I'm Being Screwed By My Landlord, Aren't I?

[-Skeme-]

This is probably gonna be long.. I'll try to make it as brief as I can.

Years ago, in 9th-10th grade, I broke several of the closet and bedroom doors in my crappy apartment. They're fairly chincy and I put holes in them during fits of rage via draggon uppercut and haduken combos.

Recently our landlord came in to inspect apartment for "leaks" and see how we'd been taking care of our unit. They saw the broken doors and noticed some claw marks from our cats on the cheap wooden panels that go on the door frame. They didn't seem very angry and I had explained to them that the damage was done long ago when I was younger. They explained they would come back later to estimate the cost of the damages.

Flash forward to a few days later. The father of the previous guy who was inspecting our apartment now comes over with measuring tape. He takes the measurements of the closet and bedroom door panels and leaves.

Flash forward to today. We receive a note on the door stating that we owe $2,000 for the following:

-$260 for 2 Doors w/ frames @ $130 ea.
-$230 for 3 folding closet doors
-8.9% sales tax for the doors at $43
-$400 Installation fee @ $50/hr for 8 hours
-$1,000 for "Carpet w/ 10 years value remaining"

Alright, I've looked into purchasing a bedroom door already and the one we ended up buying was about $30-$40. It's much more solid than the one my room previously had. It was slightly too big so we ended up not using it. $130 for these chincy doors seems BOGUS.

I don't know how much the closet doors are so I can't argue their prices yet, but they seem a little high. I'll definitely be getting a second opinion or at least asking how the hell they came up with these figures with their gorilla math.

$50/hr to put in a [censored] door GTFO, I'll do them myself.

Now the carpet is an odd issue. The carpet itself is already a piece of crap. It was when we moved in. It's very old and ugly. When we first moved in our neighbors had the same carpet. When they moved out, the management tore it out and put in much nicer, brand new carpet. They also did the same for the building next door. We've known they were planning on ripping out this carpet forever. A year or so ago we had problems with my toilet in my bathroom. It overflowed on 2 occasions and totally flooded our hallway. Needless to say, the carpet was covered in toilet water. They did very little to help clean it up and fix the problem. As I stated before, it happened again not long after.

The damage done to the carpet is a small rip from my cats. Should I really have to pay $1,000 for this crappy carpet that they were planning to rip out anyway?

Now here's where it gets interesting. We believe they are trying to smoke us out of this apartment to offer it to other residents. They had previously asked us if we would switch into an upstairs apartment with another resident. The other residents are willing to pay more. We said no as it is too much of a hassle for us and makes no sense on our end. My mother's friend who lives upstairs was told by one of the manager's that she "promised" the upstairs couple that they "would have this apartment." My mother's friend told her this before this whole ordeal and before my mother had mentioned them wanting us to move out of the apartment.

Before they left the apartment when estimating damages we brought up the want for a second opinion and to have someone else fix the apartment. They said this was alright, but we need to clear it with them first or something like that. The letter says we have 1 whole week to fix all this & pay for the damages, which includes getting the 2nd opinion. They know my mother is on a very busy schedule with work, lol. This is ridiculous.

I'm very sure that if we don't pay this within 1 week they will be evicting us.

What's my best course of action? Thanks.

[thedustbustr]

find a new place

[-Skeme-]

Um, dude, that isn't the problem.. the problem is that they're trying to make us pay a bajillion dollars for a bunch of crap that can't be worth any amount close to their estimate.

We were moving out anyway, but being evicted over BS like this isn't good.

[edfurlong]

I'm pretty clueless, but they want you to pay for [censored] when you aren't moving out? That strikes me as way off. On the other hand you can probably just tell them to go [censored] themselves and not let them back into your apartment. I assume your lease is still good.

Edit: You're moving out, no way you get your deposit back from these guys. You should have taken pictures before you moved in, but thats life. Try to talk to them and explain that since you aren't sure that the damage is worth the amount they claim you would rather have it settled in small claims court.

[-Skeme-]

Yeah, they want this money to be included with our rent check. I'm going to tell them to go [censored] themselves, but in a nicer way. I'm most likely going to explain that I feel their numbers are bogus and they can't make me pay for that crappy carpet. The problem being that I'm gonna need an actual plan of action for when I do this.

I know there are people who manage apartments and stuff on this site. Or at least people with knowledge on renter and landlord rights. Hopefully they can help.


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You're moving out, no way you get your deposit back from these guys.

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It's doubtful we were getting it back anyway. We haven't told them we are planning to move out, by the way.


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You should have taken pictures before you moved in, but thats life.

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Of what? I definitely damaged the apartment, but it's very unlikely the items I damaged are anywhere near the price range they're saying.

[djj6835]

This is pretty common. We had a couple busted doors in our place last year. The things were literally made out of paper thin wood panel and the inside was completely hollow except for strips of cardboard that were used as support. We took the broken piece of door to a hardware store and they honestly didn't even know what it was it was so cheap. The cheapest thing they had were plain wooden doors for $60 so we bought a couple, they were ten times nicer than the doors that were broken. We replaced them and then later were informed that we couldn't do that and the apartment would replace them. The charged us $300 a door for doors that couldn't be worth more than $10. Just in case the majority of the cost was installation fees we asked if we could replace the doors ourselves and they wouldn't let us. Even if majority of the cost was installation, then that would have been about $900 an hour because it couldn't have taken them more than 20 minutes to screw in a few screws.

cliffs notes: landlords are bastards and will try to rip you off every way possible.

edit: They also tried to charge us for a bunch of stuff that was damaged when we moved in. We threatend to sue and they dropped those charges.

[edfurlong]

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[ QUOTE ]
You should have taken pictures before you moved in, but thats life.

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Of what? I definitely damaged the apartment, but it's very unlikely the items I damaged are anywhere near the price range they're saying.

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Because when you deal with landlords you have to consider that you may end up in small claims court. You can show the judge a photo of [censored] up carpet and a photo of slightly more [censored] up carpet. Better yet you can show it to the landlord so it doesn't get that far.

Bottom line, you have to protect yourself in this kind of situation. Frequently people that rent to young or poor people will attempt to take advantage of them.

[-Skeme-]

Yeah, those are the same kinds of doors we have. Totally cheap and hollow. If they tell us we HAVE to pay this amount and can't install these ourselves then I'm going to tell him to [censored] off because he's not getting $50/hr to install insanely overpriced items.

I need to get him to show us receipts for these random figures he pulled out of his ass.


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Bottom line, you have to protect yourself in this kind of situation. Frequently people that rent to young or poor people will attempt to take advantage of them.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, makes sense.

Does anybody have any idea on what's going on with the carpet situation?

[GrandmaStabone]

Skeme - I had a bogus slumlord try to do this to me after I moved out of my 2nd apartment. Basically he wanted to remodel and thought he would just charge me for the entire process even though I didn't cause any damage to the apartment.

He can take you to court (and probably will). Step 1 is to talk to him and offer to do the reapirs yourself. If he does not accept than inform him that he will have to take you to court and you will fight him. If you go to court (as I did) present yourself very well, take pictures, and be honest. You will end up having to pay him a fraction of what he is asking.

[-Skeme-]

[ QUOTE ]
He can take you to court (and probably will). Step 1 is to talk to him and offer to do the reapirs yourself. If he does not accept than inform him that he will have to take you to court and you will fight him. If you go to court (as I did) present yourself very well, take pictures, and be honest. You will end up having to pay him a fraction of what he is asking.

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Yeah, this is basically what it comes down to.