Hi. Me and my husband rented a house for a year. We reside in Florida and had rented in Florida. We put down a $1050 deposit, $900 being security and $150 being a non-refundable pet deposit. Now here comes the problem. The company only refunded $175 due to "damages" that existed. #1 they charged us for pressure washing the outside of the house. Well it had dead bugs on it but we lived on a lake where blind mosquitos are attracted to light colors and we had just pressure washed it ourselves a month before. #2 they charged us $513 (an estimate receipt was provided to us) to replace carpet in one room they said was destroyed by our dog, which our dog was never allowed in any of the rooms, only the common area so that is a lie, and the carpet in the whole house is over 20 years old which the landlord admitted to. On top of that, they have now rerented the house and never replaced the carpet. Is there anyway I can get my money back for that? Now I am under the impression that the pet deposit would take care of pest spraying and carpet cleaning when we were done. They said the house was infested with fleas and the house never had fleas when we lived there and our little dog was treated with Advantage year round, so I am not sure how that is even possible. We had the rugs shampooed before we left and then waited 2 days to shut off the electric. She did a walk through without us (stupid, I know) but she called and said everything looked great and we would have a check in the mail within a week. Then she called and said it needed to be shampooed again which we agreed to. The shampooer showed up and said there were fleas, so she said they needed pest control. So we agreed to that. She called us back and said the shampooer would be back in a few days and then we would have our check. We were never told about pressure washing the outside of the house nor the carpet yet we were charged almost $600 for that. Please help us with some answers. We would greatly appreciate it. Also it was Coldwell Banker we rented through if that helps.

Thanks
Mike and Tabi

I would file a small claims case against the landlord. The landlord is going to have to prove each of the deductions in court. The non-refundable pet fee (not a deposit because it is not refundable) was to cover damages done by your pet. The landlord is going to have to prove that the damages exceeded the fee.