Sounds good to me.
good luck
hope it works out. i h8 slum lords
Good Luck guys! Hopefully this can end quickly and peacefully, and not need to go to court!
Landlords are (usually) assholes. I had a jerkoff of one back in 04 when I lived in E. McKeesport. I never heard from him when I moved out and never got any of my money back. I had issues with my hot water tank and heater in the dead of winter, he kept telling me to go buy this go buy that then wouldnt come out to fix it. I had to figure out myself that it was the thermocouple on the hot water tank and fix it.
Good luck with all of this. You seem to have crossed your t’s and dotted your i’s everywhere, I hope you get all of your money back (plus some 
)
Speaking as a former landlord, most renters are assholes, not all, but most. They tear up your property, complain about stuff that they would never fix if they owned it, and in the end fail to ever pay on time. Once every few years you get a good one, but then they only ever seem to stay a few months to a year, and then its back to the same old.
And to be honest, I have been reading this since the start, and I’m not sure that I disagree with the landlord. I agree that he should have done this more timely, but have you ever tried to manage multiple properties, get a cleaning crew to show up for work, get a carpet company in to replace carpet, and do it all within 30 days?
I think it works both ways. There are shitty landlords and shitty renters. I know people on both ends. A few of my faimily memebers have properties and say how people trash the place and I have heard stories from friends and family where a londlord wont do shit.
Perhaps you missed the part about the carpet not needing to be replaced, or the part where I said I cleaned the entire apartment after we moved our stuff out, oh and I had the carpets cleaned and treated for pet odors and stains and there was no odor. There were some stains, but nothing bad enough to warrant replacing the carpet. If he couldn’t get it done within 30 days, that’s fine…But don’t wait over 2 months and send me a bill for over 2 grand.
good luck with everything! landlord sounds like an ass
Thanks. At least we don’t have to rent anymore.
I didn’t miss that part. But IMO, if you have pets in the house(I do) even though you dont smell the oder, a non-pet owner will. And to be honest it could have been the best cleaning in the world, a non-pet owner is still going to smell it. I have had houses that we changed the carpet, had the floors treated while the carpet was out, and still had non-pet owners come in and say they smelled cat, or dog. I did miss what kind of pets you had, but cats seem to be the worst, in my experience. I just reread your first post, and honestly it was an attack against you or your cats.
But I do see a few things that sort of “red flag” me.
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The carpet was new when you moved in. You only stayed about 6 weeks, and there are now stains on the new carpet, that professional cleanign did not remove?
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It seems that he did inform you withing 30 days, verbally atleast, of his intent to replace the carpet. Although you diagreed with his decesion, it does seem that there was contact within the 30 day period.
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did you have the “pet clause” in writting? (I may have missed this bit of info also) But if you don’t I dont see you winning this. He is going to go into the court, say hey they had pets when they weren’t allowed to, I contacted them verbally about replacing the carpets, blah, blah, blah, and now your out the security, the cost of carpets, and the court costs.
I agree with you as well. I would not want to own a rental property. But I was speaking from my own experience in the 7 years that I have rented (I move every year for either work, more room, whatever). I didnt mean to get your panties in a bunch 
I’m not sure if we are in the same thread here or perhaps you just aren’t paying attention. We had two cats in the apartment for one year, they were allowed according to our lease. The landlord knew we had them and we paid an extra $25 a month on top of our rent in order to have them there.
He claims the carpet was new when we moved in. It was in good shape; however, I doubt that it was new. We lived there for a year. Professional cleaning removed most of the stains on the carpet. The stains that would not come out we’re minimal. I understand that non pet owners will notice a pet odor, that is why I had the carpets cleaned and treated for pet odor. My husband and I were in the apartment approximately a week after the cleaning and I smelled no cat odor, whereas I had smelled one slightly prior to the carpet cleaning.
