Monday, January 30, 2006

Deposit $...you won't get back

I'm so bent out of shape over a letter we received from our old apartment complex (Oak Hill Investment Co.) on Saturday. It stated—summed up here b/c I don't have the letter in front of me:

"We are going to try and screw you. Never mind the fact that you have been fantastic tenants for the last five years. Since you've moved out and we can't quickly replace you with our now overpriced rent, we are going to try and charge you outrageous fees for leaving us. Fees to the tune of $734.00. Subtract the $450.00 deposit you paid when you moved in and you still owe us $284.00. Pay us or we'll send it to a collections bureau."

Eff Off!

First of all, some of the "charges" are bogus...like the $45 they want to charge us for "a large sofa and pumpkin left in the yard". One...we never had a sofa (just a love seat and chairs that we took with us). Two...the pumpkin is biodegradeable (which is why it was left there at all). The list goes on and on about things left unclean (ok, whatever) but the most outrageous charge in my book is the $350.00 charge for "replacing carpet due to unremovable stains left by tenants". HELLO! We lived there 5 years and the carpet wasn't new when we moved in. It's called normal wear and tear and traffic patterns!!

Josh is dealing with this today...may he be stern and hold strong (send us good thoughts).

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Eek, that's awful! Go find out your tenant rights and get an arbitrator if you have to. Don't let them get away with cheating you! It's stupid that you have to go to all this fuss just to have your rights respected but the only other option is just to pay the money unfortunately. Hope you get it sorted out!

Jen said...

Well, how did it go? The things they're trying to put over on you guys are just outrageous! I was so irritated I couldn't think of an appropriate comment to post at the time. Thus, my comment is posted a day late...

Holly {ArtistMotherTeacher} said...

No resolve yet. Josh called and spoke with the guy yesterday—who was civil but still kind of a jerk. The call ended with an "I'll call you back." on their end—which resulted in phone tag. Josh left a message yesterday and we haven't heard back yet today.