I’m here to discuss a recent example of a frequent problem among renters, especially Expat renters, which is Landlord Deposit Shenanigans. Here is our story about the Watsons’ Deposit Shenanigans.
My wife, dog, and I moved into one of the Watsons’ rentals in Nassau late July 2021. Signed a contract, paid a pet deposit, landed on the island, then saw our new home for the first time. Pretty great place. The living room downstairs had a rug, three uncomfortable chairs, and an old love seat that was all springs, internally worn but presentable on the outside.
About four months into moving in, we decided to get a new couch, so we could both comfortably sit on something together and watch tv. While discussing this with Debbie, she put forward an idea: she suggested we could have an old couch from their house that was bigger, it was even a sleeper (thankfully, given what happens later). She warned us that the couch was in ill repair, frayed and stained heavily and over two decades old, but bigger and free (so we thought). It was all she described when we saw it, but we were just gonna put a cover on it and live with its appearance.
This was generous, a quality of Debbie and Ansel that persisted throughout our year with them, but the good feels evaporated quickly as soon as we left the island. They WERE great landlords, in fact, and I even felt they were friends. But this generosity and our trust ended up costing us in the long run.
In November the hot water heater busted and flooded half the first floor, soaking the rug and rug sheet. We dried them, but despite promising to do so, the Watsons did not have the rug and floor cleaned. We thought that was no big deal…but it was quite a price once we were made to pay for it with our deposit.
In Jan/February of this year we discovered termites in our spare bedroom. They were flying around and had been there, without a doubt, since before we moved in but had only recently hatched. Ansel said they would wait until the summer, when we’d planned on moving, to fumigate. Given how much we trusted and liked the Watsons, we did not seek rent reduction, despite the fact that it was outlined in our contracts that we could. HUGE MISTAKE. That tattered old sleeper became a valuable piece of furniture for visitors, as we relegated the spare bedroom to storage given the randomly spawning flying termites.
Fast forward to the walkthrough, and Debbie and Ansel saw no signs of damage to the property, they smelled no smells, they noticed nothing and said nothing. Two days later, I flew home expecting $1500 of reimbursement for our deposit.
That was the money left after the last utility bills were paid and did not include the $500 pet deposit, which is rarely returned.
To say my wife is a clean freak would be an understatement. She’s fastidious about cleaning. Every second Sunday was cleaning day. The whole house. Mopping, vacuuming, and tidying. Nobody every noticed any smell when they visited.
Two days after landing in America, Debbie writes to tell me the dog smell is so bad they had to use every cleaner in the book. She explained that we had destroyed TWO couches, the spring-filled love seat and the tattered sleeper, pointing to the very tatters we had seen when they plopped it into my living room. We had sullied the rug (the water heater had, in fact), and we had to REUPHOLSTER an ancient couch. If we’d have known we would need to clean or reupholster two couches because of their ‘generosity’, we would have declined.
Quick aside: The Watsons have a house rabbit that roams freely throughout their house. Their house smells like they have a free-roaming rabbit, and the couch was no different.
These sudden renovations cost us half of what remained of our deposit. Renovations that were contractually the Watsons to bear, but what amounted to just enough money ($750) for them to attain a newly upholstered couch but not enough for us to fight it in court. Pretty smart, petty and greedy as all hell, but smart.
In the end, the moral is to always take pictures and never trust your landlord. We feel lucky we received anything back at this point, but mostly we feel disappointed, powerless, and sad that Christians with so much would lie and act unethically for so little.
TL;DR - Trusted landlord, switched couches for an already tattered, rabbit pellet stained couch, had to eventually pay for flood damage, clean both couches and reupholster the worst of the two. Don’t trust a nice landlord…
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