Being a lanlord is not fun. I've experiened worse - includining failure to pay.

I'm sorry that happened to you!

No, it's not in a slum. It's in an area of the country where housing is very cheap, comparatively speaking.

I extra sorry that your deposit won't cover the cost of cleaning/repair.

It's disappointing that people behave like that.

My mother used to rent out her duplexes in Miami. One of the tenants left the place infested with fleas.

how the f does that happen?

If it broke, all they had to do was call the property manager and it would have been replaced.

MUST be working at all times

They're a real inconvenience when you're running any sort of high-egress illicit business like prostitutes, money laundering and drugs by slowing entry.

What they do is take the deadbolt off the outside door and use additional locks on interior doors, often also reinforcing the door. Lots of mirrors as well. (Our college fraternity house was a drug-seizure, a former crack den in NE DC that was also a bordello...we got it for half of market-rate. Kind of a vice one-stop apparently according to the neighbors: go in with $40 and leave an hour later rock-smoked and hand-jobbed.) The place was trippy. Every interior door had multiple locks and every single wall had at least one mirror permanently installed on it making it possible to see around corners and see every square foot of the first floor.

The exterior door had a basic keyset-lock in the handle and large windows. From the outside it looked like easy burglar-pickings, on the inside it was a fortress...there's even a trap-door murder-hole in the front upstairs bedroom floor so that a gun could be stuck-through and strafe the foyer.

the same kind of thing happened to my Mom. She wanted to sell the old family place when she downsized but the market just wasn't right so she rented it out.

All of a sudden the people renting didn't send a rent check, didn't answer the phone or the door. When she went in they'd pulled a midnight move and just left the place filthy and in bad shape.

That was the end of her experience as a Landlady.

that is bad... been there and never want to be there again... only solace I can give you is that it could have been much worse (tens of thousands in my case)

Has the market improved any in the area?

Maybe it's time to just spend the money, fix it up, try again to sell it?

I don't think the market has improved a great deal for condos in the area, but it is a bit better than it was a few years ago. I'm going to get the place looking really nice and put it on the market.

I learned early on to put a small percentage of each months rent into savings for repairs and maintenance...including revamps after tenants moved out. The other thing I learned the hard way was to ALWAYS do a walkthrough of the property with the tenant before handing over the keys, and have them complete a damage form beforehand where they list everything wrong with the apartment. Make sure they understand that THEY will be responsible for repairing any non-wear issues with the apartment when they move out. I learned that one the hard way when I sued a tenant over damages and lost because I was unable to prove the condition of the place prior to the rental. I had photos, but couldn't prove when they were taken.

Toward the end of my owning them, I made it standard practice to have detailed photos of each place printed out the day before the tenant came in. The tenant would then be asked to sign the sheet of papers with the photos, acknowledging that they matched the condition of the place when they took possession.

I tried my best to never have an adversarial relationship with my tenants, but I learned the hard way that you have to protect yourself. I once had a tenant wipe out an entire YEARS worth of income from a rental by badly damaging a unit. Most of my tenants were wonderful, but I had a few that were just nightmares to deal with.

Of course, then I went bankrupt and had to sell them all, so I don't have to deal with that particular headache any longer

call a specialty clean-up service like ServPro or PuroClean or Polygon; have them come out and get a quote. You'd be amazed what a cleaner like that can do and while it won't be cheap, it'll be cheaper than replacing the carpet with shoddier materiel that then lowers your property value. If you've got the time, willingness and aptitude you can do it yourself...it's really about having the right materials and equipment...which can be bought and rented.

If you're thinking about renting it out again and you're not going to be nearby, I'd suggest possibly contracting a property management contractor...a lot of real-estate offices offer that service...usually it's a percentage of the rent and the landlord just raises the rent by that much to cover the fee. That way you have someone screening the potential tenants, collecting the rent, keeping an eye on the property and a nearby easy contact to insure maintenance is being kept-up. A lot of them carry liability insurance for this very scenario...they tend to get sued when they do a bad job resulting in this kind of damage. Also, having a rental agent that is also seller's agent presents the ease of potentially being positioned to sell the property to the future tenant, they can specifically look for rental tenants that are looking to buy.

I have shampooed carpet before, but nothing as bad as what I have now.

I do have a property manager. We'll see how well he did his job when I ask for that tenant's $450 deposit.

I'm going to try to sell the place. I'm done being a landlord.

I am so sorry you're having to deal with this mess.

Selling it sounds like a great idea.

Best of luck to you and Jen...

My daughter and her boyfriend just rented an apartment and had to pay a security deposit of two-and-a-half-months' rent.

I'm really sorry this happened to you, Tobin.

One other thing: can you deduct the cost of repairs on your taxes next year?

No, I can't ask for a larger deposit- and expect to rent it anyway. The market here usually won't bare that kind of thing. A lot of the larger rental companies here only ask for a half month's rent for deposit.

No one should leave a place in a mess like that and you shouldn't have to incur the damage they did other than ordinary wear and tear. Take pictures of the damage and mess and get estimates for putting it back in order.

Like someone said up-thread, you have to have proof of the rental's condition before the tenant moved in. We'll see. I have a call into the guy right now. I'm just waiting for him to get back to me.

I'm really sorry you're having to deal with this. Some renters are just awful.