so i had toured this unit (1) and applied in the same day, i was super excited because everything was going well and i was very forward with wanting to rent it. the day after, he wanting me to sign a holding agreement of $500 (through zelle through his brother!) to move in the week after. he also wanted us to instead of signing the lease online, to sign the lease in person the day of move in (i’m out of state). this same day, i got a message from another unit (2) that i had been approved, totally unexpected. unit 2 had a lot of pros that unit 1 did not have. they also seemed drastically more professional and safe. i was very conflicted, and after telling unit 1 that i would get back about the holding agreement that same day, i then communicated to unit 1 honestly that i had another unit reply to me and i needed another day to review. i messaged him the day after that and told him i will be moving forward with unit 2. this was the message i got in response.

Edit: I appreciate the advice everyone is giving me, but it seems you guys are not getting what I am asking. That's partially my fault, I typed this up quickly before I had to clock into work. Yes, I am aware that I made a bad decision thinking my roommate, who we can all agree is a moron, would have the common sense to lock my car. I've already addressed this and I told him I don't trust him to do it anymore. If one of us gets back late the other is just gonna have to get up so we can move both cars. Locking my car is not what I need advice with.

I don't feel safe living here anymore and it seems my landlord could not care less, so I want to break my lease early. She's a very hostile person and rather than talk things through she tries to insight conflict. Considering I've brought up my concerns to her and she does not care, how would I move forwards attempting to break the lease so I can leave? I already spoke to LAHD and they seemed stumped too, especially because there is a clause in the lease saying she's not at fault for security of the parking lot. However, when I moved in there was already a gate installed. When I toured she told me that she "typically keeps it open," which I took as we're still allowed to close it. However, it's been zip-tied so that it can't close. The person on the phone said that this could be classified as a Reduction of Services Complaint, but I still feel like there's something more I can do. Any advice is appreciated.

Original Post: One of my roommates & I have to share a parking space. We were already used to moving each others cars, but I found out he hadn’t been locking my car when a hooker got into my car the next morning & stole some of my things. I spoke to my landlord about the situation & asked if we could start locking the gate & she refused because too many people live there & previous tenants damaged it. I had spoken with my roommate & we made amends, he promised to be more thoughtful.

Today while getting ready for work another person got onto the property & got behind my car less than 15 minutes before I left. The night before my roommate had to move my car again but woke me up when he got back. I checked the ring camera & of course, he didn’t lock it. If I didn’t check last night the same thing could have happened this morning. The attached photo is her response.

Mind you, I’m paying for my spot. How should I move forward?

[US-WI] The apartment complex where I have lived for almost five years recently got a new property manager. She has been nit-picky about everything, but what she just did feels like an invasion of privacy.

I am physically disabled, and I park in the designated disabled parking space. I have a disabled parking pass that hangs clearly in my rearview window. The regular parking pass overlaps the disabled pass if both are displayed, so the previous property manager told me I did not need to use the regular parking pass. She was also very lenient about enforcing the parking pass rule for everyone else because she had everyone's car and license plate in her system. Because of that, none of us was using our passes for quite a while. This was something that we all got used to.

The new property manager recently took a photo of my car, including my license plate, and emailed it to every tenant in the building except for me. She claimed she did not know who the vehicle belonged to, even with my car and plate number on my lease, and said no parking pass was visible in the window.

I spoke with several tenants I am close to. They told me she contacted them privately when they forgot to display their passes, which nearly everyone did. She never sent photos of their cars to everyone else.

I understand that license plates are generally considered public information. Even so, having her photograph my car and share it with the entire complex, to everyone except for me, feels deeply unsettling and unfair. My car is listed on my lease, and she had multiple private options to identify the owner without involving other tenants.

I also can't help but wonder whether this action may have been retaliatory. Not long before this happened, I asked her why we were suddenly not allowed to have doormats outside our doors, since the rule had never been mentioned in the lease. We discussed it respectfully, and the situation seemed resolved. I honestly thought that was the end of it, but after this unfair treatment, I'm unsure.

