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Can I sue my landlord for calling DYFS because Im a month late with rent?

  • Posted on August 19, 2010 at 7:20 am

My landlord had called child protective services on my wife and I, because I am a month behind in the rent. He told them lies that we smoke in the house, and that we live like filthy pigs. He hasn’t even been in our house for 5 months, when we had a kitchen fire, which he also brought up to DYFS. Granted, were not the neatest people in the world, but we would never put our daughter in any kind of situation that could harm her. Thankfully, the transport worker who came was very nice and understanding that my wife had the flu and I was getting busy at work, so the house was a little messy, but no problems with health or safety of our daughter. They came and checked everything, and all was satisfactory, they even saw the cigarette butts that have collected in the driveway over the past year, but the point is that this scumbag got my 9 month old daughter involved..Its not the first time either. He also called them on our neighbor who rents from him, and told them she was on drugs, because she had a prescription for Percocet when she broke her leg. He called them, because he knew they already had an open case with child protective services from years ago. He shouldn’t be allowed to get away with this. If he has done it to 2 tenants, how many other tenants has he done it to? It is a waste of taxpayers dollars, and also It prevents real cases of abuse coming to light, because they’re spending time chasing false accusations. If anyone knows what I can do, please let me know. I will not let him get away with this. My daughter, wife and myself have done nothing wrong, except be a month late with rent. Please help me…I want him to suffer the consequences of lying for his own good. Thank you all in advance, and God Bless.
To Joe B., what do you mean there were conditions to arouse concern?? The only reason he called, is because I havent paid him for October yet, because work was slow in Sept. and the beginning of Oct. Thats it…..No Other Reason.
Also, I wanted to add that even though they cannot tell you who called, we knew because of the way they had our last name spelled. For some reason my landlord has it spelled wrong on the lease, and thats how we knew. So the social worker told us that they can prosecute him for calling in false accusations on tenants when they dont pay him rent.
I should also mention..I live in NJ…just in case the law is different from other states…Thanks for all the answers so far.

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