r/Renters

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This post is intended to share my personal experience as a tenant and is provided for informational purposes only.

Prospective renters may wish to thoroughly inspect any unit before signing a lease and ask detailed questions about building maintenance, ventilation, moisture, and repair history.

During my tenancy, I experienced concerns including:

Persistent moisture and condensation issues.

Odours that I perceived as stale air, tobacco/cigarette smoke, and poor ventilation.

Concerns regarding mould and potential fungal growth.

Water leakage originating from another unit, which resulted in damage and what appeared to be fungal or mushroom growth near my bathroom area.

These conditions negatively affected my enjoyment of the unit and raised concerns about the overall living environment.

I encourage prospective tenants to conduct their own due diligence, inspect units carefully, document any concerns, and request information regarding previous repairs, water damage, mould remediation, and building maintenance before renting.

This statement reflects my personal experience and observations. My health has significantly declined as a result of being exposed to a toxic living environment that nobody should have to endure. This is a public warning for anyone wanting to rent here.

ETA/UPDATE: The first few commenters said the landlord can sue the tenants for the cost of cleaning the place, in addition to taking the security deposit. No need to repeat that comment but we welcome additional input. Thank you all very much for the answers.

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ASKING FOR A FRIEND Seriously, this isn't me. Friends of a family member are renters in Mass. They're aging and not in great health.

They've paid rent on time for the 10 years of their lease. The house older and in slightly rough condition when they moved in, but they've been low-scale hoarders and kept a pretty messy home, which attracted mice.

For this and some other general maintenance items, I personally doubt they're expecting their security deposit back whenever they move out.

I've spent a bit of time helping my family member help their friends clean, but it's more than a few friends & family can really do, and is probably a situation where they'll need to move out their key belongings, then hire someone to load everything left behind into a dumpster.

So my question: We've been discussing hiring someone to help clean the place out nor or whenever they move. Or hiring a dumpster ourselves at that point. But, is another option to simply walk away and knowingly forfeit the security deposit?

Personally, it's not how I conduct things in my life, but then again, it's not my personal business, I'm not a hoarder, and I quickly try to catch and prevent mice whenever I have one.

Is walking away an option for these aging folks rather than trying to figure out how to clean it all up? [Location: Central Massachusetts, USA]

Good morning,

I'm looking for some advice regarding a security deposit issue.

I rented a house for the past three years, and my lease ended on May 31, 2026. My landlord and I agreed to complete the final move-out inspection on May 23, 2026. The landlord wasn't present during the inspection, but a family member conducted the walkthrough. At the end, I signed a checklist identifying the items they believed were damaged, as well as the areas that were in good condition.

One mistake on my part was that I didn't provide a forwarding address when I moved out.

On June 16, I emailed my landlord asking for an update on my security deposit, but I didn't receive a response. Then, on June 30, I sent another email that included my forwarding address and again asked about the status of the deposit. As of today, I still haven't received any response.

The house was located in Memphis, TN. I no longer reside in TN.

Given these circumstances, what would my next steps be? Does the fact that I didn't initially provide a forwarding address affect the landlord's obligation to return the deposit or provide an itemized list of deductions? At this point, should I send a demand letter, or is it time to consider filing in small claims court?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Going from $1270 to $1420. I checked around and all the rents the lowest I can find were around $1320. Now keep in mind I'm going to have to put a deposit down again ,possibly a pet fee and maybe even pet rent maybe an application fee . Currently I'm only paying electricity so I'm not sure what kind of utilities will be not included in the rent.

I don't really have much furniture I was going to start fresh anyways, maybe just keep my bed. Isnt really worth moving just to save an extra 100 bucks a month.

I'm sure I can find cheaper than $1,300 but this means I'm going to have to drive further away for work currently my work is 20 minutes away. 6 miles one way .

