Usually when a landlord sues, I’m all for it because usually.. they are right. But this time, I’m not sure what to do.

We moved into a home (we are in Ohio) a year ago, and a month before our lease is up, we came into some troubles and the landlords offered to end it a month early but we never got it in writing. The first of June would have been the end of the lease.

Many things in the home were not installed properly. Even the doors didn’t close all the way and we had to take them off and reposition them. Here’s a list.

• 2 wire shelves fell within a week with having less than 10 pounds on them. One fell on my one year old bruising him.

• whoever painted left an open can that spilled onto the floor and hardened. I cleaned most of it but couldn’t get it all off.

• the door stopper behind 2 doors came off because it wasn’t anchored in at all and left holes in the wall.

• both sinks leaked because it wasn’t tight enough.

• ALL windows were installed wrong and you could literally push them out.

• closet doors weren’t even on the track right, and kept falling off no matter how many times you put it back on because it was screwed in wrong.

• the carpet was installed wrong and all the tack strips would poke your foot as you walked in and eventually started coming up.

We have absolutely no proof of this nor do we have proof where we told them about it because we didn’t think about it at all. But they did know.

Here’s the damage that was caused by us.

* lipstick stain (small) on a carpet that I couldn’t get out by hand.

• toddler smeared acrylic paint on the wall, and I scrubbed most of it, all that I could and repainted it but it needed one more layer of paint and I never got to it.

• I didn’t put the shelves back up because it wasn’t my fault they broke.

I cleaned upon moving out but there was a little bit of extra cleaning that could have been done, we were on a time frame and it was just me cleaning. Like the fridge and freezer were empty and I scrubbed but something was sticky on it that I ended up not getting off. But it wasn’t ruined by any means.

They were super sweet landlords. We have since moved out and they texted today saying they need our new address because they are suing us and taking us to court for ruining their $20,000 apartment. I’m not saying there wasn’t any wear and tear or minor things but they are making it out to be like we trashed it!!

They say they have photos of everything that we damaged upon leaving and we are left with no proof because honestly they were very sweet people. At least the wife was. They say we had someone else living there because there was another car always parked there and they seen him come and go but no one lived there. I have medical conditions and needed help with my children while my husband was at work so he was there daily and often left his car since we only had one and I needed to leave some days.

I am at a loss on what to do. We absolutely have no money to hire a lawyer due to the COVID virus and losing jobs for weeks and trouble with unemployment. What do we do when we have no proof of the texts and telling them about damages and everything?