Imagine moving out of an apartment, and then your landlord claims that the apartment is in such horrible condition that he’s going to go to the police if you don’t fix it. What would you do?

In this story, one tenant was in this situation. What’s bizarre is that he even hired a cleaning lady and tried to fix anything that he knew was damaged. He really tried to leave the apartment in good shape.

I’ve read a lot of stories where tenants don’t get their security deposit back because the landlord claims they didn’t leave the apartment the way it was when they moved in, but this story is even more extreme.

Let’s read all about it.

AITAH in this landlord – tenant situation?

So we rented an apartmant for about a year. The apartmant was clean, newly renovated and the landlord was kind with us.

We announced we will be leaving, hired a cleaning lady and then met the landlord at the apartment.

He said all is good.

They tried to repair anything they damaged.

What is worth mentioning is that there were some decorative foam wall panels and one part got destroyed when moving my office desk so we bought new ones and reapplied without notifying him , same for some wall paint. I mean we touched the wall and wasnt as white as it was after renovation so we sprayed it in some places with solution specifically for this.

Today I recieved some very rude messages, that we left the apartment in a catastrophic state.

Dirt on the floor is from under the sofa and rug.

He tried to make it right.

My reaction was that the cleaning lady obviously didn’t do a great job when it comes to wardrobes.

The spray we applied was also visible a bit on the door frame so we offered to pay for another cleaning, but I also mentioned that some of those, such as the walls getting dirty since we both worked from home, or the plinth not being as white as it was as shoes were kept there is a normal thing as we lived there..

At some point he was threatening me with going to the police, as the contract said apartment should be in the same state as it was when moving there

Question is, since we offered to pay for a cleaning service, are those photos really that bad? I mean is there damage that can’t be solved with just cleaning and it should be the tenant’s responsibility to pay for?

Obviously, some wear and tear is to be expected when living in an apartment.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a tenant who walked away from their lease after the landlord hassled them over renting month-to-month.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this situation.

This person guesses at how the police would react.

Another person wouldn’t take the police threat seriously.

This person thinks OP messed up.

Another person agrees that OP should’ve cleaned the place better.

I personally don’t like hiring someone to clean my home because I feel like it’s hard to find someone who would do a really good job. I hired someone to do a move in cleaning when moving into my current home, and I was very disappointed. I basically had to clean the place myself afterwards. It’s like they didn’t even do anything.

With that said, just hiring a cleaning lady isn’t necessarily good enough. You still have to make sure the place is actually clean. It’s a good idea to double check the work and reclean if necessary or hire someone else.

That said, some wear and tear is to be expected. Assuming there was a security deposit, the landlord could refuse to pay it back if he thinks there is more damage beyond regular wear and tear. Otherwise, I think it is what it is. The police aren’t going to care about an issue this minor.