My ex-landlord is holding my deposit and is saying I owe them money. Am I just at their mercy? personalfinance

I recently moved out of an apartment that and I had lived in for two years and paid a security deposit of $450 when I moved in. A couple of weeks after moving out I called my landlord to see if I would be receiving any of the deposit back. He immediately got extremely childish and unprofessional listing all these reasons why I would not receive any deposit back. We got into an argument and I argued that what he was listing off should not result in a complete seizure of my deposit. He then made a comment about burn marks on my refrigerator. These burn marks I made note of in my apartment inspection when I moved in. I told him this and then he just hung up on me!

Two weeks later he sends me a bill saying I owe the company $420.94. Here it is itemized:

1) General cleaning - including oven in stove ($168) (I did forget to clean my stove, the rest of the apartment I cleaned pretty good IMO but I'll accept the charge even though it seems excessive)

1. Remove misc. trash ($25) (I accidentally left about four items behind that would have required one trip to the dumpster. One item he probably could have sold for $50 if he felt like it)

2. Repair sash cords to LR window ($231.94) (My cords didn't exactly work right but it wasn't from anything I did. I hardly ever touched the blinds due to the fact that my windows faced directly into my neighbors windows, five feet away. They were also very basic blinds on two small windows. They would cost maybe $20 each brand new.)

4) Paint two walls in living room & two walls in bathroom. ($120) (I did no damage to the walls besides a few small nail holes. I believe this charge should be included in normal wear and tear.)

5) Repair smoke alarm, towel rack, toilet paper holder, light by front door. ($110) (I don't deny these charges)

6) Re key the unit and mail box- no keys returned ($68) (I apparently returned my keys to the wrong drop box so I'll accept these charges, even though I'm pretty sure he just had to make copies of the keys he already kept at the office.)

7) Repair scratches in the hardwood floors ($150) (The floors were very scratched when I moved in and I also reported this in the apartment inspection. If there was anymore scratching it would have been caused by the grout that was constantly being eroded out of the dilapidated brick walls so it should be considered normal wear and tear.)

What should I do? I'm not very concerned with the small amount of money I believe is owed to me. I am very concerned though that if I ignore the bill it will hurt my credit and cause problems with me trying to rent in the future. I of course was stupid enough to not take pictures when I left but wouldn't the landlord have to take pictures of things he repaired and also include receipts? How can I officially dispute these charges?

Submitted August 04, 2015 at 12:07AM by _cake_maker http://ift.tt/1gEXWua personalfinance