crazy apartement owner? can she do this????

[mienke]

email from apartment owner: (my emotional response in red) _ please keep in mind this is a 40m2 STUDIO apartment. so except for the absurdness of their sudden request/order!

Here is the detail of the expenses:

Cleaning lady ARS 300 (what is a standard day rate?)
Cleaning products ARS 200 (can you please supply a list and prices of the cleaning products that you had too buy... what could possibly cost this much)
Stool repair ARS 100 (we did try fix it, but will be more than happy to pay for the repair of the chair)
Laundry ARS 200 (where did you do the laundry? all the places I have used have been $17 per load. SO where could you possibly have paid ARS 200 for stuff that had been washed the day before?)

Total: ARS 800

On the same day you left a new tenant offered to rent the apartment for 15 days, starting January 19. Since the apartment was in terrible condition, he could not check-in. The cleaning lady was only available the next day, and it took her 3 working days (Jan 19, 20 and 23) to leave the apartment in decent condition for the new tenant.

So this meant five days of lost rent for us. If the apartment had been left in the same condition and repair as when delivered, we wouldn´t have lost those days, which meant ARS 690.

So we rounded up the amount (cleaning/repair expenses + lost rent) to USD 300.

​

Ok, so it is a complicates situation, whereby we have moved out of our apartment temporarily while visiting back home for a month. BUt with the understanding that we get the apartment back on our return for a few more months. We had too leave a security deposit to assure that we would be coming back too.
As is we are still on the original contract and they still have our deposit for the apartment... we are VERY nervous.

Our temp rent apartment was left in a GOOD condition. all the bedding was freshly washed and only the last towel we had used that morning was hanging in the bathroom.


ADVICE PLEASE?????????

 

[El chabon]

Tell her you are going to report her to AFIP if you dont get your FULL deposit back

 

[YanquiGallego]

She can do whatever she wants to do, especially when she already has you ¨con las manos en la masa¨ That's why NEVER EVER give anybody any money up front unless you are absolutely certain of both the person (hard to do, I know) and the overall ¨deal¨ I'm currently looking for a new place and being quite scrutinizing to the point of even being willing to pay more on a renewable month to month basis than have to fork over a deposit which I'm quite certain I will not see again.

 

[YanquiGallego]

How long was the duration of your rent for this amount of expenses? Who was the cleaning person- MR BELVEDERE?

 

[TheBlackHand]

This is your opinion. The property owner obviously has a different opinion.

Our temp rent apartment was left in a GOOD condition.

You have two realistic options, take her to court or negotiate.

I personally think the property owner charging you " lost rent " is pretty ridiculous. Unless you really really trashed the place but even then all they should really charge you is the damages.

I think at the most you should be liable for 1 day of cleaning ( it looks like shes charging you 3 days of cleaning ) and the broken stool. Again all this is speculation since I don't personally know you, the owner and I have not seen the apartment before or after you rented it. You are obviously upset and it also sounds like the property owner was not too happy with how you left her property.

Good luck.

 

[TheBlackHand]

Three days of cleaning at 4 hours each day at 25 pesos an hour isn't exactly Mr Belvedere money but it still sounds ridiculously excessive, especially for a studio. But then again I didn't see how they left the apartment.

How long was the duration of your rent for this amount of expenses? Who was the cleaning person- MR BELVEDERE?

 

[mienke]

apartment was left in great condition. yes, probably needed a few things before it could be rented to someone else, ie, a few of the dishclothes were wet from finishing the dishes that morning, and making the bed again.

As it is a furnished apartment along with towels and bedding I thought it would be decent too wash all the bedding and all the towels (-1 that we used the last day)

It is exactly this bedding that the owner is saying she had to wash for ARS 200.
And as for cleaning, I spent the whole morning vacuuming and mopping up the place. Even put out some of the nice smelling candle shop things.

All the bedding was left neatly folded on the bed, all the dishes washed.

The stuff they are saying makes it sound like we had crazy parties in there, vomit on the pillows and diarrhea in the unused bidet.


So nothing we can do????

 

[KarlaBA]

As i see it you have a few options. The least stressful is to just forget about it and pay.
The most stressful option is to fight back. To fight back you might consider how you can get leverage. I don't think you should talk much about your strategy on this forum; assume your adversary is reading it as well.

 

[mienke]

all of what she is saying is crazy lies. But how do we prove this?? place was as spotless as it can be when you are packing and cleaning at the same time.

is it a case of her word against ours?

Stupid cow, I even made sure all her plants were watered and thriving, looked 10 times better on the balcony than when we arrived.

 

[sesamosinsal]

So, you never finalized the first contract? For how long is/was the contract? Was there a check-out process when you left?