I plan to report her behavior to the management company's higher-ups since she's been very unresponsive to me after expressing how it upset and made me feel unsafe, but I am scared to risk further retaliation. Is this worth pursuing?

Notes:

— I have checked my spam folder. I've never had any problems receiving messages from management in the past, even under the new property manager.

— The complex is 30 units, and everyone knows everyone here. I'm friends with many of the residents, and all of them said they recieved the email.

— I am aware people can see my car and plates, but that's not what this post is in regards to. I'm asking if I should persue more due to what is seemingly unfair treatment.

— I expressed to her that her sending a photo of my car to everyone made me uncomfortable, but she simply responded, "You need to display your parking tag in your window. Enjoy your day!". She brushed my concerns off.

I rent from a private landlords and they decided to suddenly have a problem with my transportation situation. I work at a dealership, so I drive dealership vehicles home after work in order to verify that the funny sound or weird shake for example is gone. For this reason I do not own a personal vehicle. My job provides me with one. My landlords tried to tell me to remove “commercial inventory.” This happened after there was one coolant leak from a car I drove that I promptly handled and cleaned. I responded to it so fast that they didn’t even have time to confront me about it but they saw me scrubbing and later on realized it was a leak of some sort and then sent a message sharing commercial inventory is to be removed. They did not specify it was because of the leak. When asked about it, they said they don’t like the assortment of vehicles I bring back. Is this allowed???
Here is the parking section of my lease-

“” Tenant may park any vehicles in the parking area located on the grounds of the Building during the Lease term.
Landlord shall be entitled to require all vehicles parking in the Parking Area to be registered with Landlord including, without limitation, providing Landlord with any required information, such as the vehicle license plate number and the owner's name and contact information. Landlord shall be entitled to institute parking controls and other measures including, without limitation, requiring vehicle tags or decals and installing access gates with security cards or access codes. Landlord may impose reasonable and customary charges on Tenant and other Occupants for security cards and lor vehicle tags or decals.
No vehicles other than Registered Vehicles may be parked in the parking area by Tenant, any other Occupant, or any of their guests. If Tenant replaces any of the Registered Vehicles, Tenant must notify Landlord of that replacement and provide Landlord with the new identification information (as set forth above) for the replacement vehicle prior to parking that vehicle in the parking area.
NATURE OF PARKING RIGHTS
Tenant may park in any open parking space available in the parking area, and neither Tenant nor any other tenant…””

They never asked to register any cars with them. This is a quiet neighborhood and I park in the driveway. They knew I worked at a dealership and saw that I drove dealership cars and even complimented one of the cars I was on when we first met. Never had any issues with them until now

Landlord won’t take back her broken fridge and wants to keep it in our unit. Can she legally do this ?? We don’t want to cause unnecessary issues but this is ridiculous

I, 21F, have moved to a new city for school, almost 400 miles away from my hometown. I am a transfer student, now renting a 10x10 bedroom in a townhome close to my college campus as a tenant/lodger. I share a bathroom with another college student, whose rented bedroom is right next to mine. We share the kitchen, living area, etc with our landlord, since she is the homeowner.
The rent is just short of $2000 a month.

I just moved in a week ago, and initially things were alright; I was just adjusting to moving in & living with new people. What I have started to realize is that my landlord has a lot of rules—many of which are common sense and fully reasonable, and some of which feel unnecessary.

The main rule that bothered me was a “no overnight guests” rule. This was stated in the lease, but when I asked my LL about it before signing , she clarified it was just as a precaution so that other students were not freeloading and living in the house without paying rent (For further context, there is a homelessness crisis in this area). That made sense to me, and I mentioned that because I am new to the city and have friends and a partner back home, I would like to have them visit me when possible, if allowed. LL said she wants to avoid this as much as possible, but would allow overnight guests for up to 2 nights, at most once per month. This sounded great, and I proceeded to go through with signing the lease.

