My question involves landlord-tenant law in the State of: Texas
First of all, let me state that we are young, dumb, broke, and needed a place to stay really bad.
We had been looking at houses for a month before we found one that we could get in to with our past credit problems. When we first went to look at the property they said it wouldn't be ready for about two weeks, and had cars and tools and all kinds of junk in the driveway and front yard. We entered the house and the walls were like 3 different colors. I guess they couldnt make up their minds. The bathrooms had peeled off wall paper on them and a moldy spot where the wall was getting wet by the shower. It needed to be painted, and cleaned really badly.
We were living in a hotel wasting our rent and deposit money we had saved, we gave these people the deposit, and they told us we could go ahead and stay there for 2 weeks and just pay for the utlilities. After the two weeks they hadnt really taken much of their belongings out, there was still food in the fridge and an old chicken carcass in the kitchen... we paid them the prorated amount and signed a lease stating we are going to be month to month until October and then on the first we would sign a year lease (kind of a probation period type thing), and they would have their stuff out by the weekend.
Well its been 2 months and their stuff is still in the house, we are living out of boxes and moved all their food to one shelf in the fridge. They have couches, Tv's, Dishes, beds, a non running truck and a ton of tools, etc. in the garage and we cant even use the garage.
About a month ago they told us they were splitting up and needed the house back, so we started looking for rent houses and driving all over town wasting gas. The 1st of August rolled around and then they tell us "Oh we decided to work it out, so you can stay." Well some of our rent money went to looking for a new place, gas, app. fees, etc. So we gave them 600 instead of the 900 and they said in a few days after I got paid all we owed them was another 100.
Later that day they came back to move some things out of the garage, and we let them as always. The next day the doorbell rings and a guy says he is there to look at the house. He says it is on craigslist, and we tell him that is impossible we just started renting the place. Sure enough, its listed back on craigslist, we called the landlords and asked what the problem was and they tell us it is going to be foreclosed on, on the first. Well they are selling almost every vehicle they own, and the other house, and trying to rent this one out?
Sorry if I dont make sense, I am so stressed, irritated, angry, confused... I just dont know what to do. What do we do with their belongings? We cant even use our garage or really even use our house like we should be able to.
We pay 900 rent and another 150 for our storage with all of our belongings in it. The house still needs to be painted, and cleaned from top to bottom before we move our things in.
So I guess my questions are:
1. Can we charge the landlords storage for storing their belongings?
2. What do we do with their food in the refridgerator? Throw it away?
3. Can we put their belongings on the curb? or take them to the dump?
We just really need help, this was our first rental house, before we only lived in apartments. We dont really have the money for a deposit and first months rent on a new house, so we are kind of stuck here.
To get back at them, I posted a free hot tub ad on craigslist with their phone number. The wife called my wife and told her to take the ad down or she was going to come kick her ***. We havent heard from them since... and that was about 4 or 5 days ago. We dont know what is going on, if the house is really in foreclosure or if they just made that up.
Also they havent paid HOA fees in 2 years, so we dont even get to use the pool.
Sorry for the xxlong post, I hope its not too confusing.