Location: Michigan

A family member rented a home for 2 years. moved out May 31. It is now July 4 (day 34). Despite having been in the house to show it to future tenants before my family member moved out, and telling her that he didn’t see any major issues, the landlord emailed her after move out that they were his “worst move out ever.” he listed a bunch of non-itemized damages including having to “refinish all of the hardwood floors” and replace the garage door, and gave a single dollar total. No receipts or itemizations. My family member knew this was not communicated properly since it was only emailed rather than mailed, and not itemized, so she didn’t reply, waiting for him to mail it instead, and to send an itemized list if he was really serious.

we now know she is supposed to respond to those claims if she disagreed, but did the notification of damages count if it wasn’t properly communicated?

She did provide a forwarding address before they even out.

my family member took a video quickly of the main floor before vacating the premises. they had a dog and cat there but did not leave behind anything disgusting. There was no major damage to the floors. They had already told the LL about a small hole they accidentally knocked in the wall when tossing a box down the basement stairs. Other than that just normal wear and tear.

LL is saying they owe him $8k. Their deposit was $5k.

it is day 34 since move out now. Can LL still sue them for damages up to date 45, or can he not, since he never properly communicated itemized damages? I want my family member to go after their deposit since 30 days have elapsed. They are afraid that the LL has a handyman friend who will write him whatever receipts he wants. But the question now is did he miss his chance and can my family member safely pursue their deposit without fear of some sort of retribution?

Also FWIW he was asking them to stay because he liked them as tenants. they said they couldn’t stay because it had become out of their budget. Now all of a sudden they are the worst tenants ever. He seems like he is just hoping they won’t say anything and he can keep their deposit.

Landlord gave me an hour heads up that he (and a crew probably?) was coming to clean the weeds up from my back patio. I was out of the house by this time so I told him to be careful with the plants.

I come back home to find that after the patio was cleaned, one of my plants was completely removed from its pot and missing. Landlord claims that the pot already looked like that and isn’t responsible for it missing. He doesn’t offer any solution.

I don’t have a recent photo of the plant but i do have a photo of what it looked like in its pot from several months ago. Is there anything I can do?

I am well aware of my state's laws. The only right we have is to break our lease. It came with the rental. It is finally being fixed, so I don't need advice on leaving or any of that.

We are in WA where it's 60s/70s most days, but the apartment has a TON of south-facing windows and is a loft design, so it's basically a greenhouse. It gets 80+ inside any time the temp is 75+ outside, and we've had 18 days between 75-92 in that timeframe, meaning 18 days of 80+ inside.

Most of the delays are due to AC people misdiagnosing, losing parts, etc... But at least ~4 weeks could have been prevented had the owners not taken forever to decide, not chosen to go through home warranty, and not decided to fight (and lose) against their home warranty. We were not offered a portable unit until 7ish weeks.

Is it reasonable to ask for a rent adjustment and if so, how much? I was thinking 50% of each of the 18 days.

We are still waiting btw for the "final" parts to come in, so that #18 will likely climb.

So I have a question about a situation I’m in and thought to come here.

I am currently renting an apartment with 4 other people for $2550, our lease is up at the end of august, so our landlord contacted us to ask if we were planning to renew and that the rent would have to be increased due to taxes and HOA fees rising; we said we want to renew, she said she’d talk with her accountant and let us know a number asap, a day later she texts asking “did you guys come up with an amount you’d be comfortable with as an increase”, which I find odd bc she said she’d give us a number, which she never did. We told her our cap was $2750 and she said that will work and we would have to pay the $2750 and $200 difference on the security deposit and last months rent upon signing, then sends over the documents to sign right then, when we just paid rent 3 days earlier, like we all have $3100 laying around, . So she sends over the lease and says “let me know when the money is sent and documents are signed”, we try to explain we won’t have the money immediately bc we just paid July rent, she says typically is required to pay immediately but she will give us until the end of July to pay it, just to have to pay August rent AT THE SAME TIME. My question, is she allowed to ask for first months rent in advance for a lease renewal just bc of a $200 rent increase???

Hello - my boyfriend and I moved out of our old house we were renting and into an apartment June 2026. It's been an emotional rollercoaster this past month trying to settle our security deposit dispute with her and we are wanting to know more about the process to sue her in court.

