Charging after using security deposit/fees

Can a landlord truly send you a bill in the mail for addition fees that he/she views are necessary improvements prior to re-rental?
We recently moved out of a double wide mobile home in a park. Its pretty nice, three bedroom, two bath. Prior to us moving in the landlord had replaced all fixtures and carpets as well as bathroom tubs/toilets etc.
We signed the rental agreement, paid the pet deposit and moved in. There was a non refundable cleaning fee and the pet deposit was non refundable. We obtained another pet while living in this home, a dog. The animal was a puppy and had a few accidents in the living room & hall. I cleaned them as soon as they happened to avoid stains. We bathed our animals weekly and the home didn't smell.
Upon terminating our residence I spent 8 hours cleaning the home probably better than when we moved in. I steamed the carpets and it was immaculate.
The landlord says that the home smelled overwhelmingly of dog and that the carpets were in ill repair (they used a black light to find spots/prior stains). They decided to replace the carpet, not just in the two rooms where there had been accidents but the WHOLE house.
The landlord is now charging me our entire deposit as well as sending me a bill for BOTH materials and labor. It seems that my deposit only covers one or the other. Personally I think this is obscene. I sent a letter back to my prior landlord upon receiving the documentation in the mail that there would be additional monies owed them that I did not agree with these charges and would not be paying.
The landlord has sent me a second letter advising that if I do not pay the additional fees in full they will garnish my wages, tap into my checking account and take me to court..and they say they will win. I feel as though this has become harassment.
Can a landlord charge you additional money for things they feel are cosmetic and NEED to happen?
Some examples of charges are as follows:
8 hours to remove carpet from home
8 hours to pick up new carpet
6 hours to take old carpet to the dump
They are charging me 40 hours of labor @ $30 per hour as well as for materials. Isn't this obsessive? Please please advise how to move forward with this without me being at a complete loss!!!!

[OHlandlord]

The LL can charge you with additional costs if the damages to the home are more than the deposit. If your pet had accidents and ruined the carpet with urine, the LL can charge a depreciated value for the carpeting that needed to be replaced. If he chooses to change out other rooms of carpet to match, that cost is on him. To figure out the depreciated value of the carpet one needs to know how long you lived in the rental (since you said it was new upon move-in) and how many years the LL uses for depreciation on his taxes (the IRS allows you to use anywhere between 5-10 yrs for this.)

For the sake of illustration, let's assume he uses the average of 7 years to depreciate and say you lived there for 1 yr. You would be responsible for 6/7 of the cost of the 2 rooms of carpet since there should have been 6 yrs of life left in the carpet. He can charge you for this for any room where there was urine in the carpet. Urine soaks through the carpet and into the pad and floor beneath. Carpet cleaning only cleans the carpet, not the pad or floor. The smell will return after only a few warm days if the urine remains in the padding. Also, since you live with the animals, you may not notice any smell from your pets. You won't smell it, but someone else can walk into your house and tell if the dog was there. This is natural since you become accustomed to it and your nose no longer registers it. I can always tell when I walk into a house if they have a dog in it.

And while you cleaned the carpet to the best of your ability, did you wash down the walls? Animals often rub against corners to mark their territory and put their scent on them. Did you wash windows & coverings? Pet hair and nose prints can cover the windows and their coverings. Did you vacuum out the register vents? Again, pet hair falls or gets sucked into these. All these will help retain the smell into a house.

In some states the LL can charge for his own labor. He can charge a fair amount for the removal of the damaged carpeting and its disposal. He can charge the depreciated price for new carpet to be installed (materials & labor costs). It would not take 8 hours to cut up and remove 2 rooms of carpet from a house. But it would take a little longer to clean the flooring beneath the padding and to possibly seal the floor if it was wood so that the smell cannot arise from it. (To do this one normally cleans or bleaches the floor beneath, and after it dries, paints it with an oil based sealant.)

When a LL is allowed to charge for labor costs, they must be reasonable. Normally they cannot charge more for their labor than what they could hire someone to do the job. For removing 2 rooms of carpet, it shouldn't take more than a couple of hours, and perhaps a couple more to seal it. If they are permitted to charge for their own labor in your state, they need to charge a minimal amount for this labor (probably not more than $15 per hour) as you could hire someone to remove the carpet for this price. (If they aren't permitted to charge for their own labor, they can hire someone to do the job and you do have to pay for someone else's labor.) For the hauling to the dump, how much would it have cost to rent a large dumpster to toss those carpet pieces into and have them hauled away? Call waste disposal companies and get prices. They shouldn't be charging for their time to pick up the carpet since most companies will deliver to them and do installation. If the installation was provided by the company, it should be included in the depreciated cost of the carpet fro those 2 rooms.

So to summarize. They can charge you for materials (& labor in many states). You have to check to see if your state allows them to charge for their own labor. You always have to pay for a third party's labor. They can charge you past the deposit if damages exceed it. You owe the depreciated amount for 2 rooms of carpet, the price of 4-5 hours (at most) to remove the old and clean/seal the area, the cost of a dumpster if that would be less than the $180 they are charging you to dump it, and any cleaning costs if they were necessary to restore the unit to pre-move in conditions.

You did as you should in disputing the costs. Hopefully you itemized each cost and disputed each one individually. If not do so, by citing how long it should take to remove the 2 rooms of carpet. By stating you are only responsible for the 2 rooms with pet accidents in them. BY quoting the dumpster price to them rather than the $180 they charged you, etc. Send the dispute letter to them by certified mail, return receipt requested, and keep a copy. If it is not resolved, you can wait for them to file against you in court, or file yourself against them for part of your deposit back. The statement they sent should be well itemized and not say general things like "Cleaning....$120". If you have to go to court bring your dispute letter and and documentation (sizes of those 2 rooms, example of depreciated costs of the carpet for those, statements from carpet installers saying how long it would take to remove that carpet, quotes from dumpster companies, delivery policies from carpet dealers, etc.)

