Received collections bill for last apartment's management company legaladvice

I moved out of my apartment in Seattle last September. There was one thing in the apartment that I knew would be taken out of my $500 damage deposit and a cleaning fee. A couple of months after I moved out I was wondering when I would be receiving the remaining balance from my damage deposit, so I called the office and they said they would email me the invoice. They sent me an email saying that I owe them another $554. One of the things listed on the invoice is a replacement cap for the shower drain...they said this cost them $100 and more for labor. The problem is that this shower drain piece was never there in the 4 years that I lived in this apartment. I did not know to list it on the move in damage walk-through sheet because it wasn't there in the first place. And now they want to charge me for it. Also they are charging me $150 for the broken shelf in the refrigerator that was broken when I moved in. I put a work order in to get the refrigerator fixed, but they told me the refrigerator company needed to fix it and that they would be out later in the week, but I never saw them and the refrigerator was never fixed. I didn't put in another work order because my landlord was mean and made strange inappropriate comments and pushed my boyfriend once and I didn't want to deal with him. Also, I have no record for the work order because their work order system at the time consisted of a 5"x8" piece of paper that you slid under the door of the shitty landlord. So after I received this invoice from the management company, I sent them an email and stated my concerns for these charges. The woman in charge of my building said that she would get back to me as soon as possible and she never did. And now, just today, I received a bill from a collection agency. So my problem is that no one ever contacted me about this invoice, even though they had my forwarding address. And if they would have sent the invoice to my old apartment, USPS would have forwarded it to me. But no one let me know I had an outstanding debt until I contacted them. Is that illegal? They told me they would follow up with me about my concerns and no one did, and now the bill is damaging my credit. Can I take them to small claims court? Do I need more evidence?

It's just a big corporation trying to screw me out of money. It's not much, but I don't want to pay it out of principle.

Thanks for the help and my apologies for the grammar.

Submitted January 21, 2018 at 09:42AM by janie0511 http://ift.tt/2DwW0ms legaladvice