My Landlord Moved His Daughter Into My Apartment While I Was Away For 3 Weeks

Location: Arizona

I was out of state for about three weeks. I came home last night and my key wouldn’t open my apartment.

At first I thought they changed the locks by mistake. Then a woman opened the door wearing pajamas and told me she lives there now.

Turns out she’s my landlord’s daughter.

I called him and he said he considered the apartment abandoned because I was gone, there was no car in my assigned spot, and he claims my last rent payment was returned unpaid and that he never actually received it. I checked my account and the money was never returned to me, so as far as I can tell the payment went through normally.

All of my stuff is gone too. He says he boxed everything up and put it in a storage unit across town. He refuses to give me the storage unit information until I pay him $1,900 for moving costs, changing the locks and what he calls unpaid rent.

My lease still has 7 months left. I never gave notice, never returned my keys and all my utilities are still active.

I got a hotel room for now, but I have work equipment, documents, clothes and basically everything I own sitting in some storage unit I don’t even know the location of.

I called the police and they told me it sounded like a civil issue unless I could prove something was stolen.

Can a landlord actually decide an apartment was abandoned after three weeks and remove everything without any court process? More importantly, is there any way to get back into the apartment immediately or am I stuck dealing with this through court while his daughter lives there?