I was helping clean up some dishes from our family 4th of July picnic. Some teens turned on the kitchen tv to a judge show. The segment was about a female tenant suing for the return of her security deposit. The landlord calmly and fairly professionally spoke to the types of damages and the cost involved to remedy them, and all of the teens were saying, "She's toast!" I'd been listening, and caught the crucial bit of information - the LL had no photos, and had not paid anyone else to repair the damages, so had no witnesses.

I turned around, said, "Nope, HE'S toast, he has no proof!" Because it was a commercial they had time to debate - most still agreed that the LL would win. When the show returned and I was proven right, they were quite impressed with my sagacity.

I've seen too many greedy landlords unfairly withhold a departing tenants security deposit. Around half of my departing tenants receive all of their deposits back.

This is why California had a PRE-move-out inspection to alert tenants was to any possible deposit deduction and the amount -- giving tenants a chance to remedy things on the cheep.

Wilma,

GREAT story! AND I learned a new word!

Those TV court shows teach our residents that courts side with the resident.

A local LL was approached about taking some of her evictions to TV court.

Nice job, Wilma!