Unless you do MAJOR damage to a place you’re renting, I’m of the belief that you should get all or almost all of your security deposit back.

But this guy’s landlord clearly had other ideas!

Check out how he struck back when his landlord tried to pull a fast one on him.

Landlord Tries to Keep Security Deposit… Ummm, No.

“About 10 years ago, my at-the-time girlfriend (now wife) and I moved from the area we went to college to an apartment near where we planned to start our careers.

I say it was an apartment, but it was really the basement of a house that the landlord had walled off to create 2 “apartments” to rent. The place was kinda gross, but the rent was cheap for the area, and we were close to work.

Everything was fine for a few months, but the only parking for us was on the street out front – the couple that rented the upstairs “apartment” had rights to the garage and driveway (they paid more than we did).

That’s a bummer…

Suddenly my car got a couple tickets for parking on the street – I’m guessing some clown cop needed to meet their quota – and my girlfriend’s car got sideswiped in a hit & run.

This had to stop, so we emailed the landlord (her preferred form of communication) to ask if there’s anywhere safe for us to park. She replies, “Park anywhere you want.”

We had noticed that our upstairs neighbors usually eschewed the driveway to park in the front yard (they were horribly lazy), so we figured that would be a good spot for us too. We parked in the front yard the rest of the year.

We figured that would be the end of it. We finished our lease, left the place in better shape than we found it, and requested our $1,500 security deposit back.

What was this all about?

After a couple weeks, we got a check for $700… what the hell!?!?!?

Since there was no explanation, we asked the landlord for one, and she replied that the deducted amount was to “re-sod the lawn”, claiming that parking on it had damaged it.

Now, I was the one who cut the grass at this house while we stayed there, so I was well aware that the lawn was more weeds and bald spots than grass – picture the African savanna in mid-summer.

This was nonsense.

No one had ever lifted a finger to landscape any part of the property, but the landlord wanted to sell the house once the leases were up, and she figured she could get the renters to pay for a nice, new lawn.

I complained to the landlord: she didn’t care. I put in a complaint with the local housing department: she didn’t care. I threatened to take her to court: she didn’t care.

It was time to sue.

So, that’s what I did – took her to small claims court.

I had never sued anyone before, so I was going in prepared!

I took pictures of the entire front yard – the area that we “damaged” was actually one of the best patches of grass, though it did have a small rut that my tires made when the yard was muddy in the summer.

I got testimonials from our upstairs and across-the-street neighbors. Most importantly, I printed out the email where the landlord told us to park anywhere.

We were suing for $1,800 to cover court costs and us both missing a day of work on top of the full security deposit.

In mediation we said we would settle for $1,400, but she must have thought she was in the right because she refused to offer a penny more than the original $700 check, which we never cashed.

When we got in front of the judge, it was pretty clear that she had no evidence, hadn’t prepared anything, and just assumed that us “kids” would fall on our faces. We did not.

They did a great job!

We put everything we had in front of the judge and made our claim (he was impressed).

He stopped us when we showed him the email to ask the landlord, “Did you really tell them to park wherever they wanted?”

When she said “yes”, the judge replied “Then what are we even talking about?”, and that was that.

Judgement in full for us, and that she had to pay to re-sod her own lawn.

Next time you tell someone to “park wherever you want”, you’d better mean it. Or at least don’t try to screw someone over when they comply with what you said! If you made it this far, thanks for reading!”

Reddit users spoke up.

This person shared a story.

Another Reddit user weighed in.

This individual had a lot to say.

This person shared their thoughts.

And this individual has been there.

You gotta love it when a sleazy landlord gets what’s coming to them!

If you liked that post, check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.