Hello, I have an issue with an apartment complex in College Station, Texas that is charging me for what I feel are unjustified moveout charges and was told that this forum is generally very knowledgeable with this type of situation.
I moved out of my apartment complex August 15th and just received my final statement which included a charge of $130 for "cleaning". I have a major issue with this because I feel as though absolutely no additional cleaning needed to be done, and certainly not $130 worth of cleaning. Before I moved out I was required to have the carpets profesionally cleaned so I know that the complex did not have to clean the carpets. I also thoroughly cleaned and took photos of each room and all appliances to prove that they were clean and in good working order as well as had a walkthrough done right before I turned in my key just to make sure I hadn't missed anything (the manager said during the walkthrough that everything looked great). The only thing that I can think of that may have caused the unit to get dirty is that I also had to pay for de-fleaing which was performed by a company the complex hired days after I had already moved out, so I don't feel as though I can be charged if this company did get the unit dirty. My friend who also lived in the comlex was billed the same $130 for the unit she was in (I don't know the condition she left it in, she says it was clean) so I feel like they may just be billing each unit $130 for "cleaning".
So my question is this, how shoud I go about disputing these charges? Are apartment complexes required to provide an itemized list of what actually needed cleaning? If they paid an outside service are they required to show proof of that? What I was thinking of doing was going and requesting a list of everything that needed cleaning and then letting them know that I had photos to prove that those items did not need to be cleaned, does that seem like a good idea? Any other advice would be very much appreciated.
I moved out of my apartment complex August 15th and just received my final statement which included a charge of $130 for "cleaning". I have a major issue with this because I feel as though absolutely no additional cleaning needed to be done, and certainly not $130 worth of cleaning. Before I moved out I was required to have the carpets profesionally cleaned so I know that the complex did not have to clean the carpets. I also thoroughly cleaned and took photos of each room and all appliances to prove that they were clean and in good working order as well as had a walkthrough done right before I turned in my key just to make sure I hadn't missed anything (the manager said during the walkthrough that everything looked great). The only thing that I can think of that may have caused the unit to get dirty is that I also had to pay for de-fleaing which was performed by a company the complex hired days after I had already moved out, so I don't feel as though I can be charged if this company did get the unit dirty. My friend who also lived in the comlex was billed the same $130 for the unit she was in (I don't know the condition she left it in, she says it was clean) so I feel like they may just be billing each unit $130 for "cleaning".
So my question is this, how shoud I go about disputing these charges? Are apartment complexes required to provide an itemized list of what actually needed cleaning? If they paid an outside service are they required to show proof of that? What I was thinking of doing was going and requesting a list of everything that needed cleaning and then letting them know that I had photos to prove that those items did not need to be cleaned, does that seem like a good idea? Any other advice would be very much appreciated.
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