Q: Landlord wants to evict us for breaking the lease but the reason is not stated in the lease so what are my options?
My landlord is trying to evict us from the residents because I had a marijuana plant (it's legal in Colorado to possess marijuana) in the home that I was taking care of for a friend. She stated that someone told her that I was growing it in the residents and that she wanted me out of the house. She continues to threaten me saying she was gonna have the sheriff's come and get me out. She also texted my phone calling me a liar and a moocher. The day I got the call my friend had came into town and picked up the plant so I no longer had possession of it. I told her that it was no longer here and she still continued to be rude and yell at me on the phone and still said she wanted us out. I was told just a few days after that she had the gas disconnected knowing that our heat runs on it and that I have 3 children in the home. Please give me some advice on how to proceed with this. Thank you
A: If she turns off your gas or files an eviction action in the courts you should consider hiring an attorney to respond to your landlord on your behalf.
A:
Sounds like an illegal eviction attempt by the landlord, and you should consider getting an attorney to assert your rights as Mr. Eby mentioned.
However, you should check your lease carefully to see whether violations of "law" generally (but especially Federal law specifically) can be lease violations. A landlord probably has the right to not want marijuana in her rental unit, and she may have been sure to include something, even a vague reference to obeying the law, to protect her ability to exclude marijuana on her premises. If that is the case, she may have the right to evict you (but she still needs to follow the proper procedures, which do not include cutting off your gas).
Cutting the gas, especially as we approach Winter, would clearly be a violation of the landlord's Warranty of Habitability if it remains uncorrected. But you must assert your objection to this in writing to the landlord in order to preserve your rights. This doc is about the Warranty of Habitability: https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/sites/default/files/Attachment%205-Warranty%20of%20Habitability.pdf
This doc is about landlord and tenant relations more generally, including about evictions (and illegal evictions) specifically: https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/sites/default/files/Attachment%2010-Landord%20and%20Tenant%20Rights.pdf
An attorney could help you prepare a written notice to the landlord asserting your rights under the warranty of habitability. An attorney could also review your lease to confirm the strength of a landlord's argument about marijuana being a lease violation.
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