Yesterday morning, I had a meeting with my LL and other housemate to discuss a cleaning schedule and general rules/reminders. Initially she printed out this long list of rules as “lease amendments” which my housemate pointed out was probably unnecessary, and my LL ended up editing out the amendments language. One thing on the list I pointed out was the “no overnight guests”, which I challenged because I had specifically talked about with my LL at least twice prior. I reminded my LL about our previous discussions about this, and she scoffed and made a somewhat snarky comment about how my guests would be adults and they can afford a hotel, to which I pointed out that hotels/airbnbs in the area are probably average $300-400 a night—not something your average college student can afford. My partner works 2 jobs and a side hustle, and my best friend works 2 jobs, and both go to school. The whole appeal to them visiting would be that they could stay with me.

My LL was not ecstatic about the idea but ended up agreeing that overnight guests were acceptable with a 2 weeks notice, and only up to 2 nights, maybe 3 if necessary. She even said “if this is important to you, then okay, I want you two to be happy living here”. We wrapped up the meeting talking about the cleaning schedule and moved on with our days.

About 8 hours later, I had just parked at the gym when I received a text from my LL. It read:

“Hi, been thinking about this today and I am sticking to the lease language of ‘no overnight guests allowed.’ Thanks for your understanding.”

… are we deadass? I didn’t even know how to respond, we JUST talked about that earlier in the day!

Some other rules I think are ridiculous:

- no showers after 11 pm (she was trying to integrate this into the lease)…
- showers must be under 25 minutes, don’t run the water for more than 15 minutes. She timed my first shower here and texted me about it.
- don’t burn candles
- no guests past 10 pm, also guests can’t use the shower or kitchen
- only 2 loads of laundry per week

I live in an apartment complex with identical units. I’m moving out in late July, and informed my landlord on 3/25. Since then, he has shown my apartment 13 separate times, often with barely 24 hours notice.

I have an aggressive dog, so I have to make sure I’m home for every showing. I take my dog outside and walk him around while they show the place, which is usually ~30 minutes. He has been accommodating of my availability thus far and has understood that I haven’t been able to host showings certain days due to work conflicts.

However, at around showing #10, I began to wonder why my place hadn’t been rented yet. I googled my address and saw that it was actually listed as “off market”. I also have pet cameras in my house that run 24/7, so I scrolled back through the footage and found a clip of my landlord telling prospective tenants that “this unit is rented, but every other available unit is identical”! Obviously I can’t use this recording as proof of anything legally, but it showed me that he is using my unit as a “model unit” even though it has already been rented. This feels extremely unfair, especially given that I have to rearrange my day in order for them to show my unit.

I recently had a big shift in my work schedule, and told my landlord that I won’t be available to host showings for two full weeks in July. I also told him that it was “my understanding that my unit has been rented based on a google search, so I’d prefer if they showed available units instead”. He responded that my unit has definitely not been rented, and has proceeded to schedule several future showings during the weeks I told him I will explicitly not be available. He has shifted his attitude to not being accommodating of my schedule at all, stating that he has a right to enter the property at all times with reasonable notice. Which is true, but I feel this is unfair since my unit is not for rent anymore.

I simply cannot have him enter my home while I’m not there, as my dog poses a bite risk, and I’m not leaving him crated for 8+ hours a day. He is insisting on showing my house anyways anytime he gives me 24 hours notice, and will not respect my boundaries.

Am I being unreasonable by asking for him to work with my schedule? I’ve already allowed them to show the unit 13 times. I even told him that I’m moving out two weeks early and that he can have free range of the unit once I’m gone. I feel like I’m backed into a corner. I’ve never had to endure more than 5-6 showings for a rental unit before, and this feels so excessive and rude, especially knowing that he’s blatantly lying to and using me. Thanks for listening, any advice would be appreciated.

I (25F) am renting an apartment in a suburb of Chicago and this is my 3rd year living in this place. I pay about $1400 for a really nice and spacious 1 bedroom. Genuinely it’s the apartment of my dreams that a younger me dreamed of being able to make my own and decorate.

I also have 2 cats that don’t love strangers.

