In April of 2022, my roommates and I allowed a subtenant to move into our apartment in Orange County, CA. This guy was an absolute nightmare of a roommate, can't take him to court over any of that, but I let a lot of things slide because he paid rent and bills on time, and if he was going to be late, he always told me. Earlier this year, I announced the plan that I would be moving to New York state. Despite personal issues with this roommate, I thought everything was going smoothly, I told everyone I'd be moving out at the end of July, which I did. Problem is, on top of all of my moving costs, this dude decided not to pay me for the month of July, and avoided everyone in the household until I moved out. I know he did it just to be petty, but he owes me about $800 in rent and bills.

One complications is that we never made him sign a subleasing contract, but I do have over 2 years of bank statements proving he was paying rent and bills to me. I also have a statement from him on VenMo saying he'd be paying me $100 weekly, which stopped after the second week. Second complication as stated before, is I live 2500 miles from California now. The last complication is I have no idea where he lives. I'll have no issues proving he was living with us, but he also made plans to move out in August and has blocked me everywhere, so I've no idea if he's still there, if he returned to his home state, or if he's on the road (he has a history of homelessness and doing doordash out of his car that he lived in).

If anyone has any advice, I'd appreciate it. Ideally I'd be suing from home across the country, but I'd settle for also suing him for my travel expenses. If the answer is just that I'm fucked and should stop thinking about it, that's not what I want to hear but will accept it if that's the facts.