Tenant spends ten hours scrubbing an apartment spotless before moving out, landlord withholds $500 of her security deposit claiming sun-faded paint is "excessive wear and tear": '[He said] I should have rotated my furniture to prevent uneven fading.'

• 01
  
  via Vitaly Gariev

  _{Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.}

• Landlord is trying to steal my deposit because the walls faded behind my sofa

  “I finally moved out of that basement apartment last week and I was actually feeling good about getting my security deposit back since I left the place spotless. I spent like ten hours scrubbing floors and cleaning the inside of the oven just to make sure there was no excuse to keep my money. Well I got an email today from the property manager saying they are withholding 500 bucks for a full repaint because of supposed damage to the living room walls.”

  -Glitch88_Marrow

• 02
  
  via Hatice Baran

  _{Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.}

• Here's what's actually happening: landlords who withhold security deposits for normal wear and tear are banking on the calculation that most tenants will absorb the loss rather than pursue small claims court. The filing fees, the time, the energy, the anxiety of a formal process, it all adds up to a number that starts to feel comparable to whatever was withheld. They know this. It's not an accident.

  But here's the other calculation worth making: small claims court exists exactly for this. The process is designed to be accessible without a lawyer. Documentation of move-in condition, photos, the legal definition of normal wear and tear in the relevant state, and a paper trail of unanswered emails is often more than enough. Judges have seen this specific situation before. Many times.

  She left that apartment spotless. She has photos from move-in showing a patch job that predates her entirely. She has a legal definition on her side and a landlord who stopped responding.

  That's not a difficult case. That's just a landlord hoping she won't show up.

  She should show up.

• 03
  
  via Kate Darmody

  _{Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.}

• "The damage they are talking about is literally just natural light. I had my sofa against the back wall for three years and apparently the sun hitting the rest of the room caused the paint to fade slightly everywhere except where the furniture was sitting. When I moved the couch out there was a slightly darker rectangle on the wall. That is it. No holes no scuffs no stains. Just the normal effect of physics and time on cheap shi*ty eggshell paint they probably bought at a clearance sale ten years ago."

  -Glitch88_Marrow

• 04
  
  via Karolina Grabowska

  _{Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.}

• Normal wear and tear has a definition. It exists in tenant law precisely because landlords and tenants needed an agreed-upon standard for what counts as damage versus what counts as a place being lived in by a human being over a period of time. Paint fades. Carpets compress. Walls accumulate the invisible residue of daily life. That is not damage. That is time passing inside a building.

  A slightly darker rectangle on a wall where a sofa sat for three years is not damage. It is geometry. It is the entirely predictable result of sunlight hitting paint unevenly because furniture exists and people put it against walls because that is what walls are for. No reasonable person, no reasonable court, looks at that and sees anything other than a normal apartment that was lived in normally by a normal tenant who apparently also scrubbed the oven for ten hours on her way out.

  The suggestion that she should have been rotating her sectional sofa monthly to maintain even paint exposure is so detached from how human beings actually live that it barely deserves a response. And yet here we are, $500 later, with a blurry photo and a ghosted email thread.

• 05
  
  via Yunus Tuğ

  _{Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.}

• "The manager had the nerve to tell me this counts as excessive wear and tear because I should have rotated my furniture to prevent uneven fading. Who the heck rotates a sectional sofa every month just to keep the paint even? Its insane. They are basically charging me to upgrade their property for the next victim. I looked at my old move in photos and you can tell they just did a quick patch job before I arrived anyway.

  I told them that paint fading is the definition of normal wear and tear in this state but they just ghosted me after sending a blurry photo of the wall. It is so obvious they just want to pocket the cash or use my money to fix up the unit because they are too cheap to cover basic maintenance costs themselves. Honestly I am exhausted dealing with these people who think every cent I earn belongs to them just because they happen to own the roof over my head. Dealing with a small claims suit sounds like a nightmare but letting them walk away with half a grand for doing nothing feels worse."

  -Glitch88_Marrow

• 06
  
  via Brock Wegner

  _{Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.}

• "I bet they wont even repaint the d*mn thing and will just put the next person in there with the same dark spot and charge them for it too in two years. It's a never ending cycle of extracting wealth from people who actually work for a living. I am sitting in my new place surrounded by boxes and I cant even enjoy it because I am so pissed off about this blatant theft."

  -Glitch88_Marrow

• 07
  
  via Kate Darmody

  _{Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.}

• TesserVine

  The audacity to suggest you should have moved your furniture around just to keep their shi*ty paint job even is next level. Check your local tenant laws, but in most places, landlords are required to repaint every few years anyway at their own expense.

• Marble_Oracle2

  Standard landlord behavior, trying to fund their renovations with your hard earned money. Send a formal demand letter via certified mail first. Usually, that is enough to show them you arent an easy target. That 500 bucks belongs in your pocket, not their pockets.

• Chrysoscelis

  Where in the lease did it say you were required to "rotate your furniture"?

• MrSoftShoe

  You should have rotated your furniture and kept your blinds closed 24/7 for 3 years. Sunlight is not permitted inside the dwelling. /sarcasm

  In seriousness, I would send a formal demand letter with certified mail. You can probably avoid small claims court, but I'd be prepared for it. This is not damage.

• Moist-Document4349

  File in small claims court for the return of the deposit. Have him served. Be sure to include your filling fees and costs for service in the claim if your lease allowed for recovery of legal fees to experience the lease.

• shaveyaks

  Of all the things that fall under "normal wear and tear" paint fading tops the list. Small claims court should be a cakewalk for you.

• ChromeHarrow

  Take them to small claims court. Most landlords fold the second they get a legal notice because they know a judge will laugh at the idea of "rotating a sofa" to prevent sun damage. It is just a cheap scam to steal your deposit.

• Marble_Oracle2

  Standard landlord behavior, trying to fund their renovations with your hard earned money. Send a formal demand letter via certified mail first. Usually, that is enough to show them you arent an easy target. That 500 bucks belongs in your pocket, not their pockets.

• 8QuarryDaze

  Fading paint is the textbook definition of normal wear and tear. Don't let them b*lly you out of your cash.

• Chrysoscelis

  Where in the lease did it say you were required to "rotate your furniture"?

• MrSoftShoe

  You should have rotated your furniture and kept your blinds closed 24/7 for 3 years. Sunlight is not permitted inside the dwelling. /sarcasm

  In seriousness, I would send a formal demand letter with certified mail. You can probably avoid small claims court, but I'd be prepared for it. This is not damage.

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