BAM! You’ve been Lawyered. Or, Ugh. I think we may finally be done.

Seriously, I don’t know what I’m going to do when I finally am done dealing with my last landlords.  I’m going to be so, so boring at work.  Well, at the very least, I won’t be able to complain so, so much at work.  Okay, maybe that’s a good thing.

After all the blabbing I did in a post last week about how, knowing my luck, I would probably receive some soft of lame ass letter about how the landlords are keeping the remaining $600 deposit on the 31st day.  (Landlords have 31 days to return or account for the deposits they are keeping.)  Well, the 31st day came and went and I hadn’t heard a peep out of them since early June,* so I sent the letter last Friday. 

On Tuesday, I was restless in bed and after I turned The Golden Girls off, I decided to check my e-mail.  Well, I guess that my letter made it all the way to them, because I received a response.^  And, even though I kept telling myself that I would deal with it tomorrow, I couldn’t fall asleep.  I turned The Golden Girls back on and continued to toss and turn all night, because I kept thinking about everything that I wanted to tell the landlords.  Well, I finally did it this morning,+ because of all of the waiting I have had to do on these people – this was the quickest response I have ever had.**  And, that includes the month I spent walking around the basement with rain boots on.

Finally, I must say that I’m pumped to be done with these people.^^  But, until I get the final deposit check in the mail, I can’t lay this matter to rest.  However, I’m very, very hopeful that day will be very, very soon!!!

Until then, I’m marking one in the lawyered column for this girl.

*On behalf of all of us, thank you for renting from us for this past year. All in all, the home was left in good order and we will not be deducting anything from your primary rental deposit of $2400.  A portion of your $600 pet deposit, however, will be needed to pay for a deep cleaning.

We did the walk through on the first of the month and had our broker come over separately to give us feed back.  Although the house seemed to be pretty clean, the cat smell was overwhelming to all separate parties, specifically in the area to the back of the kitchen and the basement.  We have no choice but to get a professional cleaner in there to scrub the walls and floors in hopes of removing the odor.   I am also aware of the fact that the screens were not in perfect order when you moved in, however, now seem to be shredded, however, we will not be deducting this cost.

I have received one bid for the cleaning and waiting on one more but it will most likely be in the neighborhood of $2-300 to give you an idea.  We will be refunding your $2400 in tomorrows mail and wait until the cleaning is done to send you the remaining with the invoice from the cleaning.

Please let us know if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

Her Owner

on behalf of Uno Properties.

^The below formatting and organization is original:

Please refer to email below dated Jun 7, 2011, noting that a portion of your $600 pet deposit would need to be withheld to pay for a deep cleaning due to heavy cat odor permeating the home.  This was sent to you in an email 1 week after your lease ended, complying with ORS 90.300(9) The landlord may, however, claim all or part of the remaining balance if, within 31 days after the termination of the tenancy, the landlord provides a written  (email below)  accounting that specifies the bases of the claim (deep cleaning due to very pungent cat odor):  

On Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 8:32 PM, Tres Properties wrote:

>  On behalf of all of us, thank you for renting from us for this past year.
> All in all, the home was left in good order and we will not be deducting
> anything from your primary rental deposit of $2400.  A portion of your $600 pet
> deposit, however, will be needed to pay for a deep cleaning.

> We did the walk through on the first of the month and had our broker come over separately to
> give us feed back.  Although the house seemed to be pretty clean, the cat
> smell was overwhelming to all separate parties, specifically in the area to the back of the kitchen
> and the basement.  We have no choice but to get a professional cleaner in
> there to scrub the walls and floors in hopes of removing the odor.   I am also
> aware of the fact that the screens were not in perfect order when you moved
> in, however, now seem to be shredded, however, we will not be deducting this cost.

>  I have received one bid for the cleaning and waiting on one more but
> it will most likely be in the neighborhood of $2-300 to give you an idea.  We
> will be refunding your $2400 in tomorrows mail and wait until the
> cleaning is done to send you the remaining with the invoice from the cleaning.
>
> Please let us know if you have any questions.

> Sincerely,

> Her Owner
> on behalf of Uno Properties.

In addition to this we sent you a letter explaining our reason for needing to keep a portion of your pet deposit along with a check for the remaining amount.  This letter was sent to you via mail  on Jun 27th, 2011 and arrived at your unit July 28th (please refer to attached tracking information.)  Notice that it was noted "undeliverable" from the 28th until today, however, we were aware of this law and sent this priority mail using the address that you provided for us.

Her Owner

Sounds like a plan.  You can send me the check for the deposits - 1426 Not Crap Pit Lane, Portland, OR.

