My question involves landlord-tenant law in the State of: Indiana
We paid $1,000.00 for a pet deposit and one month’s rent as a deposit. We did everything that the landlord requested and we did not get our full deposit back. I want to know what our landlord can legally keep of our deposit and if we have any recourse. We were not under a lease as we stayed in our rental unit for two and a half years. We were only under contract for the 1st year and then rented month-to-month after that.
Before we moved out we painted and repaired holes in the walls. We had two cleaning companies come and clean the place. We had a carpet cleaner come and clean and deodorize the carpets. The landlord walked around the place and he agreed everything looked fine. We signed paperwork confirming the same. He even went back the next day and checked everything in the daylight and said that everything looked good except for the some grout, which we ended up cleaning to his satisfaction, and he confirmed we would be getting our full deposit back.
Fast forward four days after the walk-through and a new tenant moves into the rental unit. They complain about a strange smell in the master bedroom and the landlord calls to tell us he will be having the carpets cleaned again to see if he can get rid of whatever smell was there. He did not mention that we would be responsible for the cleaning bill, as we previously had a company clean the carpets and they had a guarantee so he could have had them come clean them at no charge to us. We thought he was doing this on his dime in order to keep his new tennants. He said that he did not smell anything, but that he admits that he does not have the best nose. This resulted in a $300.00 expense he deducted from our deposit. Even thought the smell was only in the master bedroom, he paid to have the ENTIRE place cleaned again, which we do not think we should be reponsible for.
After the cleaning the landlord decided that the carpets in the master bedroom could not be salvaged, as he said the pet smell remained, and he replaced not only the master bedroom carpet, but the carpet on the stairs. He charged us 100% of the carpet replacement cost even though we had lived there for two and a half years and the carpet was installed in three months prior to us moving in. The carpet was 2 years 8 months old.
My questions are:
If we have a signed contract and a email/text from him saying that everything is fine and we would be getting our deposit back, can he come back and charge us for something?
If he can come back and charge us even though we have proof of the above.............
Do we owe for a carpet cleaning if we already paid to have the carpets cleaned? If we owe, do we owe to have the ENTIRE place clean even though he said the smell was coming from the master bedroom?
Do we owe for 100% of the new carpet even though is was 2 years 8 months old? Shouldn't it be pro-rated?
If the carpet is supposed to be pro-rated what is the life-expectancy of rental carpet? The landlord says that he put in high quality carpet that had a ten year life expectancy, is this ten year life expectancy in a rental unit reasonable?
Do we owe for the replcement cost of the new carpet or the cost of the previous carpet that he had installed? Previous carpet in the rental unit supposedly was higher quality than the builder grade carpet he just had installed.
Is there any recourse to recover the cost of improvements that we did to the place? We put in a new shower curtain rod as the existing one was too short and kept falling, a new shelf track in a 14 year old fridge that broke, and a new toilet seat. We also bought paint that technically the landlord should have bought. During our stay there the roof leaked and there was a water damaged area, which was repaired, but it needed to be painted. We bought the paint though and repaired areas that we damaged and even painted the water damaged areas. All in all we spent approximately $140.00 for items that we feel the landlord should have covered, but because we did not want to rock the boat so we could get our deductible back, we paid for these items.
Off topic, but still a landlord tenant issue, if we rented the unit with all appliances, but during the last month of us living there the dryer was literally out of commission for three of the four weeks, is it unreasonable to expect a credit on the rent? The dryer being out resulted in a MAJOR inconvenience to our family.
Thanks for your help!

