I know it’s sexier to paint this as a nightmare tenant story, but there’s way more to the story. She didn’t just move in after an AirBnB stay decide to live there rent free. She had a lease, and there were repairs required in the unit that the landlord refused to do. So she sued him and stopped paying rent to cover the cost of repairs.

Then it turned out the landlord didn’t have a license to rent the unit, so the lease was void.

I don’t know either of the parties personally, so maybe the tenant was being unreasonable. But if you want to be a landlord, you absolutely need to have all of your paperwork in order, and you need to keep the unit in good working order. We should not have any sympathy for an owner who illegally leases a property with mold and unpermitted improvements when his tenant takes advantage of the situation.