Hello, I am a new landlord in the state of Mass, I close on my new mortgage on May 30th, 2006 and I already new one of the tenants was leaving as of June 30th, 2006. Now the problem is that she didn't physically leave the apt. until July 2nd, and she left a whole bunch of personal property and trash behind and said she would be back the next day to pick up everything, she didn't end up showing up until July 22nd, and I had to end up taking out approximately 13 contractors bags of trash and bring them to a dumpster. My question is can I deduct rent from her security deposit to cover rent from July 1 to July 22 even though she wasn't living there, it was just most of her stuff left behind. The thing is that I had to wait for her in order to start making repairs to the apt. so I could move in.

