Security deposits should be held by the municipality. Should the landlord wish to claim it, they can prove their case in court.
Fuck the status quo forever. Unforgivable.
Welcome to Lemmy Shitpost. Here you can shitpost to your hearts content.
Anything and everything goes. Memes, Jokes, Vents and Banter. Though we still have to comply with lemmy.world instance rules. So behave!
1. Be Respectful
Refrain from using harmful language pertaining to a protected characteristic: e.g. race, gender, sexuality, disability or religion.
Refrain from being argumentative when responding or commenting to posts/replies. Personal attacks are not welcome here.
...
2. No Illegal Content
Content that violates the law. Any post/comment found to be in breach of common law will be removed and given to the authorities if required.
That means:
-No promoting violence/threats against any individuals
-No CSA content or Revenge Porn
-No sharing private/personal information (Doxxing)
...
3. No Spam
Posting the same post, no matter the intent is against the rules.
-If you have posted content, please refrain from re-posting said content within this community.
-Do not spam posts with intent to harass, annoy, bully, advertise, scam or harm this community.
-No posting Scams/Advertisements/Phishing Links/IP Grabbers
-No Bots, Bots will be banned from the community.
...
4. No Porn/Explicit
Content
-Do not post explicit content. Lemmy.World is not the instance for NSFW content.
-Do not post Gore or Shock Content.
...
5. No Enciting Harassment,
Brigading, Doxxing or Witch Hunts
-Do not Brigade other Communities
-No calls to action against other communities/users within Lemmy or outside of Lemmy.
-No Witch Hunts against users/communities.
-No content that harasses members within or outside of the community.
...
6. NSFW should be behind NSFW tags.
-Content that is NSFW should be behind NSFW tags.
-Content that might be distressing should be kept behind NSFW tags.
...
If you see content that is a breach of the rules, please flag and report the comment and a moderator will take action where they can.
Also check out:
Partnered Communities:
1.Memes
10.LinuxMemes (Linux themed memes)
Reach out to
All communities included on the sidebar are to be made in compliance with the instance rules. Striker
Shit Post Real Talk:
Never let your landlord steal your deposit. Here's how you prevent this (without using brass knuckles):
Read your lease before you sign it. Once you've signed it, it's too late to change anything or decide you don't like something in it.
Keep copies of your lease, and any other document your landlord sends you.
Do a photo walkthrough before moving anything I to the house. Take lots of pictures of everything. Make sure to get good photos of pre-existing damage.
Don't fuck up the house, beyond regular wear and tear. You ever get so mad you want to punch a hole in the wall? Well don't. Go to therapy instead. And if you do punch a hole in the wall, either fix it or expect that your landlord is going to take it out of your deposit. You get the point.
Follow the "move out" conditions of of your lease to the "T". If something is supposed to be clean, clean it. If something is supposed to be replaced, replace it. If you don't like having to clean or replace something that's required in the lease, then you should have paid more attention to step 1.
Do a photo walkthrough after you have completely moved out and every move out condition of your lease has been met. Take pictures of everything.
Retain all photos and documentation until your deposit has been fully refunded.
Do not accept a partial refund. Don't sign the check. Don't deposit it.
If the landlord tries to steal your deposit, communicate your objections in writing. Retain copies of all communication.
If the landlord still refuses to refund the full amount and you have followed all the prior steps, march right on down to your local district court clerks office and ask to file a suit in small claims court (assuming your state has a small claims division). They will ask you to fill out a few forms and pay the court fees. Then, the sheriff will serve your landlord with a summons and the clerk will notify you of the hearing date.
If your landlord is smart, they will settle. If not, go to the hearing, present your evidence to the judge and if you did everything right, get a judgement in your favor. You won't need a lawyer as lawyers are typically not permitted in small claims.
The one and only time I had to do this, I didn't do it because I needed the money. I did it because I knew that I wasn't the first person they tried to fuck over. I was just the first person to fight back and I hoped maybe next time they would think twice about stealing money from their tenants.
And if this fails you can still use the brass knuckles, plus rob them too.
Crazy that you have to go to court over it (I assume this is for the US). Here in the UK the deposit has to be secured by a third party independent organisation. So you follow everything you said, but step 10 becomes "submit your evidence on a website" and the landlord has no power over the verdict. I had to do it once and the landlord immediately conceded without even sending them their version of the story.
You can look at any financial interaction in the US and ask that same thing, "why is it idiotic and heavily in favor of the person with capital?"
I hear in some states you can get triple if it has to go to the courts. That's better. There should be a massive downside to stealing a deposit. I don't like if it's a pain in the ass for the victim but then they can only get what was due in the first place.