"Dirty Apartment" fines?

Factual Questions
1

2 months ago, as per my lease, I notified my landlord that I was going to be moving out of the apartment at the end of this month. About a month ago I received a letter from my landlord that he would be coming into the apartment with a county home inspector to look over the apartment (the next day, in fact), and of course that’s perfectly fine with me. At the end of that letter he warned that the inspector has assessed fines to tenants who had messy apartments.

Our apartment, while cluttered with stuff as we get ready to pack up and move, while there are certainly areas that are not sparkling (the cat litter box area, etc.), is for the most part clean, if not a bit dusty in areas and the occasional furball (we have 2 cats, and those of us who have cats know that furballs under furniture are unavoidable). Also, the day they came in to look at the apartment we were going out of town that day for the weekend and didn’t really have a chance to clean before we left.

Anyway, a week after the landlord and county inspector came into the apartment, we received a letter from the county inspector informing us that she would be returning in another month to re-inspect the apartment and that she (I’m paraphrasing here) “would like to see an improvement in the cleanliness of the kitchen, bathroom shower area, and general housecleaning.”

This all pinged my bullshit detector from the start. While it is certainly the landlord’s right to come in and inspect his property as per our lease agreement, and it is presumably the county inspector’s job to do this sort of thing (and we live in Montgomery county, Maryland so odd draconian laws are not outside the realm of possibility), it seems quite farfetched that the county has the authority to assess us fines for having dusty furniture and not wiping off the stovetop every time we cook.

Granted, at the time the kitchen was a bit of a mess, and there had been a bunch of cat hair collected behind the toilet and radiator in the bathroom, and the cat litter box area in the attic loft was a total disaster (one of the cats shits on the floor if you don’t scoop out the boxes every day, and apparently had taken to shitting in a pile of clothes my GF had chucked in a corner of the room that we hadn’t noticed for a while because we only go up there to clean the litter), but all of that has been cleaned, and you can literally eat off of any surface in the apartment right now. There are no garbage piles, no walls of old newspapers, no mountains of junk. If you’d like, you can actually see pictures of the apartment in this craigslist ad for the yard sale we’re having this weekend (well, pictures of some stuff we’re selling, but you can get an idea of what the apartment looks like).

Sorry for the long rambling story, but the question I’m working my way up to is can the county really fine us for having a very mildly dirty, if a bit cluttered apartment? Are there really “dusty apartment” fines? I skimmed the county housing code and saw nothing in there resembling this sort of thing in there, nor could I find the “county inspector’s” name anywhere on the county site. Is this just our soon-to-be-former landlord trying to get us to scrub down the apartment before we move (which we’re planning on doing anyway, once we move our stuff out) or something else (maybe angling to keep our deposit)?

P.S. I’ll add that the whole time we’ve lived there (3 years), our landlord has been very hands-off (we speak with him extremely rarely), and when we’ve needed something from him he’s been very responsive and accommodating. He’s a nice guy and has been very fair and honest with us; I’ve never gotten even a hint of a shady vibe from him.

2

If you’re moving out before the end of the month, and the inspection will be re-done in 30 days, what’s the problem? After all your stuff has been moved, just do a broom-clean sweep, which is probably all you are obligated to do – but check your lease.

Is there anything else in your lease that needs to be addressed?

If you got a legitimate letter from a county official, it should have his contact info on it. Government officials do not hide from the public. Is there any chance this is a fake?

3

I have cats, and fur under the furniture here and there. But there cat poop outside the litterbox wouldn’t be overlooked for more than a couple hours. A pile of clothes covered in cat shit would horrify me, and I would think the rest of the living quarters would have to be filthy to overlook the smell. And I’m not neat; piles of magazines and books lying around, laundry basket’s overflowing, showerdoor isn’t exactly see through at the moment. But I would definitely notice a cat accident and clean it up immediately. I would asume that urine had penetrated the floors and the smell would keep me from renting. Cause once my cat finds your cat’s pee, she’ll make it her job to cover it up with her own smell. No winners in that battle.

4

Cat shit on piles of clothes isn’t mildly dirty.

5

Usually the only thing at risk with a dirty apartment is your security deposit. Take lots of pictures, have a thorough walkthrough with the landlord and make sure he signs something that indicates agreement with you over the apartment conditions.

The inspector’s letter should have contact information. Don’t use it, call the county office directly and ask to be transferred to the inspector’s phone. I find it truly odd that the county would have an official role in inspecting apartments during a move out. Inspections are generally a code/safety/tenants rights issue, or a child safety issue, not a cleanliness for the landlord issue.

6

The re-inspection was supposed to have been done yesterday, but we received no notice from the landlord that he would be coming in to the apartment (as per the lease, he must give us 24 hours notice), so I suspect nobody came back, which also makes me suspicious of how official this “official” really is. Unfortunately I may have thrown out the letter she sent us.

It was a very large pile of old clothes, in a back corner next to an open window and underneath an open skylight. It’s all been cleaned up and there is no smell at all, nor did any of the mess reach down to the floor. I am certain of this.

Granted, but there was no mention of that at all in the letter, whereas she specifically mentioned seemingly petty things like boil-over stains on the stovetop (which wipe right off with a damp sponge) and dusty shelves. You’d think that shitty clothes would be something you’d include, if not at the very top of the list.

7

This is the only reply that even remotely addresses the OP’s question. The OP did not ask whether y’all think his apartment is dirty or whether you condemn his housekeeping practices or lack of.

He asked whether the county has a right to inspect. And the landlord said that people have been fined for “MESSY” apartments, not “DIRTY” apartments. There’s a difference. Five years of grease on the range hood is dirty; clothes piled on the bed prior to folding–that’s messy.

