Asking ex landlord to substantiate hours spent cleaning house (6 hours on fridge), I owe money beyond security deposit? (apartment, lease)
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I am a 19 hour drive away from my former landlord, and I think he is trying to take advantage of the situation. My lease switched hands from a large real estate firm to a private individual after the real estate firm divested from residential and I never even met the guy. I had to leave town before walk through.
Anyway, not only am I not getting the $1,000 deposit back, I allegedly owe $250 beyond the security deposit. He did not use a cleaning service. The amount of hours spent cleaning the house seem inflated, and I'm wondering if there is a way I can force him to substantiate the hours worked.
Even if I don't get any portion of the deposit back, can I set up a situation where I don't have to pay him an additional $250? The geographic distance makes court a challenge, and if I don't pay can my credit report be negatively effected?
Things like 6 hours cleaning inside, below, and behind the refrigerator, 15 hours cleaning baseboards, etc.
I am a 19 hour drive away from my former landlord, and I think he is trying to take advantage of the situation. My lease switched hands from a large real estate firm to a private individual after the real estate firm divested from residential and I never even met the guy. I had to leave town before walk through.
Anyway, not only am I not getting the $1,000 deposit back, I allegedly owe $250 beyond the security deposit. He did not use a cleaning service. The amount of hours spent cleaning the house seem inflated, and I'm wondering if there is a way I can force him to substantiate the hours worked.
Even if I don't get any portion of the deposit back, can I set up a situation where I don't have to pay him an additional $250? The geographic distance makes court a challenge, and if I don't pay can my credit report be negatively effected?
Things like 6 hours cleaning inside, below, and behind the refrigerator, 15 hours cleaning baseboards, etc.
The reason most landlords hire cleaners instead of doing it themselves is that in many states a landlord can not claim an hourly fee for work they do on their own property. A cleaning company also issues a receipt, a fine thing since many states require a landlord to provide receipts for any items deducted from your security deposit. Landlords can also have a reasonable established cleaning fee, look at your lease for that. If your landlord is claiming $1,250 in just cleaning fees they are out of line. Most I have ever paid to clean a rental unit is $375. However, that does not include the cost of any replaced items, but those should all have receipts.
You need to check your state/locality rental laws. There is a link for the state laws in the sticky at the top of the thread page. Use google to find the local regulations.
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You have made a reputation yourself for being very immature so I wouldn't doubt that a lot of cleaning was needed. You also apparently don't have pictures of the condition of your rental as you left it? I would think a landlord WOULD take such pictures as they clean - especially if they did so themselves.
I would ask the LL for such pictures and I would also check the laws in the town you left to see that the LL is entitled to and how they are expected to prove such a large amount not returned.
You have made a reputation yourself for being very immature so I wouldn't doubt that a lot of cleaning was needed. You also apparently don't have pictures of the condition of your rental as you left it? I would think a landlord WOULD take such pictures as they clean - especially if they did so themselves.
I would ask the LL for such pictures and I would also check the laws in the town you left to see that the LL is entitled to and how they are expected to prove such a large amount not returned.
Your comment was completely uncalled for and rude. Would you have said that to the OP's face or you just prefer making snarky comments from your keyboard?
[quote=Mighty_Pelican;48081960]I am a 19 hour drive away from my former landlord, and I think he is trying to take advantage of the situation. My lease switched hands from a large real estate firm to a private individual after the real estate firm divested from residential and I never even met the guy. I had to leave town before walk through.
How did that happen? The landlord couldn't come before you left?
Your comment was completely uncalled for and rude. Would you have said that to the OP's face or you just prefer making snarky comments from your keyboard?
Yes, I would have.
As for what I said, the OP has a reputation he has generated for himself. That reputation indicates to me that he may deserve these charges. Along with maturity comes responsibility. You seem to think my comment is about snark; it isn't. It is about trying to inform someone that it is his actions that are causing him trouble and if he grows up a bit and starts to take responsibility, many of these kinds of problems will go away.