Thanks,

Me

I believe that we did all we could to meet all of your requests during your tenancy and have been able to successfully work through problems that came up.  I am a bit taken aback that you feel as though this needs to be taken to litigation.  We would really like to try and resolve this with you out of court, however, feel as though, under Oregon law, we have in fact complied with the law and have included our evidence to show this.  Please let us know how you would like to proceed.  

Sincerely, 

Her Owner

Expected Delivery Date: July 5, 2011

Class: Priority Mail®

Service(s): Delivery Confirmation™

Status: Delivered

Your item was delivered at 9:54 am on July 05, 2011 in PORTLAND, OR 97296.

Detailed Results:

• Delivered, July 05, 2011, 9:54 am, PORTLAND, OR 97296
• Processed through Sort Facility, June 29, 2011, 7:57 pm, PORTLAND, OR 97208
• Undeliverable as Addressed, June 29, 2011, 6:18 am, PORTLAND, OR 97212
• Undeliverable as Addressed, June 28, 2011, 6:15 am, PORTLAND, OR 97212
• Arrival at Unit, June 28, 2011, 5:12 am, PORTLAND, OR 97212
• Processed through Sort Facility, June 28, 2011, 2:39 am, PORTLAND, OR 97208
• Processed through Sort Facility, June 28, 2011, 1:19 am, PORTLAND, OR 97218
• Acceptance, June 27, 2011, 4:22 pm, HOOD RIVER, OR 97031

+Her Owner:

You are correct that a landlord may claim all or part of prepaid rent or security deposits, but it is ORS 90.300(10) that allows landlords do to this.  Also, the statute goes on to say that the landlord must provide an accounting within 31 days, ORS 90.300(11), and that the remainder shall be returned to the tenant within 31 days.  ORS 90.300(12)

The June 7, 2011 e-mail that you sent to either your mother or sister in Hood River, who then printed and mailed it to me did state the specific basis of the claim, but did not identify a specific amount to be withheld.  Additionally, the remainder was not returned at that time.  Further, this communication was not supplemented within the statutorily allotted 31 days with a specific amount to be withheld and the remainder has yet to be refunded.

Finally, I’m not sure who the intended recipient was of the package that you included the tracking information for at the bottom of your e-mail, because I do not know anyone with a business or residence in Portland, OR 97296.  That is not part of my or any of my ex-roommates’ forwarding addresses.

Since the 31 days has since elapsed and any deductions at this point would be in violation of ORS 90.300, I will reiterate from my July 1, 2011 letter that if Uno Properties does not tender the entire remaining $600 deposit by July 21, 2011, we will pursue all legal remedies available – including but not limited to twice the amount of the deposit allowed under ORS 90.300(14) and attorney fees allowed under ORS 90.255.

Sincerely,

Me, JD

**Have you received our letter with the check for $300?  Apparently it got sent to the wrong address so to comply with the law we will return your full $600 but I need to know if you received $300 at this point.   

Her Owner

^^No, I have not received the $300.  If you need it again - my forwarding address is 1426 Not Crap Pit Lane, Portland, OR.

Ugh. Are we done yet?

I know that I’ve complained a lot about my previous property owners.  I do feel justified in part of my behavior, because they do things like hold themselves out to have ALL of this experience renting ALL of these properties and then I have to spend a morning redrafting the lease so that I can have roommates. 

With this particular house we paid a total of $3,000 in refundable deposits - one month’s rent of $2,400 and a pet deposit of $600.  I’ve been keyed up since April when the sister in Hawaii (who hasn’t seen the house in two or three years) hinted in a few e-mails that they planned to keep the pet deposit.  After asking the pointed question of whether we could expect the $600 back and then not hearing back from her for two days, the response I received was along the lines of “You’ll get the $600 back if it doesn’t smell like cats.”

Well, there were four cats in the house.  Not to mention Crazy Pants who kept her room so that it smelled like a diaper.  As well as a garbage disposal that didn’t like things like water.  A washing machine that had a note when we moved in that instructed us not to keep it closed when it wasn’t in use, because there was a known mold problem.  There was also the basement wall that started leaking at the end of last fall and resulted in most of the carpet in the basement being ripped out and the cement floor being painted a speckled flesh tone.  And, then when we started moving stuff out of storage (and the reason why I originally e-mailed one of the property owners in April) we discovered that the rest of the carpet in the basement needed to be ripped out, because there was water damage that we didn’t even know about.

So, the good news is that we received the entire $2,400 back, but I haven’t heard a damned thing about the $600 since the letter supposedly signed by the sister in Hawaii, with a return address to her mother, and accompanied by a check signed by the sister who supposedly moved to California (which was the reason they needed us to deposit the rent directly into their bank account).  The one thing I’m still confused about is why the $2,400 check was for an account in Colorado.

