Landlords Have Their Rentals Destroyed By Bad Tenants Who Want The Security Deposit Back

A large number of landlords have had their units destroyed by bad tenants. Sometimes those tenants, even after destroying the unit, want their security deposit back.

The truth of the matter is that the damage that some of these tenants leave on the rentals is more than the security deposit will cover meaning that the landlord is going to take a loss.

All landlords eventually experience this if they are in the business long enough, but this article highlights the problem for those who believe that landlords are just mean and greedy. 

[miscprojects]

Landlords should inspect the inside or their rentals twice a year and have the inspections written into the rental agreement.

[druellapartee]

My Units ALWAYS looked like they should be in a Magazine and they will ALL tell you that regardless of the difficulty I may have had paying rent!… One of my Landlords DID NOT RAISE MY RENT THE 15 Years I resided there because I invested money Painting… Carpeting… Floor Tiling… Hardwood Floor Varnishing because of how I WANT MY HOME LIFE TO BE!🌹

[jennifer]

The worst tenants are the ones who leave their animals behind. And I can't believe that people can actually choose to live this way. They belong in a barn

[georgewagner]

I took a crayon to the wall when I was 5. Dad had just put in my new little bathroom. I still remember because of the spanking.

[gregorychalmers]

Years ago I had a tenant die in the summer. The body exploded after 10 day.s Guts and body fluids Yeah, I cleaned it up

[eeverett]

I snuck my cat into a no pets apartment. I always cleaned up after her, so I didn't think that I was doing any harm. Then I got up in the middle of the night, turned on the light and a dozen cockroaches ran out of the cat food bowl. It always took her a long time to finish eating. They would even eat her poo. I'm from the suburbs so I didn't know about roaches in the city.

So, yeh to some extent, I was a bad tenant myself. I've recently gone pet free when my last pet, a guinea pig, died. It's so much easier to keep your place clean with no pets.

[nathenstoneburgh]

Need to start a web page for landlords listing people who have and haven't trashed their apartments. Let's see Joe Blow....destroyed the tub, sink, fridge, and 4 doors on a 24 month rental. Look at before and after pics, or Hellen Young...last two rentals looked good. Easy choice.

[YoPhocFays]

I charge extra pet deposit. Not once has the deposit ever been enough to cover the damage done by the pet

[michah]

Landlords never give the security back. They remove any incentive to leave things clean. That happened years ago.

[jimmyday]

We never refund a security deposit until the tenant has moved out, in MD where we have properties, we can take up to 45 days to refund it, if at all, or send demand for additional damages. And we ALWAYS charge the legal max of 2x monthly rent for deposit; landlords who charge exactly one months' rent for deposit are naive, as tenant will simply use it for last month's rent.

[dre]

There are issues with mega landlords buying up too much property and controlling the rent but renters thinking landlords shouldn’t be making a decent profit and destroying the home is also a huge issue.

[rustyscrapper]

The "good" tenants usually eat up most of their deposit on cleaning. And then 1 chipped door later, the deposit is gone.

I clean for free between tenants a lot. I only dock the damage deposit if it's really bad. Most people don't know how to deep clean, and I can tell they tried their best to clean I give back the deposit then explain to them what deep cleaning is.

They aren't going to take the cold air return vents off the wall and clean the grills, clean dust out of the bathroom fan etc. So I just eat a lot of cleaning time every move out.

[sptuuri]

Some of these tenants need a PIG surcharge!

[Petra-msku]

We had a nurse let her two toddlers free rang pee everywhere. Food, crayons, bugs were everywhere.

[harryhunter]

Having tenants trash a property is unusual but does happen. In the Midwest I’m guessing it happens a bit less than in the liberal portions of the country

[TL-wynk]

Tenants are almost never right. Many are entitled or delusional. They get angry at the landlord for no reason, and deliberately destroy the property. I wish they would prosecute it as grand larceny and give them 10yrs in prison. They need to be punished with prison time, and fined in my opinion.

[Itwasme]

I used to be a landlord of a three family house, and let me tell I will never and i mean never will make that mistake again of dealing with rentals and tenants. Hell NO.

[jimsmithnyny]

An exact 20 years 33 units santa monica apartments manager, I did targeted ads renting only to very rich young Chinese and Japanese, short term leases, in n out, shy students as my selective tenants, and in order to facilitate my management.
I avoided American headaches lawyers and the likes as potential tenants, for instance.
And when the rich Orientals left, they left behind a trophy of expensive furniture and stuff that I sold to the newcomers such tenants.
I had 3 other businesses too.

[travgiants]

Blackrock will gladly take that property of your hands and relieve you of your burden.

[anymjohnson]

ha, ha, ha, Landlords NEVER GIVE the DEPOSIT BACK!!! They Started with this More than 20 Years Ago!! Even to the tenants that Go Out of their WAY to CLEAN the Apartments/Homes & Some even Spend MONEY on Cleaning/steaming machines, and Paint; and the landlords still Don't Give them their Money Back, and WORSE is they even accuse the tenants of destroying things they NEVER DID. Landlords are the EVIL ONES, not the tenants.