I find an important take-away of that CO story was "The handwriting was nothing like mine. I pulled up my old lease and the writing on the notes is identical to

I find an important take-away of that CO story was "The handwriting was nothing like mine. I pulled up my old lease and the writing on the notes is identical to the landlords'!" That suspicion went away as soon as he got his head on straight. Which is, we're really good at crafting narratives and conforming our perceptions to fit them, whether or not our brain is working right, and bystanders should probably not take the narrative at face value.