Landlord is trying to steal my deposit because the walls faded behind my sofa
I finally moved out of that basement apartment last week and I was actually feeling good about getting my security deposit back since I left the place spotless. I spent like ten hours scrubbing floors and cleaning the inside of the oven just to make sure there was no excuse to keep my money. Well I got an email today from the property manager saying they are withholding 500 bucks for a full repaint because of supposed damage to the living room walls.
The damage they are talking about is literally just natural light. I had my sofa against the back wall for three years and apparently the sun hitting the rest of the room caused the paint to fade slightly everywhere except where the furniture was sitting. When I moved the couch out there was a slightly darker rectangle on the wall. That is it. No holes no scuffs no stains. Just the normal effect of physics and time on cheap shitty eggshell paint they probably bought at a clearance sale ten years ago.
The manager had the nerve to tell me this counts as excessive wear and tear because I should have rotated my furniture to prevent uneven fading. Who the hell rotates a sectional sofa every month just to keep the paint even? Its insane. They are basically charging me to upgrade their property for the next victim. I looked at my old move in photos and you can tell they just did a quick patch job before I arrived anyway.
I told them that paint fading is the definition of normal wear and tear in this state but they just ghosted me after sending a blurry photo of the wall. It is so obvious they just want to pocket the cash or use my money to fix up the unit because they are too cheap to cover basic maintenance costs themselves. Honestly I am exhausted dealing with these people who think every cent I earn belongs to them just because they happen to own the roof over my head. Dealing with a small claims suit sounds like a nightmare but letting them walk away with half a grand for doing nothing feels worse.
I bet they wont even repaint the damn thing and will just put the next person in there with the same dark spot and charge them for it too in two years. Its a never ending cycle of extracting wealth from people who actually work for a living. I am sitting in my new place surrounded by boxes and I cant even enjoy it because I am so pissed off about this blatant theft.