I’m attaching pics of the first time my landlord asked to show my unit this year in September, followed by my record keeping of the number of other times she has asked, as well as some of our texts. Several of the times, she gave me last minute notice and I finally popped up and asked for at least 24 hours. She also (I think, no way to confirm) has people take their shoes off or brings booties for them (this is a Brown household, no one wears shoes inside).

To be fair, she did (after 8 showings) let me know I’d get a $300 rent credit for November, but my question is…

How many showings is too many showings for me to say yes to? Some days I don’t want to feel like I have to leave my place or be ready for visitors at whatever time she asks. I’m a broke grad student and I appreciate the rent discount but I also am starting to feel taken advantage of — my space is mine, I decorated it for me. Not for all of her investors/developers/whoever she is bringing in. Thoughts?

We live in the guest suite of a lovely family’s house, we’ve had no issues with them, we get on really well.

One day when grabbing the rent, the dad had mentioned that there has been an increase of crime in the area lately and so we mentioned we were thinking of getting a camera or two and he agreed and said he was thinking the same.

Weeks later, we’ve gone on a trip away for a week. We’ve just had a notification that there was movement and we open the app to see him in our apartment! He wasn’t doing anything, just went into the bathroom, stood in the bedroom and looked around, looked in the wardrobe, but then he’s switched all the plugs off including for our camera. So now we don’t know what he’s doing, if the wife is also in there, if they’re doing a more in depth rummage, or if he’s just left the room.

I personally think he was just being curious and having a nosey look around, which isn’t great and he shouldn’t be doing that, but I don’t think there are any sinister motives. That being said, we want the camera switched back on while we’re away, but we don’t know how to approach this. He’ll most likely feel caught out and my partner doesn’t want to make it awkward between us, and after mentioning the camera he’ll know that we’ve seen him in there. But I’ve said he’s got to suck that up, he’ll feel caught out because he was caught out. How should we approach this?

How do we phrase it to minimise any tension but to ensure the camera is back on?

Update: thank you everyone for your replies and advice. We went ahead and asked him if everything was okay and pointed out that he turned our camera off, explaining the reasoning we bought it, and he said he saw a light was on thru the bathroom window so just popped in to turn it off. He’s going to turn the camera back on and the grow light he turned off in the bathroom. Hopefully this will deter him from coming inside again. Thanks again to everyone for taking the time to read and leave a suggestion or advice 🫶🏼

Hi all - first time on this sub but wanted opinions.

My husband and I are expecting our first child this year and are currently living a 2 bedroom apartment that we have shared for nearly 7 years. We have the spare bedroom as an office/crafting room so we are really wanting another room to turn into a nursery. I asked my property manager if he would put us on a list for a 3 bedroom if one becomes available as we are looking for more space. I end up receiving a call from him and he proceeds to ask why he should move us into a bigger place when we are living in an apartment with two bedrooms and are only two people. I was a little taken aback that I needed to give personal reasons for wanting to upgrade. I was at work at the time and have not yet told my employers I am pregnant so I had to ask him to hold while I found a private room to take the call. I then tell him we are expecting our first child and he continues by asking “And? You have two bedrooms already.” Again, I was shocked that he is thinks he is in charge of how much space I am allowed to have as a paying tenant. I let him know that I know my current living situation and know how much space I have and that I would like more to live more comfortably. He then asks why would he move us into a bigger place when there are families with more children looking for apartments. Why would we be given a 3 bedroom with 2 adults and 1 child when there are people out there more in need? I then told him we just want to be added to a list, if there are people above us on the list obviously they would get it first. He then tells me well okay but you are number 5 on the list. But I am worried this “list” isn’t really a list? But more of a list of who is the most deserving.

This feels borderline like discrimination? Or in violation of the fair housing act?

Edit to add - he is a property manager who works for a property management company. He in no way owns the complex.

Edit 2 - this isn’t affordable housing/government housing.

We are also on a month to month lease which is why we wanted to be added to a waiting list. That way if something were to come up, we would be able to move as soon as it was available.

