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.........Things like 6 hours cleaning inside, below, and behind the refrigerator, 15 hours cleaning baseboards, etc.
Yes, it can take that long to clean a house. If you believe a house can be cleaned in 15 minutes, why didn't you invest your 15 minutes to leave the house clean?
I suspect that you looked at the house and decided that you didn't want to clean it and that it was easier to leave it to the landlord. Well, you did and the landlord cleaned it, but cleaning isn't free. Now you have to pay to have someone else besides yourself clean up your dirt.
It's one thing to get someone to clean an already clean house for $350. Where they vacuum and dust and swab out the toilet. It is something else to get anyone to clean a filthy refrigerator, a dirty oven, or to get down on their knees with a scrub brush to try to get crusted on dirt off of baseboard.
Your dirt and you wanted someone else to clean it, so now you pay to have them clean it for you.
Yes, it can take that long to clean a house. If you believe a house can be cleaned in 15 minutes, why didn't you invest your 15 minutes to leave the house clean?
I suspect that you looked at the house and decided that you didn't want to clean it and that it was easier to leave it to the landlord. Well, you did and the landlord cleaned it, but cleaning isn't free. Now you have to pay to have someone else besides yourself clean up your dirt.
It's one thing to get someone to clean an already clean house for $350. Where they vacuum and dust and swab out the toilet. It is something else to get anyone to clean a filthy refrigerator, a dirty oven, or to get down on their knees with a scrub brush to try to get crusted on dirt off of baseboard.
Your dirt and you wanted someone else to clean it, so now you pay to have them clean it for you.
Oh, come on, there is no way it takes 15 hours to clean just baseboards. Nor should it take 6 hours to clean a refrigerator. I'm sorry, this is excessive and unless they have a receipt from someone for that much I call bullcrap.
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Oh, come on, there is no way it takes 15 hours to clean just baseboards. Nor should it take 6 hours to clean a refrigerator. I'm sorry, this is excessive and unless they have a receipt from someone for that much I call bullcrap.
Me too. I've cleaned up some pretty dirty apartments in my time (they always came dirty when I was a student) and none of them ever took anywhere near that long to deep-clean. Like, ever.
I am a 19 hour drive away from my former landlord, and I think he is trying to take advantage of the situation. My lease switched hands from a large real estate firm to a private individual after the real estate firm divested from residential and I never even met the guy. I had to leave town before walk through.
Anyway, not only am I not getting the $1,000 deposit back, I allegedly owe $250 beyond the security deposit. He did not use a cleaning service. The amount of hours spent cleaning the house seem inflated, and I'm wondering if there is a way I can force him to substantiate the hours worked.
Even if I don't get any portion of the deposit back, can I set up a situation where I don't have to pay him an additional $250? The geographic distance makes court a challenge, and if I don't pay can my credit report be negatively effected?
Things like 6 hours cleaning inside, below, and behind the refrigerator, 15 hours cleaning baseboards, etc.
There are law against overcharges. I would go to court. Here is the thing. As a LL I can do my own cleaning. What I can't do is charge over what it would cost if I hired someone. So I can't charge at a $50 a hour rate when I can hire $15 a hour rate.
What he is stating he spent three regular work days cleaning baseboards and a fridge? Bs. I doubt he spent 2 hrs doing it. Those are very inflated hours.
He would gave to take you to court to get a judgement in order to have a impact on your credit. Normally he would have to provide receipts
I just hire a cleaning crew to clean. Fast simple and fair. I think my average cleaning fees run about $450. That's a general house, appliances and the carpet cleaned.
I am a 19 hour drive away from my former landlord, and I think he is trying to take advantage of the situation. My lease switched hands from a large real estate firm to a private individual after the real estate firm divested from residential and I never even met the guy. I had to leave town before walk through.
Anyway, not only am I not getting the $1,000 deposit back, I allegedly owe $250 beyond the security deposit. He did not use a cleaning service. The amount of hours spent cleaning the house seem inflated, and I'm wondering if there is a way I can force him to substantiate the hours worked.
Even if I don't get any portion of the deposit back, can I set up a situation where I don't have to pay him an additional $250? The geographic distance makes court a challenge, and if I don't pay can my credit report be negatively effected?
Things like 6 hours cleaning inside, below, and behind the refrigerator, 15 hours cleaning baseboards, etc.
There are law against overcharges. I would go to court. Here is the thing. As a LL I can do my own cleaning. . What I can't do is charge over what it would cost if I hired someone. So I can't charge at a $50 a hour rate when I can hire $15 a hour rate. Thecrate hascto be reasonable. The law is written as such so you don't have unscrupulous LLs charging like yours is. What he is stating he spent three regular work days cleaning baseboards and a fridge? Bs. I doubt he spent 2 hrs doing it. Those are very inflated hours. Normally he has to send a itemized letter and the copies of receipts. If he or his employees did the work he must send a itemized bill with hours and rates. The rates have to be reasonable.
No judge us going to buy those charges.
He would have to take you to court to get a judgement in order to have a impact on your credit. Normally he would have to provide receipts
I just hire a cleaning crew to clean. Fast simple and fair. I think my average cleaning fees run about $450. That's a general house, appliances and the carpet cleaned.
Nor should it take 6 hours to clean a refrigerator.
We had to clean a house once not too long ago that had been lived in by an upper middle class couple; the refrigerator took nearly a day to clean. There was frozen coffee spilled all in the freezer (at least I think it was coffee, I refuse to consider anything else). There were pellets of something in between all the interstices of the fridge and freezer. It required defrosting in order to clean the freezer of the frozen on puddles and granular bits, scraping with a putty knife to get everything else off all the surfaces. Flour (at least I think it was flour) had been spilled on the fridge floor and the vegetable bins required hours of soaking to clean them. When the fridge was moved out from the wall - well, I don't want to discuss that.
We had to clean a house once not too long ago that had been lived in by an upper middle class couple; the refrigerator took nearly a day to clean. There was frozen coffee spilled all in the freezer (at least I think it was coffee, I refuse to consider anything else). There were pellets of something in between all the interstices of the fridge and freezer. It required defrosting in order to clean the freezer of the frozen on puddles and granular bits, scraping with a putty knife to get everything else off all the surfaces. Flour (at least I think it was flour) had been spilled on the fridge floor and the vegetable bins required hours of soaking to clean them. When the fridge was moved out from the wall - well, I don't want to discuss that.
I might be prepared to believe that were it not for the supposed 15 hours spent on base boards. We have purchased nasty, disgusting houses before, including ones with waste in the toilets. While it may have taken me 6 hours hours from starting to clean the refrigerator to finishing it, the entire time was not spent cleaning it. Much of those 6 hours would have been spent allowing chemicals to do their job, during which I would do other things, like cleaning the baseboards after the chemicals sprayed on there earilier had done their job. I suppose the landlord doesn't have an obligation to clean smartly and efficiently but, I'm sorry, they don't have a right to work like a dumb slug and charge them for it either. The concept of reasonable is what seems to be missing from the charges the OP received.
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When I post in bold red that is moderator action and, per the TOS, can only be discussed through Direct Message.
Of course the other thing we really don't know anything about is this tenant's relationship with management during the time he/she was living there, and the incidents that may or may not have happened during that time. Not saying a big bill at the end is justified (or even legal), but prior happenings do tend to color things as far as tenant/landlord relationships are concerned.
"I've seen fridges that cost hundreds to clean just the fridge."
What sort of cleaning company would I have to get a job at to see something like this?
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