Anyway, I spent all day today drafting a letter that I may or may not actually get to send to them.  Since I have spent the last month biding my time until I could slap them with my big trained to be a lawyer fist, I’ve spent a ridiculous amount of time combing through the Oregon Revised Statutes.  And, assuming that I don’t hear anything from them over the next two days I will get to mail them my strongly worded letter.*  Knowing my luck, I’ll probably get a check for $2.50 and receipts for them paying neighbor Jane $78 per hour to cleanse the chakra’s in the house.

I know everything that we did to clean that house.  A professional carpet cleaner spent the entire day cleaning the rugs, even though they had a dirt runner since we moved in.  A professional cleaning team spent an entire morning cleaning the bathrooms, floors, and whatnot.  And, three of us spent an additional seven and a half hours cleaning that place.  The property owners left it to their 70-something-year-old mother to clean the house alone, and I can promise you that it was cleaner when we left it than it ever was since this particular family bought it.

You know what?  I just feel better having drafted my faux lawyer letter.  I imagine this is similar to the feeling that abuse survivors get when they write letters to their abusers, but never send them.  Okay, abuse survivors have a lot more to deal with than a whole mess of crazy.  At least I ended up with mildly entertaining stories, right?  Well, they might not be “entertaining,” but that’s not going to stop me from telling them!

Sigh.  Now that I’m not a giant ball of anger and anxiety, I don’t know what to do with myself. 

Huh.  I guess I could choose to get offended about the transients who commented on my physical features…  Should I be more upset about the guy who pointed out how large my breasts are, and then followed it up by pointing out that my ass was equally large?  Or, should I be confused by the guy who ignored those prominent assets, and decided to say that he liked my legs?  No, wait, I got it.  I’m going to be upset at the third wino that didn’t have anything to say about me.

Meh.  I think I’m done now.

*Uno Properties

c/o Dos Rentals LLC

attn: Him and Her Owner

d/b/a Tres Properties

123 Fancy Pants Road

Sunny, HI

Via Registered Receipt Mail

Re: Withheld $600 deposit from 2134 Crap Pit Ave., Portland, OR

Mr. and Mrs. Owner:

Uno Properties has failed to return or account for the remaining $600 deposit within the statutorily allotted 31 days.  Therefore this is a written demand for the entire $600.

Oregon Revised Statute 90.300 deals with residential landlord and tenant fees and deposits, specifically security deposits.  ORS 90.100(37) defines a “security deposit” as “a refundable payment or deposit of money, however designated…”  Additionally, ORS 90.300(4) permits a landlord to require an additional deposit to modify a lease to permit pets.  Therefore, what has previously been referred to as a “pet deposit” falls within the scope of ORS 90.300.

Waldvogel v. Jones, 103 P. 3d 124 (Or. App. 2004), elaborates on the other pertinent sections of the statute:

ORS 90.300(2) provides that a landlord may require a tenant to pay a security deposit. ORS 90.300(5) then provides that the landlord may claim from the security deposit amounts reasonably necessary to repair damages to the premises or defray unpaid rent. Upon termination of the tenancy, the landlord is required to refund any unused balance. ORS 90.300(9). The landlord may, however, claim all or part of the remaining balance if, within 31 days after the termination of the tenancy, the landlord provides a written accounting that specifies the bases of the claim. ORS 90.300(10). If the landlord fails to provide such a written accounting within 31 days, "the tenant may recover the money due in an amount equal to twice the amount" of the portion of the deposit wrongfully withheld. ORS 90.300(14).

                                                            

Id. at 125-6.

Delivery of possession occurred by May 31, 2011.  On May 29, 2011, the keys to 2134 Crap Pit Ave., Portland, OR were delivered to the next door neighbor, Jane, who similarly acted as an agent of Uno Properties when she delivered the property keys to the tenants at the beginning of the lease term.  Additionally, Sister Owner was made aware of Jane’s possession of the keys by an e-mail that same day.  Further, the lease term concluded on May 31, 2011.

If Uno Properties does not tender the entire remaining $600 deposit by July 21, 2011, we will pursue all legal remedies available – including but not limited to twice the amount of the deposit allowed under ORS 90.300(14) and attorney fees allowed under ORS 90.255.

Thank you in advance for your help to quickly resolve this matter.

Sincerely,

Me, JD

1426 Not Crap Pit Lane

Portland, OR

Cc: Robyn via veganlady@hoopla.com

Crazy Pants via Crazy@pants.com

Jaimee via MizJ@orvcard.com

Uno Properties, LLC (of Colorado) Registered Agent Sister Owner, PO Box 7854, Some Springs, CO