It's TRUE (in California at least)... you could potentially get a roommate who is abusive, does drugs/sells drugs, and does ALL kinds of things that YOU yourself could potentially be considered liable for, yet NOT get them to move out. I had the SAME thing happen to me a few years ago, got a POS irresponsible roommate who lied, didn't pay his bills (he was completely clueless about how to balance a checkbook), threatened me, and refused to move out when I asked him, and I couldn't get him to since his name was on the contract. Really, about the only way I could have gotten him out would have basically been to have picked a fight, gotten him mad enough to hit me, and THEN I could make it a police case/filed a restraining order against him, effectively forcing him out. I eventually just had to give notice for the entire place--forcing us ALL out--although the one nice thing about it, if anything, is that I had MUCH better income, credit, and references than he when it came time to find new housing. But the whole time, all my friends had described it as "like that movie 'Pacific Heights.'"
The sad fact is that you'd figure that this happens more often, but the state won't implement any laws allowing tenants rights against negligent ones. They largely turn a blind eye-figuring that the tenants/landlords need to "work it out among themselves"--only because they wrongly assume that the offending parties will move into homeless shelters and be a further cost to the state. Of course, we generally see that this is NOT the case--seeing as how many actual homeless/street people are not even staying in these shelters--as more often than not, the offending/ousted parties just move in with whatever friends, family members, or significant others they have NOT alienated (or, just go on to become a problem for someone else...)
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