Jabril [none/use name]

Generally speaking all tenant lawyers work on contingency fees, they will give a free consultation to see if the case if potentially worth enough money for them to take it and then if so take a 40% cut of whatever the case makes. Tenant lawyers would not exist otherwise because virtually no tenants can hire a lawyer up front. So unless there are literally no tenant lawyers in an area, there will be someone willing to give a free consultation since that is how the business model is designed.

yeah but the average person doesn’t know how to decipher legalese, won’t know how city vs county vs state laws interplay with each other nor would they know the established legal precedents or the way courts typically rule on certain types of cases. unfortunately the law might say one thing but in practice enforcing it might not ever happen in certain municipalities. having a free consultation with a legal expert is a much faster way to get the correct answer than scrolling through dozens of pages of legal texts to think you might have a cursory grasp on the subject matter

It really depends on where you live and if the landlord lives in the same housebut: are there clearly written rules in the lease about the windows needing to stay closed? If not it is likely not justifiable for them to close them. Typically a landlord needs to provide 24-48 hours notice to enter the unit so if they are showing up on random days and entering that it likely illegal. Throwing away personal property is also illegal. The security cameras could also be illegal. The only way to know any of this would be to contact a local housing justice non profit (if it exists) or preferably a local tenant lawyer. You need to make sure you are documenting everything that seems like a violation, even just writing a note of when and what happened but photos and video could be preferable