He did call me and request that I pay for the carpet replacement. I honestly don’t remember what date this was, it may or may not have been within 30 days. However, according to the law he should have sent something in writing within 30 days.
The “pet clause” as you have called it was that we were allowed to have our cats in the apartment, as I mentioned previously.
I see me either A. getting my security deposit back from him after he reads the letter I sent to him today or B. filing a civil suit and winning considering he clearly broke the law and then I will have twice my security deposit. For his sake, I hope he takes the easy route.
I manage over 30 properties, not all for different owners. I always get a written notice out within 30 days.
It’s very possible to have good tenants, it’s all in how you screen them. I don’t have a single tenant that I placed that is late. I have one tenant that is a pain in the ass, other than her I only get justifable complaints, and do my best to handle them competently, proffessionally and in a timely manner.
regardless if the carpet was destroyed he gave up his rights when he didn’t follow the law. If you want the law on your side to collect from former tenants, than you should be required to follow it as well.
Not to mention if the carpet was 3 years old, with a 15 year lifespan, than they should only pay a pro-rated 12 year remainder, not to replace a used carpet.
I have been on both sides…Rented for several years before buying my first house, and rented my first house out for a few years after we built a new home.
I had both good and bad tenants(best was a section 8 single mom…go figure). When people live in a dwelling, there WILL be wear and tear. There WILL be an occasional stain, or paint scuff. IMO, many landlords use the security deposit for extra income, and keep that money to pay for normal wear, which is what rent is supposed to cover.
In this case, they were already charging extra rent because of the pets. Why the extra rent when they want to charge for all effects of the animals being there, and then some? I always thought that they charged more so that they can do the additional cleaning that might be required because of pets, once the tenant moves out.
x2… that extra $25/ month pet fee is supposed to be used to handle any normal wear that a pet would cause to the dwelling. obviously if you have a rotweiller thats eating holes in the walls and chewing up the corners of doors its not gonna cut it, but i cant imagine a couple cats causing that much drama.
I think you are well within your right to send him that letter and get your money back. If he doesnt have time to handle all his properties according to the law then perhaps its time to hire a property manager!
(c) If the landlord fails to pay the tenant the difference between the sum
deposited, including any unpaid interest thereon, and the actual damages to the leasehold
premises caused by the tenant within thirty days after termination of the lease or surrender and
acceptance of the leasehold premises, the landlord shall be liable in assumpsit to double the
amount by which the sum deposited in escrow, including any unpaid interest thereon, exceeds
the actual damages to the leasehold premises caused by the tenant as determined by any
court of record or court not of record having jurisdiction in civil actions at law. The burden of
proof of actual damages caused by the tenant to the leasehold premises shall be on the
landlord.
Just a heads up, but the above clause from the Landlord Tenant Act appears to state that you as a tenant could potentially recover twice your security deposit, however that amount could be decreased by any damages the landlord could prove you caused. In other words, if your deposit was $575, but the landlord can prove the rugs were destroyed by you at a replacement cost of say $2100, you would not recover anything, which is obviously still better for you than having to pay $1500+ for the carpet in the first place. As was mentioned previously in this thread, pet odor (especially cat urine/spray) can be damn near impossible to completely remove. Chances are the professional cleaning masked lingering odor for a while. A few pictures (of stains) and some signed statements from a few prospective tenants or from a subsequent professional cleaning crew could most likely serve as proof of pet odor necessitating removal of the carpet.
He does have people that work for him to help with all these properties. That’s the kicker. There really is no good reason why it took him so long to send me the invoice.
Ive read also that suing for just the original amount gets you out of that clause. Which is why I was trying to get ahold of some lawyers but it was too late in the day at the time. I just want to get this settled. There was def wear and tear on that carpet as expected. I still want to talk to a lawyer who has worked these cases before to get a better headway on this. We havent filed suit but sent the letter out yesterday stating hes past the time to just send us a bill.
Update?
no word from the landlord after we sent theletter last week. They signed for it but thats all we know.