[soulofmischief]

I apologize for breaking up our communication across this thread but you've made several fair points I would like to address.

Even my last apartment required a cosigner because of my lack of credit history. I don't have any family to turn to so I had to rely on the family of someone else. Many people don't even have that good fortune.

Less directly, I was illegally evicted from my first apartment (3 days to move out over burst pipes in a multi-unit dwelling which caused our unit to flood) and due to not having the credit to get a loan to hire a lawyer to defend me against a clear cut case, I was blacklisted by my vengeful landlord and banned from renting anywhere in that city. Only lease I managed to get in that city after that was because I was friends with the leasing agent. I also lost hundreds of dollars in furniture including some vintage pieces due to getting only 3 days notice to vacate.

This set me back tremendously; as you can see it's a bit of a feedback loop between bad credit and bad rental experiences.

[clairity]

is this CA and is this a pay in 3 days or quit notice you're talking about? because if it is, you don't have to leave in 3 days. you can wait for a default judgement and then the sheriff to come actually post notice to leave. that gets you about a month, not 3 days, which should be enough time to find a new place and move everything. burst pipes means you have a habitability defense, so you could have represented yourself in eviction court based on that, which at the very least would have given you more time to move out, if not compensation and the right to stay.