My landlord has a illegal basement apartment in a two family home in Nassau County in NY. We lived for three years in the legal main floor. We just moved out and he wants to charge me to replace a carpet for 2 small stains that may not come out on cleaning. Can he charge me the cost of the carpet? The reason we had to move was because of the terrible neighbors who moved into the illegal basement apartment. Can we threaten to report him to the county for the illegal apartment?

You don't have to threaten him about reporting him, you can just report him. If he decides to charge you for a new carpet you can take him to small claims court and let the judge determine if this is chargeable due to a stain. Do you have photos of this carpeting showing normal wear and tear or is the carpeting in really sad, bad shape and would need repaired/cleaned/replaced anyway? What stained the carpet? Do you know? How does he know the stains won't come out, is he guessing or what?

How do you know its an illegal apartment? Did you check for COs?

If you threaten to report it if he charges you for the carpet then he can report you for blackmail. Whether he is illegally renting the basement or not, has absolutely nothing to do with you. So, you decide to report it or not, but don't make threats.

You wait until he returns your deposit or a statement of how it was used. Then if there are any charges you dispute you take him to court. But I suspect he will have a carpet professional to testify that replacement was needed.

Threatening to report him is crime, blackmail, and he can have 100 illegal apartments, those do not apply to you, since yours was legal one.

The issue here is the carpet, he will clean it, but if you caused stain that can not be cleaned, then the carpet will need to be replaced and he can charge you for it.