Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in California

You do not need a written lease to be a tenant, but it sounds as though you do not trust either one, which does seem reasonable under the circumstances. To evict you, they would have to service you with a three and/or thirty day notice and the obtain a court judgment of eviction.

Start asking for a receipt for the rental payments. The improvements you made may very well be considered basically a gift to the father; anything affixed to the house [if you flipped the house upside down, those items would not fall downward] is the property of the owner of the house. Write him to get him to agree that you are compensated for doing those improvements, but he will not respond [as you know, at your request and approval, I made the following improvements at Street. We had no intention that such improvements would be gift; our agreement was that since I am dating your son who wants me to live here, I would make such improvements to make my living here and his stays here more comfortable. Some of the changes were necessary just to bring the living conditions to what would be considered a normal level. It was never my intention to make such improvements as a gift to you as owner of the house. I made the changes for the benefit of your son and myself and to assist you. i intend to remain X's girlfriend and hopefully more, but if we should ever separate and I no longer rent the premises from you, I should be compensated for the cost of such improvements and my time in installing them. I did the work assuming that you realized that was the case and I believe that is still true. If I am incorrect in any way, please immediately inform me and tell me in detail what I have misunderstood; what is your basis for feeling I am incorrect. I am bringing this topic up now because a friend advised me that I should seek confirmation of the situation.].

You should have your mail delivered to the house. Start looking for a new boyfriend as obviously you can not trust him. He is just treating you as a tenant offering sexual benefits.

[not proof read]

I disagree with Mr. Sher's suggestion that you bother asking for compensation for the improvements. You seem to have considered them to be part of the cost of living there, and they will most certainly argue that they were made in lieu of paying higher rent. Without some agreement that they would pay you for the improvements if you moved out, you are not likely to get anywhere with it in court. If you are at risk of being tossed out, however, such a letter could be the trigger to them doing it. As for your rights to live there, if you have proof you paid rent, you are a tenant, period. You don't have to get mail there. You don't have to have a written agreement. If you live somewhere and pay for the right to do so you are a tenant, with tenant's rights. Unfortunately, without a written lease, those rights are few. Basically they can still throw you out on 30-days notice, or 60-days if you have been there over a year. All they have to do is give you the notice in writing and you have to be out, unless you want to go through an unlawful detainer lawsuit that you would almost certainly lose. So the bottom line is if you think your boyfriend would kick you out, Mr. Shers is right that you need to find a new boyfriend.