Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in California

landlord / tenant

In accordance with our month to month rental agreement, we gave our on site property manager a 30 day notice of our intentions to vacate on Sep 15. We served the original notice on Aug 8. The property manager refused to open a door to take the notice, but told us to leave it under her door. So, we did. She also said that she won't give us any receipt that she actually received the notice. Just to be on a save side, we decided to send a certified mail to the owner's residence notifying the owner of our intention to vacate and the fact that the original notice was given to the on-site manager. The mail was refused and returned to us. We know that she did that on purpose. Although we know that the original notice was sufficient, we are concerned that the owner refused to accept our certified mail and later will claim that we never gave them a notice.

1. What to do? If we keep the returned mail unopened, will that be a sufficient proof in court of law?

2. It is very difficult to talk to them and we don't know how to pro-rate our September's rent. Should we just take a full month's rent, divide it on 30 days then multiply by 15 days?

3. If the landlord does not return our deposit, what steps do we need to take to file a suit.

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