Landlord tried to charge me for 'normal wear' after I moved out of a Denver apartment

I moved out of a place in Denver last March after living there for 2 years. When I got the deposit breakdown, they charged me $450 for repainting the whole living room and $200 for carpet cleaning. The paint had a few scuffs near the baseboards and the carpet was just dirty from walking, nothing crazy. I called them out on it and pointed to Colorado law that says normal wear like minor scuffs and carpet dirt isn't chargeable. They pushed back hard saying I should have patched holes from one picture frame. But I had drilled nothing there, the holes were already in the wall when I moved in and I had photos from day one. After I threatened to take them to small claims court, they dropped the charges and sent my full deposit back. Has anyone else had a landlord try to claim normal wear as damage?

3 comments

3 Comments

rileyprice10d ago

Respectfully I see this a little different. You won but that doesn't mean every wear and tear claim is BS. Landlords have to repaint and clean between tenants anyway, so calling them out for trying to pass that cost to you makes sense. But the $450 for paint does feel high to me, maybe that was just their starting number to negotiate down.

blair709d ago

My last place tried to charge me for "new carpet" after I lived there five years. I just sent them the state law on depreciation schedules for carpet and suddenly they dropped it. Sometimes you gotta hit em with the actual rules instead of arguing about what's fair.

danielm8010d ago

Ngl, $450 for paint on a living room is steep but the real issue is them trying to charge $650 total for stuff that's literally normal wear. I've rented in multiple states and Colorado law is actually pretty clear about this, scuffs near baseboards and foot traffic dirt on carpet are textbook examples of normal wear. The picture frame holes thing is shady too, if you had photos showing they were pre-existing then they had no case from the start.