He claims that I'm breaking the clause that "Tenant shall keep the premises, its equipment and contents in reasonably clean and neat condition at all times". When I moved in, I had to move a whole house into a single bedroom - my room is clean, maybe a little messy sometimes but currently it's neat, it's just got a lot of stuff. He says that I need to send him a plan for how I'm going to unclutter the room or move out, or else he'll serve me notice to quit. I think that having stuff doesn't count as being unclean or especially messy, and is certainly being clean within reason. It's not like I'm living in a sty.

I live in California and have been living here on month to month since January 2019. As far as I can tell, he's got to give me a sixty day notice to quit on the premise that I'm breaking lease, and that he can't/shouldn't accept rent payments in that time at risk of forfeiting his claim.

I don't want it to come to that, though. I would like to avoid the situation, but I also don't think it's right that he can define exactly how I keep my room while I'm living in it. I'm not destroying the property, I'm not keeping food in here, there are no pests - just stuff, and not even stuff in the way. A lot of what he took issue with is on shelves - I have a bunch of reusable gym water bottles on one shelf in the bathroom, for example.

I want to nip this in the bud because I'm fairly certain that the vague wording of the lease, combined with the fact that people have different definitions of clean, and also the fact that the law favors the one who didn't write the terms of the contract in certain cases, that I could fight this claim and win. But the man is 80 years old with a bunch of properties - I'm sure he can actually afford a good lawyer for a long period of time and smoke me out, not to mention it could give him a reason to look for anything else I might be doing wrong (I haven't memorized the lease because I haven't had an issue before) and try to get me out that way, plus I definitely can't afford to be spending time and money fighting this, and then even if I win I make an enemy I don't want to have (the guy who owns the place I live in). He's reluctant to do it but says he will if I don't comply.

What are my options? Is there a good way I could tell him that this would be a bad idea to pursue? Are my best options really to get rid of stuff or move out?