Today I finally got back what was left out of my original security deposit from the place I moved out of at the end of July. Out of $2000, I have $74 back.
Some of the things that I would dispute include:
$600 for a house cleaning, which includes the stove, fridge, cabinet, bathrooms, and painting smoke damage. When we moved out, we did a walk-through and she said she was satisfied with the cleaning job we did. We did have a grease fire, and there was smoke damage, but we painted over all of it ourselves, and again, she said it looked fine when we moved out.
Over $200 for carpet shampooing. We didn’t leave any more stains then were already on the carpet when we moved in. Again, never mentioned to us that she was going to have this done.
Damage repair. I admit some things were mentioned that needed to be fixed, but other things are BS charges. Bedroom door knobs? Never mentioned to us at all. Kitchen counter damages? Nope, she never said a word. Hardwood floor scratches? That floor had stains and scratches when we moved in. Front door frame? Umm…we actually told her about this. We had a windy day late spring, and the front door got caught in the wind and slammed into a post for the porch. A bit of the frame for the screen door, the screen door itself, and the post were damaged. We called her and showed her the next day, so why the fuck do we have to pay for it if it was from the wind?
New keys for the doors. Two of my roommates lost their keys to ONE of the doors, not both. We returned all five to the front door, but just 3 to the side door. The lease said every key not returned is a $10 fee…she charged us $90 to replace both locks (despite one of them getting all the keys back for it.) Shouldn’t that be $20?
We also have to pay for the fridge to get fixed, because the last two days we were there, it stopped working. We didn’t notice, because we had already cleaned it out and had nothing in it. We noticed right before she came over to inspect it when we were doing a last check of the place. We informed her then and there, and she never said she would charge us, because how can she? We didn’t do anything to it, it just stopped working.
So, out of these, do any of them scream completely illegitimate? Should I contact a lowyer, or just try to find some kind of tenant’s rights thingy around here?