Imagine renting a house for many years. It would be safe to assume that there would be some normal wear and tear. What would you do if you decided to move out, but the landlord tried to make you pay to replace expensive items like carpet?

In this story, one man is in this exact situation. Thankfully, he has a brother who knows exactly how to handle it.

Keep reading for all the details.

Sure, I’ll reimburse you for what the carpet is worth!

This is a story that I was told conversationally at a camp.

Guy telling me the story: N His brother: B Landlord: L

So this guy (N) had a brother (B) who was renting a home. He was one of those long-term renters who stayed at the same location for 10+ years.

B was moving out, and the landlord (L) was trying his best to get every penny out of B that he could.

The landlord wasn’t taking into consideration the condition of the apartment before the brother moved in.

L looked around the house and tried to charge him for every little thing: stains on the wall, the cupboard that was broken before he moved in, etc.

The biggest, most expensive offense was the carpet.

The carpet was not pretty. Stains everywhere, a big hole where a cigarette was dropped, threads showing, etc. The carpet was clearly old when he moved in, but B wasn’t very prepared and didn’t think to take pictures before he moved in.

N devised a plan to help his brother out. He knew the law pretty well, and went with B to sign the final paperwork.

The landlord thought he had won.

I don’t know why the landlord thought he could charge the renter beyond his deposit. Maybe they had an agreement that he left out of the story, or the laws were different when this happened? Regardless, he was going to have to pay for all of the brand-new carpet because of the one hole he caused.

So the landlord smugly pulled out the paperwork to have B sign.

N took one look at it, smirked, and told B to sign it.

They got done with all of it, shook hands, and the landlord started bragging about how much he was going to make off of B.

The landlord didn’t know the law.

Then N dropped the bomb.

The paper said that he had to reimburse the carpet “for what it was worth.” According to the law that he had a copy of in his pocket, carpets are worthless after 10 years of use, which his brother alone fit as a qualification.

The landlord was flabbergasted.

Apparently he ended up just using some leftover carpet that he had in storage to replace the square where the cigarette burn was located, instead of replacing the whole carpet.

That’s such a clever way to trick the landlord! I love how that guy helped his brother out.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

Here are some fun facts about carpet warranties.

Another person has a theory about why the landlord wanted to charge so much.

But this person has more insight about the deposit and what a landlord can charge for damages.

This is true.

Talk about a greedy landlord!

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