When a person rents anything, be it a vehicle or a house, there is a certain expectation that one will, at the end of the rent period, return whatever was rented in the condition before it was rented minus normal usage.
I remember when I was first married and rented an apartment. The land lady looked us over and said, “You two look like decent people, so I won’t charge you a deposit.” Three years later, we moved away to go to graduate school. Our landlord and landlady were on vacation, so we made arrangements to sell the draperies we had purchased to the next tenant if she wanted them. When we returned to town and I went to see the landlady, the tenant did want the draperies, but the landlady wrote a check for much more than what we had asked for the draperies. When I pointed that out, she said that the amount included my deposit. When I reminded her that she hadn’t charged me a deposit, she said “Young man, everybody who rents from us pays a deposit. Don’t argue with me”. We did leave the apartment spotless.
On the other hand, when we moved into married student housing at the university we attended for graduate school, the apartment was filthy. We worked for a week to clean it up. When we moved out two years later, we were given a cleaning kit and strict instructions as to how we were to clean the apartment. Many of the people on our floor just forfeited the deposit ($25), but I decided I wanted my deposit. We were even instructed to remove the air vent intakes and reach in and clean them as far as we could reach. The kit included sponges, two screw drivers, a putty knife and some other supplies. When the student manager came to check us out, he literally took a magnifying glass and inspected the inside of the oven. Under the magnifying glass he said he saw grease flecks. I had used oven cleaner and elbow grease and said that if I scraped the grease flecks that he thought he saw it would damage the finish inside the oven. He docked me 2 hours labor @ $2.50 per hour that he said it would take to “properly” clean the oven. He then asked about the screwdrivers. I had inadvertently packed them in the truck I had rented. He told me to go unpack the truck or pay $1 per screwdriver. I bought the screwdrivers. He then said he had gotten me for everything he could and asked me to initial the checkout form. I told him that I wanted him to initial it as well. After he initialed it, I said “Let me now tell you something. You overlooked the putty knife that was in the kit. It’s too late now”. You would have thought I stole $1 million dollars. I still have that putty knife 43 years later. Since I am now retired, if the university wants to retract my degree if I don’t return the putty knife, I’ll keep the putty knife.
Back to automobiles–the university where my wife and I had our careers has a charge-back system from the motor pool to the departments. When my wife’s office hired a recruiter so that my wife wouldn’t have to be on the road, the new person left the inside of a university vehicle trashed. The department was charged for the extra cleanup and the new person was told if it occurred again, she would be out of a job.
