Bethany moved into a rental apartment last year, and she loved her unit and her landlords, an older couple. But soon, she got the surprising news that she had a new landlord.

“The first time I met my landlord, he actually came to visit my apartment with my friend Sophie’s brother,” Bethany says. “I texted her and said, ‘Your brother is here with my landlord.’ She said, ‘Who’s your landlord?’ And when I told her, she said, ‘That’s my father.’”

In a smaller West Virginia community, coincidences like this aren’t necessarily out of the ordinary.

But Bethany’s landlord wasn’t just Sophie’s father—he had gone to prison for crimes against her. Sophie was terrified, especially of seeing him.

The situation got complicated quickly.

One day, Sophie was helping Bethany out by dropping off her grocery order, but her landlord was also planning to drop by to collect her rent.

“I called him twice to ask when he was coming by. I told him, ‘There is someone here that I don’t want to be here when you are.’ I didn’t say any names, but it was pretty obvious who I was talking about. He said he’d send his son to get the rent instead.”

The next day, Bethany got a text from her landlord. He said his probation officer wanted him to evict Bethany because she “set him up” with a situation involving the victim in his case.

She was confused and surprised and thought to herself, this couldn’t be legal, right?

That’s when she found Legal Aid of WV online and applied.

“The first advice I got was to tell my landlord I wanted a legal eviction notice so it could go through the courts,” Bethany says. “I did that, and I was assigned an attorney who went with me to the eviction hearing.”

Bethany says the hearing was not as straightforward as she thought it would be.

“It seemed like the judge agreed with my landlord that it was my responsibility to keep my friend away from him,” she says. “But my attorney defended me. The judge dismissed the eviction. I definitely think I would be homeless right now if he wasn’t with me.”

Like many other renters, Bethany did not realize before applying for legal help that renters have certain rights in the eyes of the law. As she worked with her attorney, he explained each right he felt was violated and what steps they would take to fight the eviction.

“I didn’t feel like my attorney was just trying to win the case. He actually wanted success for me and had my best interest at heart.”