What to do with bad reference on long term rental (lease, tenants)

[Rvagirls]

My roommate and I have lived in the same rental home for 5 years without incident. Our older landlady is a private renter with several properties.

In July we went month to month as our lease was up. On September 2nd we notified our landlady with news of a leak in the bathroom ceiling. She didn't come out to the property until 9/5 to assess damage. During this time her husband went into the attic and found the ac was leaking. During the assessment she used our broom to try and poke the slightly bowing ceiling (to try and push the drywall back up, I presume?) and exacerbated the crack. She had an ac repair man finally come out 9/10. We assumed she had the issue fixed.

That evening when my roommate came home from work she saw a termination of lease notice taped to our door due to the ceiling issue (I was asleep as I work 3rd shift) she attempted to call our landlord with no answer and no return phone call. She says the termination of lease is due to our having the ac unit running and having 3 windows cracked open thus it being our fault that the ceiling was damaged. I must add that in 5 years she had never had the ac unit maintenanced at any time and when we mentioned this to several ac repair people, they told us ac is landlords responsibility (unless otherwise noted in lease - which it isn't) and should be maintenanced annually to clear out any sludge build up as well as there not being any way that 3 windows cracked could have caused the ceiling damage.

Fast forward to last night, 9/15, I wake up to a loud crash late afternoon and the ceiling has finally caved. I call her and she finally calls back agreeing to come clean up. She and her husband arrive and shovel out all of the debris without goggles or face masks (I'm also concerned about asbestos and lead paint as this house was built in 1952)

This is where she alerts us that one of the rental properties has contacted her. She gave a bad review and said we were late on rent 7 times this year (we have documents to dispute that claim) and that we never gave notice to her about our leaving. She told us she recommends leaving her contact information off the next applications as she will only continue to give bad reviews.

We prompted the rental company when we put in our application that our landlady may give us a bad review because of the ceiling and showed them photos of the ceiling bowing heavily and cracking.

If we are denied by this company, which I assume we will be due to her bad reference, what can we do for the next application? If we were such bad tenants, why continue to renew our lease annually? Our friends are urging us to call the city code enforcement in regards to the ceiling and the possibility of asbestos because that will be on file if she would take us to court for reimbursement of the damages done in the bathroom. We are not at fault as we alerted the landlord as soon as it happened, she delayed coming, delayed having an ac repair man come in and I have her recorded saying she 'would have' had someone come in and fix it but her personal handyman wouldn't come in because our house smells like cats (pets permitted on lease) She admitted not having called anyone to have the ceiling repaired.

[AZ Manager]

You can bring a defamation case against the landlord but you would need to know what was said and have proof to prove it was false information. Second step would be proving damages, they will only award real damages. If the complex raised the rent because of the landlords reference or increased your deposits you would have real damages. Ultimately you would need to consult a lawyer.

[KonaKat]

Well this is a fine mess she's created for herself. Agree w/ AZ, call legal aide to see if you qualify for some free legal advice and if not, call your local bar association for some recommendations. And the city inspector to have a look at that ceiling!