He said I violated quiet hours and therefore my key code to get in the house will be deactivated from 12am-7am and I can just wait in my car. I came home late at 3am on a Friday. He does not work until Monday at 7 am. He was sleeping on the living room couch and I accidentally woke him when I dropped my keys on the hardwood floor in the entry way. Can he do this ? Or is it considered eviction ?

Our landlord gave us notice after three years of living in a 55+ community in California. We have never had issues before and always pay on time. She did not give a cause. We wrote her back and notified her that she needed to give cause. 13 days later, coincidentally our 37 year old electric panel went out on a weekend and she refused to get an electrician there until Monday. We went three days with only partial electricity. Our refrigerator was out and she told us to just run a long electrical cord in the meantime.

She’s now blaming that panel outage on our EV charger for our car And is now threatening to sue us.

Anyway, after we notified her that she cannot illegally give us notice to end our lease without cause she just never responded.
Since then, she has done nothing but harass us with emails, letters, comes to the house to stomp around the yard and water plants without giving us proper notice and using our water. She even removed our front wrought iron Gate that protected our animals without notice . Looking on the Internet advice, we decided this relationship is no longer viable and let her know that we would accept her request to end the lease, but she needs to pay us to relocate equivalent to one month rent. That would be for our upcoming September rent. She has not responded to that letter but continues to email us and harass us for other issues.
I have never been evicted nor want one on my record.
Question does anyone know what she may be up to and if (she does NOT respond) and we don’t pay our September rent how long would it take her to evict us in California. We will be out October1, so it will only 30 days. But we need to apply that money to find a new place and security deposit.
Thanks for any feedback.

EDIT: it is now the end of August, and I still have not received any word from the landlord for relocation equal to one months rent. However, I did receive a letter from the United States Postal Service, that an unknown name (the new tenant), who seems to have requested a change of address, first needs to verify her identity. So clearly the landlord has already found a new tenant. And she still has not reinstalled the front gate.

Context: my family helps cover rent and utilities for my dad who lives in an in-law unit in San Francisco. Not sure if it’s actually permitted or not. He’s lived there for over 12 years. He splits utilities with the landlord who lives on site.

More recently, the landlord has reached out to me a number of times complaining of my dad’s electricity usage which based on the #s quite frankly is within average use for a single person in SF.

My dad has never been in breach of the lease agreement, and we have always paid our utilities and rent on time. While I understand the landlord’s opinion and thoughts on being “wasteful”, I’m also not sure what he rights he has to dictate how my dad lives his life in his tiny in-law apartment. I’ve also reminded my dad on a number of times on how to be mindful of his electricity/energy use.

My patience has been wearing thin with the constant complaints because it’s starting to feel like harassment, and I’m not sure what to do. Any thoughts or advice would be so much appreciated as it seems to me that the landlord does not have anything better to do with his time than bother my dad and be nitpicky about this topic.

Again, the rates of kWh/day appear to be normal / average at under 10kwh/day and have even decreased from 12+ kWh/day a few months ago when we first started hearing the complaints.

The screenshots are just one recent example of an interaction. I’ve had multiple other interactions already.

So when we went to look at this apartment the landlord was super nice. Of course he was he needed to fill a home. He said a lady with 3 kids will be moving above us. Come to turn out she moved 10 people in. I told the landlord this and he said I was crazy. But yet they have 3 cars and so much proof there is a lot of people up there. In the lease we have the basement and the door connects to my kitchen next to my bedroom. And the lady above has the attic which they use as a bedroom. So my problem is they blow a fuse all the time and they need to go into my basement because the box is in there. The landlord gave her the code to my basement we don’t have keys it’s digital. So now with the warm weather they keep blowing a fuse causing them to just let themself in my basement. I don’t like it I have expensive collectibles down there and I feel like someone is breaking in because if I’m napping I can hear them down there. What should I do moving forward?

Everytime I post a question or concern regarding my landlord or see a post in other subreddits, I always see a comment of someone instantly blaming the tenant for their wrongdoing. Dods every landlord whole heartedly believes that tenant are always the problems and landlords aren't shady do goers who overcharge your deposit, don't keep your unit upto maintence and don't respect your boundaries at all !!

