Crazy landlord suing for bogus damages. Scared and helpless here.

I moved from Vermont to Alabama and rented a trailer over the phone from a man without even seeing it. It is $500.00 a month plus a pet deposit of $400.00 and no lease. I wired him $2900.00 which is pet deposit plus 5 months of rent in advance. I moved in phyiscally on November 19th, 2011 and moved out on March 9th, 2012. I was certain that he owed us $500 for moving out early and had paid in advance and we also paid for propane a couple days before moving out and the propane company said because he rented the tank that he needed to give us our propane back. When I told him all of this he was fine at first. Then he ignored me for a few weeks and I told him maybe we should take this to court. Well he started being nasty to us and harrassing me. I dropped wanting my $500.00 because it started to become not worth it. He is now emailimg me saying we DAMAGED his property! I cry every day. This is 100% NOT true. We didn't damage anything. First he said we owed him 2500.00 and now he sent me an email this morning saying we owed him 5,850.00! It was a dumpy trailer to begin with and we didnt damage anything. I have a video that I took after we emptied the place. Of the floors, walls, cracks, crevices, doors, ceilings, lights, fans, appliances, sinks, toilets, closets, tubs,mirrors, counters! It is a video walk thru that shows NO damages. I also have witnesses and emails from him being nice in the beginning saying he would give us our money and quote (take care of us).This man is insane! We never even met him once for the 90 days we lived there. Please help me. What can I do? These damages are bogus and all lies. I have never dealt with anything like this in my life. We are being victimized and I am scared.

Try to breathe. You have evidence and a paper trail.

If I were in your situation, I'd talk to an attorney. You can check with your local Bar Association to see what your options are for free or low cost legal advice. I also use http://www.legalshield.com/cp/ when I need legal advice and don't want to pay my regular attorney's high fees. (No affiliation. I don't work for or represent them.)

Also, check with any tenants' rights organizations and/or your county housing office to find out what your rights are. Any of those organizations/offices should be able to help you identify more resources to combat this.

Good luck!

If you have the video and a date along with it to prove that there weren't any damages then you are probably alright. It sounds like if this does make it to court you have ample evidence against him. But make sure that you bring every paper and scrap of evidence that you can find on it. Definately try to get a good lawyer if you can.