And I need advice. On September 6th 2024, my family and I moved into a 4 unit complex. The whole place contains 6 floor level buildings. My partner made a deal with owner. No deposit and 1st month's rent free in exchange for his help fixing the severely damaged roofs(with pay). The owner wanted him to work just for him, but communication was poor. The day we moved in, we had no money. The owner told us the water and electric would remain in his name until my partner could put it in his. My partner ended up getting hired the 19th into a roofing company. We needed income. The property manager there shut the water and electric off on us the 25th without notice because he got a job. She later on threatened to tow his take-home work truck because she stated it was a "commercial" vehicle(it was a pickup truck) and was worried about code enforcement. We called code enforcement 2 different times to ask about it. No issue. Property manager didn't like that. December 9th, she threatened eviction simply because my partner let her know how he felt about them painting the place before even touching the roofs and blocked both of us. (God awful colors, btw). Anyways, we ended up moving out February 28th 2025. So stayed only 5 months. My partner couldn't get a solid start date for the roofs or get a hold of the owner most of time so when we moved out, he texted the owner letting him know we were moving out(no response) and the property manager watched us move our stuff out for a solid week beforehand. We received an email March 5th with a list of charges totaling over $11,000. Most of which seem completely unfair and unjust. We cleaned the unit out, our neighbor testifies we left it cleaner than when we moved in for reference. Must have, because they got a new tenant in less than a month later on March 22nd. They ended up fixing the roof towards the end of last month(April). Now we've had a debt collector try and get us to pay(they are being sued for how we were treated).

I'm just curious, would having documentation of the roof damage, mold, texts, emails and interior unit photos be enough? Is there anything I'm missing or anything else I might need? Because I know this will escalate and I want to be prepared to fight this tooth and nail.

(FL) I've got a fight ahead of me