Roommates From Hell

[Tahlvin]

About a year ago, our daughter signed a lease on an apartment that she was going to share with a roommate she found online. The roommate paid the deposit, while my wife and I co-signed the lease because they were both young people without much credit history. At the time, we knew we could easily afford to pay for the full amount of rent if the roommate skipped out on the lease, and fully planned on that happening. They split the rent evenly, although I must say that the benefits were not as evenly split: the roommate got the bigger bedroom with the private bathroom while our daughter got the smaller bedroom and the bathroom that would be used by any company that came to visit, and the roommate got the one indoor parking spot while our daughter had to park outside.

Anyways, 4 or so months into the lease, the roommate had lost her job and decided she was going to move down to Kentucky or Tennessee with her mom, so with just a couple weeks' notice, she skipped out on the lease. Like I said, we had figured that would happen, so we were just covering the full amount of the rent instead of just half, and our daughter got to use the bigger bedroom and the indoor parking space. The roommate did leave a few things behind, and she never answered our daughter's texts about coming back to pick them up. And she did dings some stuff up while she was there, leaving a few very small holes in the wall, marks on the walls, and so on. Mostly just wear and tear, though perhaps a little excessive for just 4 months, but nothing too bad. So whatever.

Fast forward to a couple weeks ago. The lease is supposed to be up at the end of this month, and our daughter is moving to a different apartment with some hopefully-better roommates (they're juniors and seniors in college, so at least in a bit more stable situation than the last roommate). Our daughter gets a text from the roommate saying that she wants to make sure she gets all of her deposit back. Our first reaction is, bitch, you skipped out on the lease after 4 months, you don't get shit! But we told our daughter to hold off on responding until she and my wife had a chance to meet with the apartment manager and discuss things. We don't want to steal money she's rightfully owed, but she also skipped out on the lease and stuck us with covering her half of the rent for 8 months or so. The roommate then sends another text to our daughter earlier this week, saying that she's talked to a lawyer, and if that's the route she needs to go to get her deposit back, then she'll do so. So our daughter's getting a little freaked out and a lotta pissed off.

First of all, the deposit doesn't get returned until after the lease has fully ended and all tenants' keys are turned back over to the apartment manager. The apartment manager can then hold back the cost of any incidentals, such as cleaning and repairs. Only after those incidentals have been taken care of will the manager refund what remains of the deposit, so it usually will not be sent until about 21 days after checkout. Second of all, its the apartment manager who will give her back the refund, not our daughter. So to be threatening our daughter with a lawsuit is a bit overboard.

My wife and daughter met with the apartment manager this week (who incidentally never received formal notice from the roommate that she was skipping out). The manager said we were being much more generous with the roommate than she would be! My wife is going to send the roommate an email (and cc the apartment manager) telling her that if she wants to sue us to get the deposit back, she's welcome to, and we'll also be happy to discuss what she owes us for covering 8 months of her half of the rent. Otherwise, the apartment manager, not our daughter, will send her the balance of the deposit, but only several weeks after the lease has official ended and all tenants have vacated the premises. And any incidentals, such as cleaning and repairs, as well as the cost to dispose of anything left behind by the tenants (ahem, she still has things she left there, see the texts my daughter sent her), will be deducted from the deposit. All according to the terms of the lease that she signed when she took the apartment over a year ago.

As for moving our daughter out, we're planning to vacuum, dust, and generally have the place cleaned like company is coming to visit. But usually when we've moved our kids out of their apartments we do a DEEP cleaning, like taking a toothbrush to the tracks on the windows/doors, etc. (we've left several apartments in much better shape on move-out than what they were in at move-in). That's not happening this time. And if they hire someone to come in and do that deep cleaning, it will be deducted from the roommate's deposit. That seems like the least that she can do for right now, given that we let her skip out on 8 months of rent.

[Stan]

Damn, the nerve of some people.

[Phoebe]

Hell is other people. This woman is full of s*** and you don't owe her anything, including her deposit. Let her try to sue you for this amount of money that is probably less than it would cost her to hire the attorney. That is my non-expert advice which should not be taken as expert advice. Or pay a couple hundred bucks to have a letter sent to this woman demanding her back rent share, and then take her deposit money. Also send her a plague of flying monkeys just for being such a dick.

[bralbovsky]

What she said.