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Several years ago, I was renting from a landlord who owned two houses on the same lot. He rented the back house to an elderly woman and the front house to me. It was only on the day I went to sign the lease that he said that everyone who had rented from him before agreed to pay the heat bill for both houses and then would be reimbursed by the elderly lady who lived in the back house. I was desperate to find a place and other options had disappeared, so I agreed to his terms. The elderly lady paid for her heat, but she paid what she felt was fair. She became ill, began to turn on the heat to 90 degrees and keep it on all day. I got a shocking bill for the gas utility, which I couldn't pay. When I contacted the landlord, he took his sweet time about "helping me" to pay her bill. ( Years later, I found out from a real estate agent that what he was doing was strictly illegal and that there was supposed to be a separate meter for each home. That landlord actually worked for the local city government. When I went to complain, the employees recognized the name of the landlord and just laughed at me! They said, " yeah, everybody knows Mark. Good luck with your complaint."
After that, the landlord began harassing me in small ways. He would show up unannounced and just stand in the back yard of the home watering the grass . He lived nearby and would ride over on his bicycle to just " check on things", always unannounced.
When the elderly lady from the back house died, he came over, went through her belongings and held a garage sale in the driveway of the house ( my driveway. He had her clothing and belonging spread out in the front yard and he and his wife sat in lawn chairs 1 foot away from my bedroom window conducting the yard sale. I had to go to work and had to ask him to move the items out of the driveway so that I could leave. He also went through the lady's check book and commented that "If I'd known she had money saved, I would have charged her more for rent."
After that lady died, he rented the small back house to two women who shared it. They began to have parties there, not one, or two times a week, but three and four times a week. They would invited their friends and family, play loud music in the back yard until 5 am then leave huge containers of empty beer bottles which were too heavy for me to take to the curb on trash pick-up day. The final straw was when their guests were laughing while urinating on my back patio. I contacted the landlord who came to talk to them about it, which they denied. After that the campaign of aggression escalated. The tenants in the back continued with the parties which then included people in gang attire. One night I awakened to hear and see one of their guests squatting under my bedroom window , one hand braced against the wall of my bedroom while urinating. When I looked outside, there were two more "guests" urinating behind the neighbor's car!
I complained again to the landlord. His response was to inform me that he was raising the rent. I was not prepared for that and said I needed time to consider my options. He sent an eviction notice to me! I always paid the full rent and paid it on time. I was completely taken aback by his surprise move. So, at over the age of 60 myself, I was faced with having to move on short notice. He threw out a 60 year old woman in favor of two women with gang affiliations. When I talked with the women in the back house, they admitted that he had agreed to rent both houses to them. He threw me, an elderly woman, to the curb in favor of two people with gang affiliations.
As I mentioned before, he worked for the local city government. I had cleaned out the house after living there for 5 years. There was more trash than normal because I had to move. He contacted me and told me that his buddies at the 'city yard' had contacted him to let him know that I had a lot of trash and he rummaged through my trash!
He also said that he was not refunding my deposit and added " you're not a very good housekeeper." I took photographs of the home when I left, showing that I did in fact clean the home and left nothing that required major cleaning. He tried to claim that I had destroyed the screen on the screened-in porch and that I had left marks on the trim of the door.
I contacted a lawyer to try to help me get my deposit back. The lawyer sent a letter to him demanding the refund of the deposit, especially since I had lived there over 5 years. He sent a letter back to me on official city letterhead stating that if I continued to pursue legal action against him that he would counter-sue claiming that my adult son lived there without permission. ( My adult son stayed with me when his school year was not in session and the landlord was well aware of it)

I was in no position to fight with him and could see that the deck was stacked against me because he worked for the city. I did go to complain one more time at the city offices and was told by several people there that he "played dirty" and everyone knew about it, but because they all worked with him, no one was going to do a single thing in my defense other than " take your complaint."

I could not believe how unfairly I was treated and felt that I had no recourse whatsoever. Whatever mortgage he may have had on the property ( I am assuming, none, since he had inherited the house), I was the one having to pay for it through my rent checks, but there was no protection for me. As the owner, he got all of the tax benefits, but I got nothing even though it was my rent money that paid for his property.

It isn't fair and there needs to be more protections in place for the renters.