Friend/Roomate signed my lease without my consent. Everything I’ve ever worked for is at stake. Need advice please!

My friend and now roommate whom I’ve known for years and have always had a great relationship just did something I’m not comfortable with. He signed a year lease without my explicit consent and I don’t know what to do.

I told him I wanted to talk with him before signing and had to make a couple calls to my mom and grandma who are both being screened for cancer and my grandma is in the hospital after suffering a car crash. While I was on the phone walking down the street to 7/11 I got an email saying that my signing onto the lease had been accepted and look forward to my yearlong tenancy. I immediately messaged him and asked if he signed for me and he said yes you were busy so I did it for you it should have already been signed. I was uncomfortable signing but had been planning on it but needed to talk with him before and speak about my concerns and if they weren’t adequately addressed I was going to tell him I’m not signing and need to leave.

For some background he convinced me to move out here to build a sales team and take over a roofing company from the current owner who was retiring. I had roofing sales experience so after many promises were made in having side work(demo for current projects) and other gigs consistently to make ends meet till we got the sales off the ground, I decided to believe in him and move across the country with my entire savings. Long story short none of the side work or gigs came to fruition. I spent money into the company to brand ourselves and relied on him for transportation. He got an inheritance check and decided to invest instead of work on the company anymore. Then told me to find any job I could to make ends meet and pay rent.

I pulled everything from my investment account to pay rent because his previous roommate left with only a week notice and the lease was due to be resigned at end of August. He convinced me I’d make everything back and every project he said we had fell through, I was later told by the owner the demo work boat sailed because he had not shown up for some days on a project and the contracting manager didn’t want him to do demo anymore because of inconsistency after asking if I could do some side work at discount to make ends meet and because I’m directly affiliated with my friend I wouldn’t be given the chance because of his actions.

I sacrificed everything to be here and I was worried about signing a lease since I spent 7k in less than two months relocating to LA and trying to get resources to build a sales team(branded shirts, cards, getting website back up). The owner doesn’t care much because all his work comes from referrals and we would just be bonuses by bring in extra revenue if we got the self generated sales side going. I did this in MN and was successful, so I thought between us both we could accomplish wonderful things until he gave up entirely after getting his check. Now he wants to DJ, bought a bunch of music equipment. Keeps promising we are going to still build the company but zero action.

Anyway – now I don’t even have money for my phone bill, food, any necessities this month and he’s unwilling to help me out at all. I was I was afraid of signing because I didn’t have a job but ended up getting hired hours after this whole fiasco happened. I don’t know what to do because it’s commission with only 500 per week for 3 weeks as base pay. I was planning on signing the lease but he has been doing strange things that make me uncomfortable aside from signing the lease without my consent two days ago. This is becoming very toxic very quick and now I feel like I was just a discount on he and his girlfriends rent after sacrificing everything to be here. I don’t even have money for a flight to go back to FL. I am stuck and only hope is that this job is legit as I have quite a few red flags from the company already. What the hell do I do? I needed to talk to him about my concerns and feeling before agreeing to this lease but he signed for me within 5 minutes of me walking down the street to check on my families medical conditions. Even after explaining how I felt he told me my concerns aren’t valid and this is all part of being here to creat a dream. Am I crazy? I was yelled at for eating some pretzel sticks last night, I was so hungry and had been just getting cans of tuna fish to eat. Meanwhile he eats out for every meal or only gets groceries to groceries to feed he and his girl but when I first got here I bought groceries for everyone and cooked meals for everyone and now I’m left out of everything.

I am at a loss of words, bamboozled, bewildered and in shock. This is only a small amount of what’s negatively transpired since being here. I should have left before it ever got this far but believed in him and his promises that everything was going to work out. What would you do in my situation?

Sorry for such a long post and taking the time to read it if you get through my book of text and venting to the world. Location: Los Angeles