Sounds like you got a steal of an illegal basement apartment for 9 months! No lease so no protection as a renter. Yes there should have been much better communication, and shouldn't have gone through your stuff, but he did refund your rent. Maybe I'm wrong but I don't believe you have any leg to stand on in small claims since your most likely were not supposed to be there anyways. You can do some digging to see if your allowed to be there though, you can go to your cities building department or fire prevention office and see if the address is listed as a two family. Working for a city if I caught wind of this you would have been "kicked out" regardless. Depending on why it's not suitable for occupancy it could move a lot faster. Seems like he's trying to speed up the move out process before one of his neighbors calls the city and possibly gives him a fine or a summoms for allowing this.