Six places, most of the money
Deposit deductions are not evenly spread. Almost all of the money is in a short list of specific places, and an inspector walking through with a clipboard looks at the same ones every time:
- Inside the oven. The most commonly charged item there is, and the most avoidable. Caustic cleaner, left on overnight, racks in the bath on old towels.
- Wall marks and nail holes. Cheap to fix yourself, expensive to be charged for. Fill, sand, and touch up if you have the paint.
- Carpets. Where a lease requires professional cleaning, it usually requires a receipt. Without it you get charged whether or not the carpet is clean.
- The refrigerator — behind it, underneath it, and every drawer.
- Bathroom grout and silicone, and the base of the toilet.
- Anything left behind. Removal and disposal is billed at a rate that surprises people every time. Check the garage, the balcony and the top shelf of every closet twice.
If you run out of time, these are the six that were worth having.
Empty it first
Cleaning around boxes takes roughly twice as long and misses exactly the places that get inspected — behind, underneath, inside. Get the place empty, then clean it.
Start the slow jobs before anything else:
Oven cleaner on, door shut → works for hours while you do other rooms
Descaler bag on the shower head → no scrubbing later
Any wash you still need to run
The photographs are worth more than the cleaning
This is the part most people skip and most regret.
Photograph every room empty and clean, from two corners, with the date recorded. Photograph the meters. Photograph anything that was already damaged when you moved in, and set it against your move-in condition report if you have one.
The reason is simple: a deposit dispute is a disagreement about the state of a property that neither party can now inspect. Whoever has dated photographs wins it. Cleaning perfectly and photographing nothing puts you in a much weaker position than cleaning adequately and photographing everything.
Wear and tear, and where the line sits
Roughly:
| Normal wear | Damage |
|---|---|
| Carpet worn along a hallway | A burn, a tear, a pet stain |
| Paint faded, minor scuffs | Crayon, holes, a repainted wall in a colour not agreed |
| Small nail holes (in many places) | Anchors, large holes, shelving left mounted |
| Grout discoloured with age | Mould through the silicone, cracked tiles |
| Worn seals and hinges | A broken door, a missing fitting |
The line varies by state and by how reasonable the landlord is. What does not vary is that an argument about it goes better when you have a photograph from the day you moved in.
Before you hand the keys over
- Ask to be present at the final inspection. In many jurisdictions you have the right, and being in the room changes what gets written down.
- Count the keys, fobs, remotes and parking passes, and get a receipt for them if you can.
- Keep every required receipt, particularly carpets.
- Give your forwarding address in writing — most states have a statutory deadline for returning a deposit, and it usually starts from a written address.
- Read your lease for anything specific: some require the place professionally cleaned, some require the yard cut, some require light bulbs replaced.
Replace the dead light bulbs and the HVAC filter. Together they cost about ten dollars, they get charged as a call-out, and a fresh filter makes the whole place read as looked-after before anyone looks at anything else.