The Landlord Drama Continues...

We got the keys to our new place nearly a month ago, and we moved out completely from our old place three weeks ago. We did a walk-through with our beloved landlord three days after our lease ended because he was too busy to meet with me at a time I could actually make it the day our lease ended.

When I initially talked to him about this, he asked if he could bring potential buyers through our unit on the DAY WE WERE MOVING, and I said no, that would be a bad idea. I also told him I could not make it to a walk through until 2 pm or later on Tuesday, the day our lease ended.

He said, "Okay, I'll check my calendar and confirm a time and call you tomorrow."

He didn't call the next day, but he did call the day after that, and he said, "Oh, how would 11 am on Tuesday work?"

And I smiled and said, "Oh, but I cannot meet until 2 pm or later on Tuesday." Then, I continued, "If it would be more convenient for you to meet later in the week, I do not work on Fridays, so that day would work perfectly for me."

And he said, rather rudely, "You know you have to be moved out by the end of the month, right?"

And I smiled and said, "Of course I know that. In fact, we're moved out now, and I would be happy to leave the keys in the apartment if that would make you more comfortable. I thought it might be more convenient for you."

And he said, "Yes, why don't you do that."

When he arrived on the day of the walk through, he was fumbling with the lock box, and I mentioned in passing that I assumed the correct keys were in the lock box as the locks had been changed half-way through our lease when the front doorknob broke. He looked up in surprise and said, "The locks were changed!? Did you give me the new keys?"

And I said, "No, I assume the man who changed the locks - the one who works for you - gave you the keys."

Crisis was averted when the lock box did, in fact contain the new keys.

We walked in, and the landlord spent twice as long looking at everything as he had when we first moved in, in spite of the fact that the unit was about 10 times cleaner than it had been when we moved in.

As we were leaving, I asked, "Can you confirm that we will receive our entire deposit back?"

And the landlord said, "It looks that way right now." He then continued to say that we were excellent tenants fairly convincingly with only a trace of disgust, and we thanked him and said we had loved the unit with a convincing amount of sincerity, and we shook hands and departed, thinking that we would never, ever have to see this landlord again.

Foolish, foolish people.

The management company guarantees that they will send your deposit back within two weeks of vacating the property.

I received a voicemail from our landlord on the 13th of the month asking for our address. He had lost the form that we had turned in that indicated our forwarding address. Salt called and gave it to him, and two days later, we received a check in the mail.

The check was for $1200, which was our entire deposit and $200 of the $300 pet deposit.

At first, I thought this was correct because I had somehow (erroneously) thought that part of our pet deposit was non-refundable.

However, on the accompanying paper, it indicated that $100 had been deducted for "pet fumigation for fleas."

Now, we are anal pet owners. We are uptight Seattle-ites to the core. We have spent more money on Morgan over the past 11 months than most people spend on their own health care in five years. Morgan is a healthy, spoiled dog who does not have fleas. We know this for a fact.

We also spoke with our landlord about this back when we first got Morgan. He had sent over the pet agreement, which included some ridiculous language about pet fumigation for bug infestation being mandatory.

I had written back to him via email and said:

I just received the pet agreement, and my only concern is regarding the agreement for "Professional Fumigation." Considering that the apartment was not fumigated before we moved in (the carpets were professionally cleaned and that was it) when the previous tenants had more pets than we do, I do not find it reasonable to require that we have the apartment fumigated before we leave. As I recall, our lease already requires that we have the carpets professionally cleaned before we move out, and I believe that this should be sufficient. Our dog is already on flea medication and bug infestation of any sort should not be an issue.

Our ever-cheerful landlord wrote back and said:

[Infinity Squared], realistically we rarely require fumigation unless fleas are detected. Thus we put it in our agreement as it’s the tenant’s responsibility and cost. Therefore this is the standard agreement that needs to be agreed upon and signed, otherwise you can’t have pets! And as you’ve written, Morgan has already been taken of so it won’t be an issue.

We responded:

We're happy to sign a pet agreement that reflects the clarification you've just provided. In the event of bug infestation due to the presence of a pet, we will accept full responsibility and cost for fumigation. However, as it stands now, the pet agreement is unclear as to whether fumigation is required only if there is a flea infestation, or if fumigation is required upon vacating as a matter of course.

Our incredibly cheerful and always helpful landlord responded:

[Infinity Squared], I spoke with our broker and we don’t customize or alter our documents. What you can do is retain a copy of my previous email for future reference, but if you want a pet you need to sign our form - like all our tenants with pets have done.

So we signed the form and sent it in with the check. We took a copy of the email communication to our walk through, but the topic never came up so we didn't really think to pull it out.

Forward to the day we received this check.

I called the landlord and thanked him for processing our deposit check so quickly. I then asked why we had been charged for the pet fumigation and went over the entire email communication we had last November.

He said, "Well, when we did the walk through, you said something like, 'So $150 of the pet deposit is refundable?' So you're actually getting more than that back."

And I said, "Yes, I misspoke, but I thought part of the pet deposit was non-refundable, which is not the case."

And he said, "Look, you're getting quite a bit of your deposit back."

And I said, "Yes, but we would like the entire amount back."

And he said, "Well, do you have a copy of this email communication?"

And I said, "Yes, I do."

And he said, "Well send it to me."

And he hung up.

I forwarded the entire email conversation to him on Wednesday afternoon, and we heard nothing on Thursday. This morning, Salt called his office line and left a voicemail. She hasn't heard back from him.

We will be calling him on Monday, as well.

We're pretty sure that our landlord hates us - me, in particular - because we actually cared about where we lived. We cared that the unit hadn't been cleaned AT ALL before we moved in (with the exception of the carpet). We cared that the back door didn't lock for the first month that we lived there and we had to use an aluminum security bar to block it closed. We cared when our trash cans were stolen. We cared that our bedroom ceiling leaked. We cared that none of our phone jacks worked on the second floor. We also cared when we weren't notified that our stairs were going to disappear for not just an afternoon - but for a week.

So rather than suck it up like some people might and leave the place in the same condition we received it in, we did things like scrub the walls of the kitchen for 3 hours so we could paint it, and spackle holes in wall that we didn't make so it wouldn't look so bad. I didn't think it was too much to unscrew the dishwasher from the wall and pull it out to wipe off 10 years' worth of food grime. I also didn't think it was inappropriate to call the emergency maintenance line on the weekend when we woke up one morning with our ceiling covered in water and dripping.

Evidently, we were just too high maintenance for our landlord because of that.

And now, it's just another uptight thing to do - expect our entire deposit back! What bitches! It's just $100.

Come on! That's only 10 weeks of my bus pass, or two months worth of gas... it's only two months of internet and phone. Pocket change! How selfish are we to not want that management company to keep that piddly little $100 so that they can pretend to do a fumigation? (They won't actually do one because THEY DON'T NEED TO.)

Well, our unlucky landlord just happened to get two people who give a shit, and he's about to find out just how much of my father's stubborn streak and temper I really have.