A tenant posted a video saying her apartment is now charging to replace damaged items instead of doing repairs for free.
Brooke Bryant (@brooke.susan) has reached over 402,000 views and 33,000 likes on her video by Thursday.
As Bryant begins her almost two-minute-long video, she says, “Someone tell me if this is legal or not.”
“The reason we all live in apartments is so that we don’t have to pay for things like refrigerators, washer and dryers, repairs, new carpeting, things like that, right?” she continues.
Bryant says that a few days ago, her friends who live directly downstairs from her had a light bulb that needed to be replaced and were charged $5 for it.
She says her friends reached out to management and asked why they had been charged.
According to Bryant, management told her friends, “Actually, we’re starting to charge for a lot of those things now. Let me give you a list of all the things we’re charging for.”
As Bryant shows a photo of the list from management on her screen, she asks viewers, “So you’re telling me that if your washer breaks, you have to pay $700 to buy the building a new washer?”
“No,” she adds. “If I’m buying a new washer, I’m taking it with me to the next place I go.”
Then, Bryant poses a hypothetical question: “If our fridge just breaks down because it’s been in here for 10 years, and all of a sudden it breaks down on us, now we have to pay you guys $800 to replace your fridge that we don’t get to take with us when we leave?”
“No,” she emphasizes.
Next, Bryant says she wishes the audience could see the carpeting in her unit. “They told us they were gonna replace it before we moved in,” she says. “I guess they ran out of time and didn’t replace it, and now, all of a sudden, it costs us money to pay for it.”
“So are they gonna replace it for the next people who move in?” she asks.
“Is this normal? Is this legal?” Bryant continues. She says she thought by renting an apartment, she wouldn’t have to deal with paying for repairs.
“I will admit, some of this stuff makes sense,” Bryant says. “If you lose your keys, you’re gonna have to replace the keys because you lost them.”
Before ending her video, Bryant adds, “It just doesn’t make sense to me. It really doesn’t.”
@brooke.susan corporate greed fr #money #apartment #renting #savings #nomoney #finance #leasing ♬ original sound – Brooke.Bryant
Viewers in the comments section tried to help Bryant figure out some next steps.
“I’ve worked in a leasing office, this is ILLEGAL,” one said.
“LLs can’t make tenants pay for normal wear and tear. The fact they put this in writing is gold. Definitely talk to a lawyer,” another suggested.
Bay Property Management Group (BMG) states, “When addressing the question can landlords make tenants pay for repairs, there are many things to consider. Landlords are responsible for many of the issues that arise, ranging from handling emergency habitability issues to broken down or aging appliances. However, tenants are not off the hook entirely.”
Tenants are responsible for damages as a result of “Guests in the Home, Overloaded Electrical Outlets, Improper Use of Appliances, Not Following Care Instructions for Appliances (Example: Allowing dryer lint to build up), Disabling or Removing Safety Features (such as smoke detectors), Not Disposing of Trash of Debris, Flushing Improper Items in the Toilet, Failing to Notify Landlord of Required Repairs, Refusing Access to Contractors or Repairman and Anything [Damaged] Beyond Normal Wear and Tear.”
The Daily Dot reached out to Bryant via email.
*First Published: Feb 29, 2024, 6:00 pm CST
Grace Fowler
Grace Fowler is a summer reporting and media fellow with the Daily Dot. She’s a recent graduate of Texas State University, where she studied mass communications.