We signed our lease agreement June 2025 and it was supposed to end the end of June 2026. We agreed when we signed that she would allow us to paint and do DIY stuff around the house (this was also written at the end of our lease agreement with certain things listed like a gravel walkway in the yard and painting). She did not have any pet fees and allowed any amount of pets. Her only thing was we would be liable for any damages the pets (we had 3) caused, but no deposit or pet fees during the lease. She also had a bunch of items in the garage, yard, and basement when we moved in.

During the lease, we painted basically every room a different color. The two bedrooms were beige and blue, and we just swapped those. One room was painted dark green, the bathroom was painted light purple, and the living room/dining/kitchen was painted pink. We also got permission from her to get two kittens on top of our 3 other cats. We built a gravel walkway and patio where it was all a mound of dirt to make it look pretty, and we also changed some of the fixtures. Also want to note that we were wanting to buy the house after the year, since that was something that came up before we even signed the lease.

At the beginning of January, our landlord came to us and told us she'd be selling the house because she lost her job. We were anxious and didn't really know what to do, but we started looking for other places because we didn't feel like buying was the right decision anymore. Then, about a month and a half later, she came back to us and said she got another job and would wait to sell until we left. However, since there were other issues with her during this whole process, we all mutually agreed we'd try to leave earlier so we could get out of this situation and she could sell the house earlier. At this point, we still didn't have the worst relationship with her, but it was a little strained. We felt like we had done a lot in the house, thinking we'd buy it, and we were getting the short end of the stick. However, the lease also states that any improvements made would become the landlord's upon move-out, so we just sucked it up and kept looking for a new place.

In April, we let her know we were pretty confident we could find a place, and we could leave sometime in May. She was kind of rushing us because she wanted us out sooner, but we ultimately let her know we'd be out by the end of May. Over the month or two we had left, we kept going back and forth with her, making sure we put everything back to the original state that she wanted. She told us we only needed to paint the pink and the red in the basement back to white, and we could leave the rest of the paint colors. She also kept going back and forth on whether she wanted us to keep the fixtures or not, but we ended up putting everything except one light fixture back. (Note: she told us multiple times the light was beautiful, and the two realtors that she brought also commented on how nice it was. The only iffy thing is whether it actually counts as an improvement.)

Our move-out was when things really hit the fan. We started moving on Friday, May 29, 2026, since that's when we got the keys to the new apartment. Throughout the weekend, she started sending us very nasty messages and rushing us out, even though we had until the end of Sunday. That took an emotional toll on us and we ended up not being able to fully move out until Monday, June 1. We texted her at 3 am on June 1, saying we couldn't finish and that we would come back to finish. We asked her to take the prorated amount out of our security deposit, and she agreed. She ended up going over and taking pictures at 6 am, which we didn't know about until she sent the demand letter. We went back and cleaned the rest of the house, but since she was there the whole time, we didn't fully finish cleaning the garage out.

The next day, she sent a whole bunch of angry and threatening texts telling us she had to cancel plans because we left the place filthy. She at first offered $200, "take the offer today or I'm not returning anything". She then sent more photos of some smudges and normal wear and tear. We could be charged for the floor paint, the carpet on the stairs being scratched by our cat, repainting the bathroom wall after I patched but didn't paint, and the garage and bulk items clean-up. We left an empty dresser, half a gaming chair, a planter pot, and an empty litter box. There were also small items left scattered on the garage floor since we were rushing out. We were willing to pay for all of that, but she sent us a demand letter charging an additional $6400. Two months of rent & $300 in unpaid utilities totalling $5200. She found an empty weed cannister and cigar wrappers in the garage and she's holding that over our heads as well. Those were from when my boyfriend lived in MO, and he never cleaned his car out. He never smoked in or around the house because he hasn't smoked in 2 years, but she is saying we are liable because she found it and its a violation of the lease and state law. However, she has no evidence of the smoke and odor damages she's trying to claim because we never smoked.

We consulted an attorney who sent her a response letter disputing those charges and asking for invoices and receipts to evidence the damages. She repeatedly tried to "settle" over the phone, but he kept replying via email, asking for evidence before he hopped on the phone with her. Now, we're at the beginning of July and the attorney emailed us saying it would be easier to sue her since "she seems to believe she doesn't have to follow the law."

