaround everymonth trying to get money from him. last week i confronted him about things of mine that came up missing while i was at work, to which he denied having anything to do with it or knowing who might have taken them. he is now avoiding us and hasn't come home for the past week. i spoke to him online early this week and he said he was moving out but that he would come home to straighten everything out (including paying me what he owes me) with us on monday after work. while we were at work he came home and took his TV, some clothes, and other things that are not his and didn't come back to talk to us as he had promised. i talked to him online again on tuesday and told him he he needed to come to get his stuff asap and bring me the money he owes me. it's been 5 days and we haven't heard from him. i thought of giving him a deadline to come get his stuff. if he doesn't, i will sell it to get back the money he owes me.
is this ok? what else can i do? please advise as i just want to get this out of the way and move on.
is this ok? what else can i do? please advise as i just want to get this out of the way and move on.
