My question involves a roommate in the State of: South Carolina
Before the end of my current lease, the landlord asked my roommates and I to sign the lease that would begin in September of this year. The third person to sign this lease had only been living in the apartment for around four months due to the original roommate moving out and back in with her parents (due to financial issues). Less than a week ago, I learned that said new roommate had been lying about several things (that could put my fiancee and I in legal jeopardy) for the extent of time I had known him. We both felt very uncomfortable living with this person, and sat him down and asked him to move out in thirty days... which just so happens to be the end of the lease period for the lease that he is not on. We called our landlord first to be sure that we could have someone else take his place on the new lease, and he said that since the lease hasn't taken effect yet, that was fine and he would support us.
Our roommate initially freaked out, accused us of trying to ruin his life, etc... and we assured him that it was just not working out and was nothing personal. We mentioned the legal issues that were making us nervous and he eventually calmed down. He called a friend, found a place to move into, and announced that despite our offer of thirty days (and the fact that he already paid rent for this month) he is moving out in three days.
This morning, he called our landlord and demanded his rent for this month back. Then, called us and told us he was going to get a lawyer and force our landlord to buy him out of the upcoming lease. He told us we had to pay him back and kept saying "I know what you did" and other threatening sounding things. We know that this roommate has a history of violence and is relatively mentally unstable and we are worried for our safety as well as that of our belongings and the apartment itself. We told our landlord what he said to us over the phone, and now our landlord seems anxious and is urging us to take care of this on our own. We do not have the money to pay him back his share of this month's rent, nor do we feel that such action is necessary OR fair... so what we really need is some sound advice.