- Jurisdiction
- Pennsylvania
Hello! I wanted to seek advice on the current situation I and my roommates have found ourselves in.
A company in the state where I live (Pennsylvania) that we had rented from has done what the title says. I will try to explain everything the best I can.
I lived in this property with two other roommates who are good friends alongside my cat Memow. I had paid a nonrefundable pet fee of $300 at the beginning of the lease, alongside a $30 addition each month for my having a pet. Additionally, the security deposit came out to $1080. We lived there for almost 2 years before moving out due to the deterioration of the neighborhood and the property.
Before we officially moved out on July 31st, we cleaned the apartment the best we could. We also wanted to repaint/spackle any holes in the wall or tears in the paint (which was very cheap, and would peel off without effort), but were told in a move-out letter to not worry about painting or wall repairs as they would do it themselves.
August 31st marked the month-long time period they had to send an itemized list. Today it was sent and it said this:
----------------------------------------------------
Based on the following tenant-billed items that exceed your security deposit, you will not be receiving any return of security deposit funds:
Cleaning
Patching/Painting
Repairs
Replacement of Blinds
Based on the cost of these items $0 of your security deposit will be returned. Once the charges for these items are finalized, you will be sent the charges for payment.
---------------------------------------------------------------
The rental portal says the following:
Tenant Billable Items - replacement of kitchen outlet cover, oven knobs, paint throughout, blinds, deep cleaning - $2875
---------------------------------------------------------------
This comes out to a total of: $2875 + $1080 + $300 + ($30 * 22 months) = $4915, $3955 not including pet fee or payments.
This seems like an outrageous amount to charge given the actual damages. The walls have small tears of paint in certain areas but they weren't beyond normal wear and tear. The blinds were cheap and only 2 blinds had small damage at the bot tom from the cat nibbling on them. The outlet cover was damaged but upon research cost 6 dollars. The oven knobs were cracked and were at a similar price. The other things we are being charged for such as missing screens and hood bulb WERE NOT there when we moved in!
The reason we moved was due to a roach infestation that occurred after a tenant in the connecting building (a drug addict who had also been hoarding) was evicted and their apartment was completely gutted. This infestation was an experience shared with the two other tenants in the building as well, one of whom is willing to stand in court with us. We assume that the evicted tenants' apartment drew and houses these roaches and no care was taken to remove the infestation, leading to it spreading to our apartments. We did what we could to fight the infestation and informed a person at the company as they also rented out this apartment. Today we were informed that they plan on adding fumigation charges on top of what has already been charged.
Unfortunately, we had not taken pictures as we didn't think this would become a problem, but from our knowledge, they also don't have pictures of the property beforehand, something we know because one of my roommates has a sister who works for the company and manages other properties.
We believe that the "itemized lists" that they sent us DO NOT actually qualify as itemized lists. We have asked several times for an item-by-item list of charges.The question then is if we are in our legal right to sue for a failure to provide an actual itemized list within 30 days. Either way, we believe these charges are outrageous and want to do what we can to fight against the unjustness of this action taken by this company against us. Attached are several files including the lease, the emails, etc.
Please help! We are all early 20s and are not in the financial situation to pay this, nor do we think it's even remotely fair!
A company in the state where I live (Pennsylvania) that we had rented from has done what the title says. I will try to explain everything the best I can.
I lived in this property with two other roommates who are good friends alongside my cat Memow. I had paid a nonrefundable pet fee of $300 at the beginning of the lease, alongside a $30 addition each month for my having a pet. Additionally, the security deposit came out to $1080. We lived there for almost 2 years before moving out due to the deterioration of the neighborhood and the property.
Before we officially moved out on July 31st, we cleaned the apartment the best we could. We also wanted to repaint/spackle any holes in the wall or tears in the paint (which was very cheap, and would peel off without effort), but were told in a move-out letter to not worry about painting or wall repairs as they would do it themselves.
August 31st marked the month-long time period they had to send an itemized list. Today it was sent and it said this:
----------------------------------------------------
Based on the following tenant-billed items that exceed your security deposit, you will not be receiving any return of security deposit funds:
Cleaning
Patching/Painting
Repairs
Replacement of Blinds
Based on the cost of these items $0 of your security deposit will be returned. Once the charges for these items are finalized, you will be sent the charges for payment.
---------------------------------------------------------------
The rental portal says the following:
Tenant Billable Items - replacement of kitchen outlet cover, oven knobs, paint throughout, blinds, deep cleaning - $2875
---------------------------------------------------------------
This comes out to a total of: $2875 + $1080 + $300 + ($30 * 22 months) = $4915, $3955 not including pet fee or payments.
This seems like an outrageous amount to charge given the actual damages. The walls have small tears of paint in certain areas but they weren't beyond normal wear and tear. The blinds were cheap and only 2 blinds had small damage at the bot tom from the cat nibbling on them. The outlet cover was damaged but upon research cost 6 dollars. The oven knobs were cracked and were at a similar price. The other things we are being charged for such as missing screens and hood bulb WERE NOT there when we moved in!
The reason we moved was due to a roach infestation that occurred after a tenant in the connecting building (a drug addict who had also been hoarding) was evicted and their apartment was completely gutted. This infestation was an experience shared with the two other tenants in the building as well, one of whom is willing to stand in court with us. We assume that the evicted tenants' apartment drew and houses these roaches and no care was taken to remove the infestation, leading to it spreading to our apartments. We did what we could to fight the infestation and informed a person at the company as they also rented out this apartment. Today we were informed that they plan on adding fumigation charges on top of what has already been charged.
Unfortunately, we had not taken pictures as we didn't think this would become a problem, but from our knowledge, they also don't have pictures of the property beforehand, something we know because one of my roommates has a sister who works for the company and manages other properties.
We believe that the "itemized lists" that they sent us DO NOT actually qualify as itemized lists. We have asked several times for an item-by-item list of charges.The question then is if we are in our legal right to sue for a failure to provide an actual itemized list within 30 days. Either way, we believe these charges are outrageous and want to do what we can to fight against the unjustness of this action taken by this company against us. Attached are several files including the lease, the emails, etc.
Please help! We are all early 20s and are not in the financial situation to pay this, nor do we think it's even remotely fair!
