Carpet Replacement (security deposit) - Should I pay for this?

[jerk]

Hey guys- I'm in California and I have a question about carpet replacement. Landlord is charging me $800 to replace a 2-3 year old carpet. I have only lived there for 9 months.

Their reasoning is written vaguely as "black and heavily soiled in traffic areas - replace only" on the carpet company's invoice .. I have talked to the leasing office and the carpet company and this is as much detail as I can get from them.

I am not in denial about the carpet's quality at the time of my move-out.. The carpet was indeed soiled and had a few spots in areas where people constantly walked through. There was some darker soiled spots but nothing that wouldn't come out with a good carpet cleaning. The reason I left it so dirty was I was too busy to get the spots professionally cleaned before I moved out.. I figured the leasing office would send me a bill for the carpet cleaning fees. However, I didn't expect to be charged for total replacement!

I keep pressing the fact "why couldn't these spots and soiled areas be cleaned professionally? what exactly warranted replacement of the carpet?" and I keep getting nowhere. Should I refuse to pay for the $800 carpet replacement? Or would you just pay it?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

PS- The office does have pictures of the carpet on their file and was showing them to me. They said these pictures would be sufficient in supporting their case of replacing the carpet. I say it's just pictures of spots that could be professionally cleaned - they're caused from normal dirt tracking, spilled drinks, etc..

 

[Gail_in_Georgia]

Carpets/carpet replacement seems to be a real bone of contention between landlords and former tenants.

Obviously we can't tell you if the carpet could be cleaned or needed to be replaced but replacement costs are based on the life of the carpet. As a very general rule, carpets in rental properties have a useful life of around five years.

In other words, if a carpet was already greater than five year of age, it had outlived its useful life. Cost of replacing a 2 - 3 old carpet would need to be prorated to reflect the age of this.

Gail

 

[jerk]

Yeah, I agree that no one can really tell me if the carpet could have been cleaned or replaced. However, I'm really unsure about what warrants a carpet replacement and I can't get the carpet company to tell me that information. To my unprofessional eyes, I would say that the carpet was dirty and had some spots but it was nothing so major to warrant replacement.

Is this a normal landlord-tenant case? I don't want to keep fighting this like a fool if I'm in the wrong here. Though replacement is quite questionable in my opinion..

The conflict is of my unprofessional opinion versus the professional carpet company's opinion. Meaning I'm most likely going to pay $800 ?

 

[mightymoose]

It is a typical landlord/tenant dispute.
Your best option here would have been to take the time to clean the carpet yourself or hire someone to come and do it for you.

I am not quite clear though... have you moved out or are you still living there?

If the landlord is sending you a bill you do not have to pay it... but expect that if you don't the landlord may choose to take you to court over it.

If the landlord took the money out of a security deposit and you want it back then your option is to sue him and let a judge decide whether the landlord had an obligation to try to clean it before jumping to the replacement.

If you do end up in court then someone from the company may have to show up too.... and... and if so they will have a bit more to say regarding cleaning vs replacement.

 

[jerk]

I have moved out and no longer live on the landlord's premises.

My security deposit was $500.. meaning they are billing me for an additional amount on top of keeping the $500 deposit.

I'm fine with them keeping $500, but I really do not want to owe any additional money. In this case, I should not pay the amount and wait to see if they send a me a letter threatening legal action?

I really do wish I hired professional cleaners myself, but I didn't. My reasoning was "Oh well, they'll just hire some professional cleaners and charge a huge cleaning fee", which I had accepted. But a $800 replacement fee is not was I was going for.

 

[mightymoose]

If you wanted, you could refuse to pay the additional money and wait for the landlord to sue over it. If the landlord does sue, you could file a counterclaim and ask for a portion of the $500 to be returned so that you would in effect only be paying whatever the cost would have been for cleaning.
The landlord will have to prove that the carpets could not be cleaned and replacement was the only option. You will not have to prove that they could, but that would help.
Since you do not contest the condition of the carpets it seems fair that you should pay a minimum of the usual cleaning cost.
If the landlord does not follow through with a lawsuit then you will just be out the $500 deposit.