I know there are a lot of details missing, but this is basically the gist of it. We weren't the best about getting the place completely clean but I don't think we deserve to get our entire security deposit taken. We had a nasty falling out, and now she's trying to get more money out of us, and we are trying to sue. I feel like I'm going crazy, and even though we have a bunch of evidence and photos, I feel like we might not win, and I don't know if it will be worth it.

EDIT: I thought I made it clear in my original, but I know I am not the best at explaining things so I wanted to add some more detail. All renovations and painting had written approval, and we had a signed addendum on the lease stating those changes would be made. I already stated the damages were something we were liable for, and we intended to pay them, just not $7400 worth. The landlord gave us written approval to prorate any days if we needed more time to move out, so we took that and asked for one extra day. I wish that I could post pictures but the demand letter she sent used pictures from before we were fully moved out to charge for "excessive filth". We got written approval for everything and made sure to double-check with her weeks in advance to make sure we had the house back the way she wanted. She lied in the demand letter about our lease agreement dates and added an additional month of rent that we do not owe. She also stated we made unauthorized changes even though the signed addendum states otherwise. She said we had unauthorized animals even though we got written approval and the adoption center called her to make sure she was okay with us having them.

She is charging for dishes in the kitchen that we cleaned up the last day we were there, the lawn because she had to mow it before the realtor took pictures. Our understanding is we need written consent to do things outside of the lease terms and we got it. We also do not have to make it ready to sell because that is something the landlord is responsible for. I want to reiterate that we are responsible for the carpet damage and painting she had to do, as well as the cleaning that we didn't fully finish in the garage. However, she listed the house for sale 3 days after we moved out and the pictures show she didn't repair anything she said she had to pay for. That is really our issue with it. Our agreement is an odd one because she is a private landlord and allowed us to do fun things but we put most of it back to normal and kept everything she wanted us to. I just don't think we should be held responsible for "damages" when she specifically asked us to keep things a certain way.

I have to make a decision by tomorrow.

I signed an 18-month lease and moved from Southern Maryland to Alexandria after accepting a new job in Arlington. The shorter commute was a major reason for the move, and I’ve only been living in the apartment for about a week.

The apartment wasn’t cleaned before I moved in, despite being told it would be, so my sister and I ended up cleaning it ourselves before fully unpacking. While cleaning, we started finding rodent droppings throughout the apartment. As we cleaned more thoroughly, we discovered hundreds of rodent droppings behind the stove, which made me question how long the issue had been there.

The landlord promptly scheduled pest control, which I appreciated. They found a hole behind the stove and plugged it but weren’t able to go behind the dishwasher unit (not legally authorized to move appliances) to check for openings. Based on their findings, they ruled no active infestation but felt this was a result of lack of treatment with the previous tenant.

However, the day after the treatment, we found droppings and a trash bag hanging from the kitchen door was chewed through overnight. Obviously, a current mouse issue.

Then the HVAC stopped working properly…during a heat wave. A technician determined there is a crack in the system that requires replacement parts. As of now, no one can tell me when the part will arrive or when the repair will be completed due to the holiday. I’ll have to wait to see when someone can get parts and then come out.

There have also been a few smaller maintenance issues (missing oven rack, inoperative building buzzer, tape in the fridge to hold together broken parts, etc.), but those are minor compared to the HVAC and rodent concerns.

Here’s what makes this decision so difficult: the apartment is $1,750/month with every utility included except Wi-Fi. If you’re familiar with the Alexandria/Northern Virginia rental market, you know that’s an incredible deal and significantly below what many comparable apartments cost.

I spoke with the landlord about my concerns, and to his credit, he has offered me two options:

- Terminate the lease and receive a full refund of everything I’ve paid.
- Stay in the apartment and receive a credit equal to half a month’s rent.

He’s allowing me to stay through Wednesday (4 days from now) if I decide to leave, but he wants my decision by tomorrow.

I’m genuinely torn. Financially, this apartment is an amazing value for the area, and moving again right after starting a new job sounds exhausting. On the other hand, I’d be committing to an 18-month lease without knowing when the HVAC will be repaired or whether the rodent issue has truly been resolved.

