Dear NBR Brain Trust,
I have just moved out of a rental and my landlord is claiming for $250.00 damage on the stairs. They are scratched up, but they are softwood with stain only, no clear coat, so I don't think we owe them anything for it.
I am deciding whether it is worth it to fight the claim, but I have another issue.
In April they advised us they were going to repair the deck. We had a large covered deck that was leaking on one spot and causing damage. It was estimated to take a couple of weeks. Shortly after that they increased our rent 25% (yes it was legal… fixed term lease) and so we decided to move out at the end of the lease (July 31st).
So we were instructed to remove all our deck chairs, table, my eliptiical trainer, etc from the deck on June 12th and they still had not installed the railings by the time we moved out. So we had no use of the deck for 50 days during the summer. We also had the sounds of construction on and off over that time including on the weekends because our landlords thought they knew better than the contractor they hired and would add screws and brackets while they were not there. I measured the noise at over 80 dB. Since my wife is either at home with our daughter or working from home this caused us problems.
Anyhoo, does anyone know if we would have a decent case for compensation. I don't really want to take this to arbitration but I will be firing it across their bow in order to get my complete deposit back. I also don't like them. LOL.