Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Under general law, property left with someone else is called a 'bailment.' but for some reason in California that law calls it a 'deposit.' Deposits are broken down into categories, e.g., deposits for hire (paid storage, repair shops), voluntary deposits (the keeper agrees to hold the item) and involuntary deposits (the thing gets left behind by accident). The legal duties, responsibilities and liability of the deposit-holder vary by type of deposit.

Here, since you initially agreed to accept the lady and her belongings, I'd think you had a voluntary deposit. Thus, you had a duty to exercise 'ordinary care' of her things, to return them upon demand, and if you wished to terminate the deposit arrangement, you needed to give reasonable notice and opportunity to retrieve the deposited items.

Here, it appears that you fulfilled your responsibility by trying to get her to come get them.

After you have fulfilled your responsibility, however, you don't become the owner of the deposited stuff. You merely don't have to store it any more. You can get rid of it. However, you must get rid of it in a commercially-reasonable manner. If the item happened to be a relatively new lap-top computer, you might dispose of it at a pawn shop for $300, but the $300 would belong to the lady, not you. If, on the other hand, it is $50 worth of older clothes, it could probably be perfectly reasonable to take them to the Salvation Army as a donation.

Bottom line, you probably don't owe her either money or the return of the items, assuming you gave her a truly reasonable opportunity to come and get them, and that it was also not unreasonable to lose or dump them when she failed to come get them. Nevertheless, there is a gray area as to what was reasonable, and you might consider offering her twenty bucks on a simple written "now leave me alone" agreement. None of this is worth hiring a lawyer or going to small-claims court.