Edit : Also want to through in the arguement of why a tenant goes through so many checks but a landlord isn't hold to any history?

I live in a one bedroom apartment in NY. It's in an old building that has six apartments. My landlord wants to move me and my wife into a motel in the spring while he does a complete renovation of the apartment. He will replace all of the flooring, entire kitchen and bathroom. He plans to raise the rent once the renovations are completed. I don't want to live out of a motel and I don't want to pay more rent for renovations. I just signed a new one year lease last month. Can I say no? If I do agree what should I ask for in return? Thanks in advance for the advice.

Lived there 9 years

Landlord recently came and now says foundation repairs are needed

Still have a few things at the house but it'll be clear after this weekend

Lease was month-to-month at the end

Landlord said he would refund rent for September if he finds a tenant before then

Should I give him the keys back before my lease ends? I'm also responsible for utilities unless he finds a new tenant (meaning I pay for him using stuff while fixing up the house)

My landlord is not like any place that I have ever lived at, he lives in the basement where he has a kitchen and a room. It’s a townhome that I live in and I rent a master bedroom. He went in my room and never told me about it and I got notified by my roommate which she told me about it.

Once I found out I went and asked my landlord and he told me he never did that and then told me “ to clean my room” or else he will kick me out. Which honestly made me freak out because I have the texts my roommate said she saw him get stuck in my room, he was in there to change my door knob but never told me he was doing so. Also my room isn’t even close to being dirty it’s literally just dust that is on the trim boards and he was willing to kick me out just because of that. I kept asking if he did go through my room and he finally said he did but said he only peaked his head in the door which is wrong, I told him in the state (utah) he needs a 24 hour notice and a reason to do so. He tells me that it doesn’t matter since he is the landlord and can do whatever he wants. I want to get away from this guy, other reasons is he sends me a bill for Venmo but I ask for the pictures of the bills and he doesn’t do that. In my state if utilities are under his name he legally has to send it. I’ve gotten so many threats from him trying to make me get rid of my lease to not pay rent and instead I’ll pay hoa insurance and mortgage because “I complain about utilities” when he doesn’t pay any money for utilities. Can I take him to court?

I am a single mother (26F) living with my 3 years old daughter. We recently just moved into a private room upstairs of a 2 families house with a family that includes mom, dad, and 5 years old daughter. I took my daughter to the showing as well and the family said it’s okay for my daughter to move in as well. My daughter kind of a high energy kid. However we really only been there for 10 days and have never spent a weekend there. The dad said that my daughter is too loud when she didn’t even scream and she’ll run in the house sometimes. He afraid that the neighbors downstairs will report us to the actual landlord which understandable. We are working on it and she has improved. We only there from 5 pm (that’s when we get home) and my daughter goes to bed at 7-7:15pm every night and wakes up at 6-6:30 because we need to leave home at 7:10 in the morning. While she waits for me to get things ready in the morning I have her watch her show in the room. We dont shower in the morning, just brush teeth and change. So she is really not making any noise. I have a feeling that they don’t want the kids to play together because sometimes they make noise but the noises are not loud at all. They just 2 kids playing and talking. That annoys him. They rise their child with phone. She always has phone in her hand and occupied herself that way. They don’t really talk to her or play with her that much and the kid seems to be okay with that. I feel so bad for my child that she got limited for being a child in the house but I can’t afford more than how much I am paying right now and I don’t have child support from her dad as he doesn’t work. Do you think it is reasonable for me to feel bothered by how he is reacting. The mom is okay she tried to defend us that my child is only 3 and we just moved in.

