Roomate not paying rent

[makarov]

i live in a 4br house with 3 roomates. one roomate has not paid rent in 3 months. she is not answering her phone and has not been home for a month. i have no way of finding her.
our landlord says she will collect the money from us, the co-signers of the lease. we each signed an identical copy of the lease. she says they are not individual leases, but simply copies of the same lease, and so we are all liable for our one bum roomate.

i dont have the money to pay her rent, or to get a lawyer. i've always paid rent on time and don't see how i can be expected to pay someone else's rent. any advice on what i can do?

 

[mike]

i live in a 4br house with 3 roomates. one roomate has not paid rent in 3 months. she is not answering her phone and has not been home for a month. i have no way of finding her.
our landlord says she will collect the money from us, the co-signers of the lease. we each signed an identical copy of the lease. she says they are not individual leases, but simply copies of the same lease, and so we are all liable for our one bum roomate.

i dont have the money to pay her rent, or to get a lawyer. i've always paid rent on time and don't see how i can be expected to pay someone else's rent. any advice on what i can do?

Unfortunately your landlord is probably right. This is a difficult situation. There are abandoned property laws in the state and you should probably get hold of your roomate's last known address and send a certified letter regarding the situation and removal of property. You should also follow up with several phone calls and messages and keep track of every time you have left these messages and warnings. At this point your remedy is to get the money back from your ex-roomate and you probably want to think about packing up her belongings after provided plenty of notice and then renting her room to mitigate the damages. The roomate may have a difficult time claiming damages since she has breached the lease and refused multiple contact... I'm not sure here but try the first part first and see what gives...