Paying for damages when you leave your apartment..? (Plus cleaning tips..?)

I am winding down to my last 2 months in my apartment. I’m worried that the *accidental* damages I’ve caused will cause my landlord to make me pay an **exorbitant** amount when I leave.

There aren’t any huge damages–just one where I accidentally dropped a metal pole and **chipped** my flooring (it’s like fake wood..?), and **scratches** on that flooring from when (I didn’t know any better my first year) I was moving around my furniture.

Any experience with paying damage fees? Or any tips/tricks to help keep the fees low? Any cleaning tips would be welcomed, too, for tough spots in the shower room that refuse to get clean no matter what products I use. *Ugh*.

4 comments
  1. In my case, I had to pay for new tatami mats regardless of their condition. It’s just something it was assumed I’d do. If your apartment has tatami mats, expect to replace them.

    Things like scratches, it depends how tightass your landlord is. They might just be ignored, or they might request a repair at your expense.

    Most home centers like Daiki have repair kits for this very thing. It’s like glue or putty that’s the exact same color as your flooring, so you just cosmetically cover them up. Unless you really examine the damaged part, you’d never know anything happened. So things like scratches can be convincingly concealed. That’s what I’d do, if I was worried about getting slapped with a bill. Other than that, just clean what you can as best as you can. My landlords applied a thorough cleaning anyway and charged me for it. The cleaning company charges what they charge regardless of how easy you make their job, so just do what you can.

  2. I was told a story by someone who was in an apartment for about 2 years when they decided to move out into another apartment. This mean that the BoE that was paying the full rent stopped the the JET had to pay for the new apartment fully out of their salary with no assistance.

    They did the inspection upon them moving out and the BoE received images from the property and there were a few small scratches and missing bits and pieces about and they were quoted for around $1500 to fix everything. There was even scratches on the FRONT of the door. Like on the outside where the street was that they look photos of saying this needs fixing. The BoE had to pay but the JET didnt.

    Turns out that noone had done a property inspection on the property in nearly 20 years as no JET had ever left before another look over. The JETs would come and go every few years with no inspections having taken place during those 2 decades. So just make sure that if you are a new JET you take photos the day you move into your apartment and then you have proof that if something happens you can say it had nothing to do with you. Or even ask the BoE to get the real estate company to come and look at the place to do their own inspection before you move in properly. Be careful everyone

  3. My apartment complex has ALTs pay a 160$ professional cleaning fee when they leave.
    Considering the state of my apartment when I moved in, I don’t trust that they actually have it professionally cleaned lol.
    The amount of mold killer I had to use defs wrecked some of the fake wood flooring, we’ll see if I get into trouble for that or not. There was already some damage when I arrived so I took pictures of all that when I moved in, to hopefully avoid getting it blamed on me. Good luck with your place, hopefully they aren’t too harsh! 🙂

  4. I got some wood stain from the home center, mixed two shades and painted over where I ruined the ‘wood’ with reckless cleaning. Can’t tell at all. (Like Â¥600)

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