Never trust Nextdoor landladies who have many animals

I need to rant because wtf.
Let's begin at the start of summer 2023, I want to move out and get a cat but current place does not allow cats. I have trouble finding places because where I live it is ridiculously expensive, so I posted on Nextdoor to see if anyone had a room to rent that allowed cats. Dumbest idea ever, yet one lady replies within an hour saying she has a room for $800 a month, everything included, and cats encouraged. She has two cats and a dog. Wow, so lucky (not).

So I move in and adopt the cat I've been looking at online at a really cool rescue center in my area. I pay $800 first month's rent and a $400 security deposit. What a steal! Except I'm a college student and continuously going broke.
ALSO, VERY IMPORTANT, I WAS NEVER GIVEN A LEASE TO SIGN!
Then my landlady leaves and suddenly I have to feed two cats and change their litter as well as my own cat for a week. She comes back, then leaves for three days of the week for the rest of the summer because she has a side job in another city (wth). So I'm feeding three cats and changing five litter boxes, while doing summer classes because why not get that summer grind going. Why not leave? Because I'm stupid, that's why.

Jump to end of July, I'm moving across the country and I've been moving all my stuff from her house into my car to be packed and loaded. I've paid her $2000 all in cash and I'm expecting $400 back because I haven't damaged anything and there's nothing she would *need* to spend $400 on due to my living there. I clean out my bedroom and my bathroom, and I haven't even used the kitchen for the past two weeks, but it's not clean enough because I forgot to look under the furniture for trash. So I pick up the trash under the bed and nightstand, then I vacuum for the third time that day. But it's still not clean enough. She has me vacuum again, mop the floors, dust the furniture, take off the mattress cover, and clean the bathtub. Everything is quite clean and I have photographic evidence that it is clean. But it's NOT ENOUGH because the tub still has some hard water stains, the floors are sticky FROM MOPPING WITH CLEANING PRODUCT, there's dust in between the toilet and the toilet seat, there water speckles on the mirror, and there's one spot under the closet doors that has a bit of kitty litter that escaped the vacuum. So guess what? I don't get my security deposit back.

And the worst part is that she keeps her house really disgusting. She leaves open food out in her kitchen and the cats eat at it. There was an open thing of butter sitting on the counter for DAYS and she PUT IT BACK IN THE FRIDGE? LIKE NO ITS GONE BAD. She just left a baked potato, unwrapped and shriveled, in the fridge for like three weeks. There is a room literally filled with just empty boxes. By the time I paid my second month of rent, all of the couches were taken up by boxes and random dog furniture. She can't even park her two cars in her own garage because she has too much stuff.

Conclusion: people suck and you should never trust them if they are nice on Nextdoor.