Being charged $1400 for "curry smell" by apartment at end of lease (Chandler: 2013, renter)

[JGMotorsport64]

Make some threats of discrimination. Curry smell is a poor choice of words. If I wasn't swamped is sift through the LL/T Act, but it's below:

https://www.azag.gov/sites/default/f...203%202015.pdf

[Jkgourmet]

[quote=JGMotorsport64;45964282]Make some threats of discrimination. Curry smell is a poor choice of words.


Which is likely why it wasn't mentioned during the walk thru.

[azriverfan.]

That case sounds like complete b.s. Getting new carpet and applying new paint won't remove a "curry smell" Apartments usually replace carpet after a tenant leaves anyway. It sounds like they are trying to get away with one here and are using "strong curry smell" to rationalize getting you to pay for it.

That being said, it's not worth fighting because legally, the apartment can charge for this. When you give them a deposit, it's really up to them as to much they can return. Even if you are in the right, they can pretty much make up anything to justify those costs. Hiring an attorney to fight this will cost you more than the $1400 they are charging you. You are pretty much screwed. Just learn from the experience so it doesn't happen to you again

In my experience renting apartments for myself and my grown up kids, you get what you pay for. Spend time and do your research up front. Do searches on Yelp and apartmentratings.com. Cheaper apartments seem like good deals but they usually have slumlords who resort to these shady tactics to rip off tenants. When you look at a place, interview management too. You can get a good feel for how management will be when you speak with them. If they are not friendly or informative when greeting them, they will be even worse as landlords. When renting again, spend time and do research about the apartment before renting there. Its better to spend more money and rent from a quality place than saving some money and renting from a place with questionable management.

Also, when cooking, you want to leave your vent on and leave it on for hours after cooking. That will reduce the smell of curry in your place.


You can try to contact one of the local television stations, contact one of the local news stations like 3 on your side. They do support the public in cases like this and usually when they get involved, the businesses usually side with the customer due to fear of local negative publicity. They would love to air a story like this particularly if it implies discrimination. Send an e-mail to Gary Harper. If you are Indian and you suspect discrimination, you should include that in your e-mail.

http://www.azfamily.com/category/297139/3-on-your-side

Here is another one 12 on your side

http://static.12news.com/callforaction/

And lastly, if you want to get back at these places, rate them on Yelp and other websites. The negative feedback will cost them more than the $1400 they took from you. Businesses sometimes fail to understand that it's cheaper to settle and make clients happy than accept the financial losses from negative publicity. Just make sure that everything you post is honest and if you write something that is an opinion, make sure to write that it is your opinion. That will protect you against defamation or slander. For example, you can't write the apartment stole from me but you can write "I was charged $1400 for a curry smell, and in my opinion, I find this to be excessive." Readers will get the hint

[Bungle]

Originally Posted by exit2lef

I might be willing to pay extra rent to live in a place with "curry smell." I wonder if it's available as a scent at the car wash? Seriously, though, did the landlord use the actual wording "curry smell"? If so, the landlord should have used wording like "food odor" or "cooking odor" instead to avoid any perception of discrimination based on ethnicity or national origin.

This world is becoming way to PC for my liking. Seriously discrimination because they mentioned the actual smell? If the smell were due to a strong dog smell would you want PETA on the case? "That's discrimination against my fur baby!". "Your apartment smelled like ammonium nitrate, fertilizer and diesel fuel!"...."Hey that's discrimination against us white domestic terrorists!"

Stop playing the race card when things don't go your way.

[azriverfan.]

Originally Posted by Bungle

This world is becoming way to PC for my liking. Seriously discrimination because they mentioned the actual smell? If the smell were due to a strong dog smell would you want PETA on the case? "That's discrimination against my fur baby!". "Your apartment smelled like ammonium nitrate, fertilizer and diesel fuel!"...."Hey that's discrimination against us white domestic terrorists!"

Stop playing the race card when things don't go your way.

Oh please, do you think this apartment would have used "curry smell" if the tenants were white? Give me a break! It's not about being p.c. it's just using common sense. The tenant is probably Indian and the tenant probably stereotyped and assumed that a strong odor was by default a curry smell because by default all Indians cook curry everyday and smell like it. In the pre-politically correct world, you could just outright discriminate like this and it was considered normal. If you talk to some older Americans, they still think civil rights including voting rights for minorities is being politically correct.

[Bungle]

Give me a break. Billions of people eat curry daily and have been for thousands of years...and not just those from India. There's such a distinct smell. Hardly the basis of a discrimination case. I imagine it would go something like this:

"We're being discriminated because the apartment management said our apartment smelled like curry and needed repairs to remove the smell."

"Well...what was the source of the smell in your apartment?"

"Curry"

"Oh"

[grmi66]

I lived in a nice complex where generally tenants took care of the apartments. So the complex would only replace carpet every 2-3 years and just do a steam clean once a year. When I chatted with the maintenance supervisor "off the record" about the curry smell he said that it is a real pain in the rear to get rid of. Your complex probably should have said "food odor" to be PC. But the reality from talking to a few people is that once curry gets into the drywall and carpet they have to use special cleaners, special paint like industrial strength Kilz before they apply regular paint and they lose money on rent for a minimum of 2-3 weeks while the place airs out. When my neighbors moved out it looked like a HAZmat site for a few days. Also remember my neighbor throwing a tantrum in the hallway because my landlord would not give back a dime of the security deposit.

[jimj]

Originally Posted by JGMotorsport64

Make some threats of discrimination. Curry smell is a poor choice of words. If I wasn't swamped is sift through the LL/T Act, but it's below:

https://www.azag.gov/sites/default/f...203%202015.pdf

Ahh yes, the liberal threat of the day... Racist,discrimination,sexist etc... Bet they've heard that one before and have an attorney on retainer just for that. Maybe a call to CAIR? They like chasing shadows/ghosts.

Some foods stink up places just like animals can so is it really unfair for a landlord to want to return the unit to what it was when the tenant rented it?
That is what a DEPOSIT is for, returning the unit to the same condition it was rented in which means SMELL as well.

[JGMotorsport64]

Originally Posted by jimj

Ahh yes, the liberal threat of the day... Racist,discrimination,sexist etc... Bet they've heard that one before and have an attorney on retainer just for that. Maybe a call to CAIR? They like chasing shadows/ghosts.

Some foods stink up places just like animals can so is it really unfair for a landlord to want to return the unit to what it was when the tenant rented it?
That is what a DEPOSIT is for, returning the unit to the same condition it was rented in which means SMELL as well.

As a tenant you have legal rights against any form of discrimination only when you assert them. Don't muddy that up with political garbage.

If the landlord said curry then he's a poor businessman.

[BIG CATS]

Curry is perhaps the most pungent of food smells. It clings to everything, seemingly for months. We once had Indian neighbors who used curry exclusively and although I didn't mind the smell so much, you could smell it coming out of the HVAC ducts long after they moved. How it clings to steel ductwork is beyond me, but it really does.