The OP apparently did not take the responsibility to clean the apartment/house correctly.
He "thinks" the charges may be excessive. If he had cleaned, why would he only "think" they "may" be excessive as opposed to knowing they are.
He did not take the time required to prove he did what is required. In this day and age, how many late twenties people do not know that you should take pictures when moving in and when moving out - especially when you don't bother to clean properly or to get a walk-through.
He left without having a walk through. How can you NOT take the time to arrange the walk-though.
This is a life lesson. If he cannot take the time to protect himself, "because." Then he must suffer the consequences. As I said, responsibility goes hand in hand with maturity - he has shown in the past that he doesn't have one and therefore probably doesn't have the other either and is looking for someone - once again - to get him out of a mess he has created for himself. Under these circumstances I think he got several pieces of good advice from me.
If you don't like my comment, well, I can't help that. Take care.
Last edited by blktoptrvl; 05-08-2017 at 09:14 AM..
The reason most landlords hire cleaners instead of doing it themselves is that in many states a landlord can not claim an hourly fee for work they do on their own property. A cleaning company also issues a receipt, a fine thing since many states require a landlord to provide receipts for any items deducted from your security deposit. Landlords can also have a reasonable established cleaning fee, look at your lease for that. If your landlord is claiming $1,250 in just cleaning fees they are out of line. Most I have ever paid to clean a rental unit is $375. However, that does not include the cost of any replaced items, but those should all have receipts.
You need to check your state/locality rental laws. There is a link for the state laws in the sticky at the top of the thread page. Use google to find the local regulations.
I'm jealous. You must have either very small rentals or you've had a lot of good tenants.
I figure $200 for a house left reasonably clean. A tenant who just walks away and doesn't clean anything, but was generally a normal housekeeper, usually around $600. A tenant who was abnormally messy and left the house very dirty could easily be over $1000. I had a rough month this month, where we evicted 1 tenant, and asked 2 others to move (gave notice 30 days ago when leases were up, and then they didn't move out when they were supposed to, so we were having to go over several times a day to bug them about when they would be done moving out, and what items we could help them load onto their truck), neither of whom cleaned anything. The eviction is probably $2000 worth of cleaning (it wasn't our tenant, we got involved just to help the owner get them out, they lived there for 7 years, we've only been in the picture for 2 months, so this isn't our mess). The other two will easily be $1000 in cleaning.
I've seen fridges that cost hundreds to clean just the fridge. I've seen baseboards that took days to clean them all.
OP, did you clean at all when you moved out, or did you just walk away? If you just walked away, I could see this being totally legit.
I'm jealous. You must have either very small rentals or you've had a lot of good tenants.
I figure $200 for a house left reasonably clean. A tenant who just walks away and doesn't clean anything, but was generally a normal housekeeper, usually around $600. A tenant who was abnormally messy and left the house very dirty could easily be over $1000. I had a rough month this month, where we evicted 1 tenant, and asked 2 others to move (gave notice 30 days ago when leases were up, and then they didn't move out when they were supposed to, so we were having to go over several times a day to bug them about when they would be done moving out, and what items we could help them load onto their truck), neither of whom cleaned anything. The eviction is probably $2000 worth of cleaning (it wasn't our tenant, we got involved just to help the owner get them out, they lived there for 7 years, we've only been in the picture for 2 months, so this isn't our mess). The other two will easily be $1000 in cleaning.
I've seen fridges that cost hundreds to clean just the fridge. I've seen baseboards that took days to clean them all.
OP, did you clean at all when you moved out, or did you just walk away? If you just walked away, I could see this being totally legit.
We have had good luck with tenants. We have SFHs in communities near military bases. The bases generally keep a list of people who will clean quarters to military housing standards for a set price, we just offer them the same with a little more for going off post. It has worked out really well for us.
We do have one very long term tenant that whenever she moves will probably cost more but after all these years I figure she's entitled to the amount of 2 or 3 cleanings, at least.
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