For those who rent in Northern Virginia, what would you do? Is the price enough to justify giving the landlord more time, especially with the half-month rent credit? Or would the HVAC uncertainty and rodent issues be dealbreakers, even at this price?

TL;DR: I moved into an apartment in Alexandria just over a week ago. It wasn’t cleaned before move-in, and while cleaning we found hundreds of rodent droppings behind the stove.

Pest control treated the unit, but afterward we still found droppings and a trash bag was chewed through overnight. Then the HVAC was found to have a cracked component with no estimated repair date. The landlord has offered either a full refund to terminate the lease or a half-month rent credit if I stay.

The apartment is an incredible deal at $1,750/month with utilities included (except Wi-Fi), so I’m struggling to decide whether the savings outweigh the uncertainty. What would you do?

I just moved into a first floor apartment a couple of days ago. The 2nd floor tenants are occupying majority of the shared backyard and have a huge pool that takes a big chunk of the yard as well. I hate this situation because i truly do not want to be that neighbor but it feels like it’s their yard (they’re also always there and have people over all the time grilling and using the pool). We are thinking about giving it a couple of more weeks because we literally just moved in and want to give them time to see if they are any rules we should be aware of that maybe they had with the previous tenants. But then again, it’s a shared yard and i feel like i should feel comfortable using it without feeling like im being a Karen. I feel conflicted and don’t know what to do.

Hello,

I'm 14 weeks pregnant, I have a 7 month old and an elderly dog. I texted & called my landlord about the A/C, but he hasn't responded yet. Being completely fair, I texted him very early in the morning -- 5am and it's almost 9am. (edited for accuracy.)

Sometimes he takes a day or 2 to respond but I'm quite worried about the heat wave. I turned the AC last night and am allowing it to defrost. I don't really know much at all about air conditioning; I was only following Google/AI instructions at 3:30am last night. Of course it's my mistake as I left the AC running at 73 constantly.

Unfortunately, we don't have family members near by to stay with. What should we do? Should I just call a technician to come over here if my landlord doesn't respond? It's supposed to get up to 98 degrees today and I'm genuinely concerned... I'm wondering if my landlord is going to be away due to the 4th of July.

Can anyone give me advice or suggestions? Thank you very much.

EDIT 1: LL texted me this: "we are all having the same problem mine can’t keep up either i have it set to 72 won’t get below 76 at the heat of the day It is supposed to to cool down soon."

EDIT 2: Unit is central. I am top floor and it's located in a small room outside next to the balcony. I just walked out and there is a lot of water. I just tried to turn the AC back on to test and cold air is not blowing out.

EDIT 3: LL texted, "you’re call, an emergency call is going to be $500 of which you would pay the trip charge. I think it’s double in a holiday"

I have it in savings to pay for this... I don't have renter's insurance unfortunately. I'm in Maryland and it's not required legally and my contract never required it... I guess I'm now kicking myself...

EDIT 4:

While searching for the lease, I could not initially find it on my computer. I asked the LL for a copy of the lease. He replied "sure not today though"

So then he texted me again and said the following: "30 day notice effective on the the first day of month after receipt for either party in order to cancel."

I just located my lease, however. And...

The lease states that under section 39, LL is responsible for A/C. However, it also states that I am responsible if there is negligence, misuse, or actions of guests or family members.

I am very, VERY unsure how to proceed.

I moved out June 1. I had National Gird account in my name as I was paying the gas bill.

My new apartment included gas, so I just needed to close out my old account when moving out National grid needed to come close the meter to close the account. The meter is in a basement outside of my lease area. The landlord refused this access and said he would switch it to his name.

Its now July 4 and I got a notice that I owe $54 for June, but I'm.not responsible for these charges, only liable because my account was never transfered to my landlord.

I cannot provide theu access they need to remove me from.the account, and my landlord has stopped responding to me. Im not sure what to do.

My landlord also has an illegal apartment in the basement. Not sure if access is needed to the apartment for the meter or not, but I assume its part of the reason why.

What should I do?