If they win a judgment against you in court, they can indeed garnish wages, attach bank account, lien personal property, and/or have you pursued by a collection agency. Please make sure you dispute this properly and go to court over it if it is not resolved. Good luck.

Can you let me know whatever happened with this? My friend is going through the same thing and we are trying to find out what the landlord can actually get away with. The things he wants to charge her for are normal wear & tear stuff.

What type of wear & tear stuff? If you mean cleaning issues, dirt is not wear & tear. W&T is the natural deterioration of items (in a rental) based on the number of authorized occupants over the period of the tenancy. Examples of W&T are the wear pattern in the carpet from the hundreds of times someone has walked that path, the fading of curtains or window coverings from sunlight over time, the wearing down and breaking of switches and electrical appliances from someone using them in a careful and reasonable manner over that period of time, etc.

Items that are not W&T - dirt or stains in carpet, excessive or negligent use of appliances or fixtures from unauthorized occupants, unauthorized pet odors, failure to clean ______ (fill in the blank), etc.

A tenant must leave the unit in the same clean condition as when it was received.

My LL billed me to replace his entire hardwood floor. i did some damage to the floor by walking on the wood in heels (i was in a hurry alot), and i had to rearrange my furniture at times, so it scratched the wood in several places. But LL writes that more than 80% is damaged and refinishing is not possible to fix the deeper punctures. I am asked to pay him thousands of dollars. He also charged me for an entire paint job for leaving his walls smudged/dirty & he's billing me for an entire door when patching is only needed on some fist size holes. my question is, does the depreciation in years thing apply for the hardwood flooring and/or the paint job, i lived there for a year, so can he bill me 100% for the painting, a new door, and floors? i dont know what to say to him when i write him back to contest his itemization. help please...

Hardwood floors are different than most items in that they can't be repaired easily. A hardwood floor should last for many, many years. (I have one in a unit that is 108 yrs old!) If it was gouged or scratched in several places, there's just no way to just refinish those particular places. The entire room must be done. If floors connect through doorways (without strips to break up the different rooms), and one room is refinished but not the other, there will be a noticeable area where they meet. A few indents from occasional walking would be wear & tear. But scratches from moving furniture are damages. The scratches will have to be sanded out to remove gouges. The whole flor wil need sanded to level it. The entire room will have to be redone at your cost. If there are dividers between rooms (wood strips or metal strips in doorways), the refinisher can stop at the strip and only do that room. You should have placed felt pads under your furniture to prevent scratches to it.

I'm not sure that these are true hardwood floors though. It sounds as if the are only laminate (which can look like hardwood). Laminate floors only have a layer of hardwood on top and it doesn't go clear through. They can only be refinished to a certain extent. If the scratches are too deep, the laminate must be replaced since it cannot be refinished. If you placed scratched through the hardwood layer, you will have to pay to replace those sections. Unfortunately, the entire floor needs to be taken up to remove the damaged sections. So replacing those sections (if the floor can be matched) won't be much cheaper. Is this laminate or hardwood?

Small holes in doors can be repaired (like from screws or hangers). Fist sized holes require replacing doors. You can try to patch them, but patches don't hold well in such large holes. Most doors nowadays are hollow core and there is nothing to hold the patches, except at the edges of doors. If you or your family/guests put holes in the doors, you will have to pay to replace them.

Why didn't you wash down the walls when you left? If you left the walls dirty, you can be charged to wash down all the walls. Failure to clean is not wear & tear. If they can't be washed clean, they will have to be repainted. You should be charged a prorated charge for the painting. Most places figure paint should last about 3 yrs, so you should be charged 2/3 of the cost if the paint is a year old and it can't just be cleaned.

I also am being charged a large amount of money for carpet replacement. I also have a pet and my pet also had about 2 accidents but I cleaned up right after it happened. When I moved out I cleaned everything carpet, walls, everything, and no stains remained on any of the carpets. The landlord is saying the carpet cleaners determined the carpet had to be replaced due to "excessive damage" which in this case is pet urine. They have some pictures but some of them show large dark stains that I know were not there. But I didn't do a walk-through when moving out or take any pictures myself. The landlord said they had to replace the carpet in the whole apartment even though the "damage" was only in two rooms. Cause they couldn't have the other tenants that came in with mismatching colors in different rooms, so they HAD to replace the carpet in the whole apartment.

They do not get free rein to change out all carpet in a unit if the damage is confined to only two rooms. No law says carpet must match in every room. That's why they make those metal strips to go across doorways.

The LL can charge you the depreciated value of the carpet for those 2 rooms where there was pet urine, but not the rest of the unit. If he wishes to replace undamaged carpet just so it will match the other rooms, he does so at his expense.

Send a dispute leter stating that you are not responsible for the carpet replacement in the undamaged rooms (that's his expense) and you are only responsible for the depreciated value of thsoe two rooms of carpet. Send it certified, rrr, and keep a copy. You may have to sue him in small claims court to get him to return the rest of your deposit.

Thanks for the advice. Since I still live in the complex (I moved from a 2B to 1B) I am hoping it can get resolved with the letter. Thanks again.

Update: Sent the letters and talked to different managers they said the charges for replacing the whole carpet for the entire apartment will remain. Cause they do not do piecemeal replacements of carpets (cause of the different color, etc). Oh, they did mention they did not charge me the whole amount they gave me a 20% discount and that I could make payment arrangements before sending it to a collection agency. So seems my only option is to pay the whole amount and just wait until my lease is up to get out of that place! The only good thing out of this whole situation is I know what to do and will be better prepared with several witnesses for when I move out.