Also, I think the OP is worried that this is some kind of sweetheart scam where an inspector comes in and finds anything that can be labeled messy or dirty and writes out a ticket. This worry does not seem unfounded to me.

Why can’t the landlord inspect his own property and decide whether to return the deposit or not. The nuts and bolts question is “why is the county involved?”

I’d be interested in hearing from a lawyer or official from Maryland on this topic.

8

Thank you for boiling down my rambling story to what I was trying to ask.

That’s exactly what I was attempting to get at. This all seems very unusual to say the least. Between my GF and I we’ve lived in dozens of different places, many of them in this same county, and this has never come up before, and the manner in which it is being done keeps ringing my “bullshit” bell.

As far as I can tell from reading the housing codes, the only reason for the county to get involved with tenants is if there are specific complaints from outsiders, and we have very good relationships with all of our neighbors as well as the landlord (who owns almost all of the buildings on the street).

9

I believe that if a landlord wants to take on Section 8 tenants the apartment has to be inspected beforehand to ensure that it is safe and in a livable condition. Seems like they would requires fixes to be made or just deny the application if there was a problem. Can’t see how the current tenants would be responsible for a fine, rather than having their security deposit dinged if they had trashed the place.

10

Looks like inspections can be requested at the owner’s discretion. Link to relevant page on Montgomery County’s website http://www6.montgomerycountymd.gov/dhctmpl.asp?url=/content/DHCA/housing/code_E/handbook.asp#6

ETA The owner may have called the inspector for backup after finding the apartment to have a health hazard. If the next renter is elderly, pregnant, or has a compromised immune system cat feces could be a vector for disease. The threat of a fine may behoove a tenant to clean thoroughly.

11

I’m with ThelmaLou here. If they pulled this on me, I’d openly accuse them of running some kind of kickback scam, and inform them that any fine assessed on me would be answered by my lawyer.

12

I would be very surprised if a county inspector could legally, himself, completely separate from your contract with your landlord, fine you for having a messy or dirty apartment, short of biohazard level (it’s not like you’re running a coffee shop or daycare out of your apartment).

I would not be surprised at all if your contract with your landlord required you to leave the place as clean as it was before you moved in, and if you don’t, you lose your deposit. From what I’ve seen in apartment reviews, this comes as a surprise to a lot of people.

13

Losing the deposit–absolutely! But “county inspection”?? Doesn’t sound kosher to me.

14

It’s on the Montgomery County homepage. The inspector serves to ensure the apartment is safe for the next tenant. The inspector routinely inspects government housing, but can also support a landlord with concerns.

15

I looked at that site and it seems like, though they can do inspections, they’re looking for code violations. Most people, at some time, have dust or a messy stove and most people who have pets have had times when a pet accident isn’t cleaned up immediately.

If an actual county inspector was at your apartment then I think it’s a buddy of the landlord’s abusing his position. No way does any county official care that your stove is messy or that you didn’t dust. Definitely you should be calling the county. The type of dirt you’re talking about is just stuff you’re expected to clean when you move out.

I think it’s all just something the landlord thought of to make sure people do an extra fine job cleaning out their apartments when vacating.

It sounds fake to me, especially the wording on the note. The only thing that should have been mentioned on a county note is the cat poop on the clothes. The landlord wouldn’t care about that because they’re not his clothes but he would care about the stove.

16

While the rules for your county apply this sounds like one of two things are going on:

  1. Put the fear of God in you to clean the living Hell out of your apartment when you leave for fear you will lose the deposit and/or get fined, since most people do only a cursory cleaning of a place they are moving out of and/or…

  2. Setting you up with prior evidence to justify you losing your deposit no matter how well you clean it, should you try to fight them on it.

Here in San Diego, when I used to live in an apartment, it was quite a common scam for the landlords to nitpick every little thing about an apartment when you moved out. For example, I lived in one place for a decade and a prior roommate spilled some bleach on the carpet. Even though the maintenance people admitted they would be replacing the carpet after ten years, we still got dinged on that. All the apartments came with cheap Venetian blinds on every window. I’m not talking wood or even fake wood, but that cheap plastic crap that bends if you look at it funny. Did any of the blinds get bent? If so, you got dinged for that. They also expected you to dust the blinds when you left, which is near impossible to do…without bending one or two…

17

I’m not a lawyer and all that, but I think this is possible. I don’t think the local government can establish cleanliness standards in a residence you own. But I think they might be able to establish cleanliness standards in a rental property because renting is a commercial transaction. They could regulate the cleanliness of a rental property just like they could regulate the cleanliness of a hotel room or a restaurant.

That said, with an unclean hotel room or restaurant it’s the property’s owner who’s considered responsible for violations. But again, I could see a renter being held legally responsible for the condition of a rental property.

18

What? You threw out a legal letter supposedly from the government ordering you to do something? DON’T DO THAT! You may need it as proof – either that it was ordered or that it is a scam.

I’m still wondering why it is of any importance to anyone just how you live in the apartment now as long as it is reasonably clean and intact after you move out. It might be a good idea to hire a cleaning service, have them do a quick once-over on your last day, and TAKE PICTURES, just in case. You need to work in serious CYA mode before too late.

19

What concern does this particular landlord have, besides having a tenant who is planning to move out?

From your link “An inspection is triggered by a complaint, referral, required inspection, or as part of an overall Departmental strategy in particular neighborhoods (target neighborhoods).”

I hardly think a tenant moving out is grounds for an inspection.

20

There’s your reason for calling the county, asking for a copy of your letter that you threw away. I bet they will have no idea what you’re talking about. Then it won’t get back to the landlord that you were checking up on him.