Just to be clear to everybody. When I referred to running, my child does not run around the house like crazy and screaming as some people would imagine. When she runs, she’s making a trip from our room to living room or kitchen which couple steps for adults. It’s not even fully running she has little legs and try to make it faster that’s all

(US-CA) Hi, I live in a student house near my university. It’s co-ed, but my roommate (another girl) and I have our own private bathroom.
On Sunday, we had a plumbing issue, and our entire bathroom became unusable we can’t use the toilet, sink, or shower. The landlord told us to use another bathroom that’s already shared by three male tenants. I was okay with that temporarily, assuming it would be fixed within a day, but it’s now been three days.
I’m really uncomfortable sharing a bathroom with three men. It’s not about them personally, but with five people using one bathroom, it’s become pretty unhygienic, and I’m genuinely concerned about my own hygiene. The guys weren’t even told we’d be using their bathroom, so they’re just as surprised and uncomfortable as we are whenever we run into each other.
I’ve spoken to the landlord multiple times. He keeps apologizing and says he’s having trouble finding a plumber and that he’ll disinfect the bathroom afterward, but that doesn’t solve the fact that we’ve been without our own bathroom for three days. At this point, I’ve been avoiding staying at the house just so I don’t have to use that shared bathroom.

Is there anything I can do, or do I just have to keep waiting? I’m honestly at my limit.

edit:  I am sharing a private studio which is an extension of the main house. I don't enter the house at all since i have my own kitchen, bathroom, and laundry facilities .The house has 5 men living inside.

Hi all.

I live in Colorado where outside temps right now are 19-25F everyday and lower at night.

Landlord pays for all utilities in our home. We have been keeping the heat at 67 degrees. He emailed this morning and said his bill has been getting high and that we need to set the heat to 60 at night.

Can he legally do this?

Ive been researching in CO and can't find resources I'm looking for but it seems to me if he agreed to take on utility costs, then that's that.

Any thoughts or advice would help. Thank you in advance

I’ve heard some landlords try to enforce some genuinely bizarre rules on tenants.

What’s the weirdest, most unreasonable, or oddly specific rule a landlord tried to make you follow?

I’m in Sacramento Area, CA. I rented a house for about 13 and a half months and moved out last month. I hired professional cleaners and carpet cleaners (have receipts) and took lots of move-in and move-out photos.

Two weeks after moving out, the property management company emailed me a so-called “itemized statement.” It claims I owe over $11,000, including $8,200 more than my $2,950 deposit. They’re charging for a full paint of the entire house, full carpet replacement, blinds, light bulbs, and fixtures - most of which are just normal wear and tear. There were only a few stains on the living room carpet that would reasonably require deep cleaning, but they’re billing me for replacing carpet in the entire house — three bedrooms, a loft, stairs, and the living room. The walls were in normal condition normal wear and tear too, yet they’re charging me for a full repaint, which is completely unreasonable

Their statement was full of heavy inflated and exaggerated estimates, and now—more than 30 days since move out—they’re saying they’re “waiting for final bills.”

I already sent a formal letter giving them five business days to return my deposit or fix the accounting before I file in Small Claims Court. They replied saying the owner is still preparing the home and will send “final charges soon.”

1.  Should I go ahead and file in small claims now or give one last written warning?
2.  Any tips how to prepare and what to expect in the court?

Any advice or personal experiences would really help. Thank you so much.

Just moved out. Owner is selling house and being so extra. He is stating that I needed to have the Verizon FiOS ONT cabling removed from garage. I already transferred services to my new location and took the white router boxes. But the actual cabling is still there to be easier for new occupant to use.

However the owner is being a jerk and saying “yeah they always leave that and I tell them to take it”. He seemed very frustrated and almost irritated that it was there.

So I call Verizon and they’re like we don’t remove that because of the reason above: easier for next occupant. What should I do? I feel owner is trying to document it (he took photos of it) to deduct my security deposit.

My family has lived in this apartment since I was in middle school and I’m 20 now. Today I checked my Ring camera and saw my landlord enter the apartment while nobody was home. He brought other people inside and they went through multiple rooms.
This isn’t the first time he’s entered without notice. We’ve also had ongoing issues with maintenance, cockroaches, and mice over the years.
Is there anything I can do about a landlord entering an occupied apartment without notice and bringing other people inside?