carpet stains

[Brandon McCombs]

Hello,

I just had a tenant move out after being in my rental unit for about 9 months. The day they had moved in last October was the same day we had new carpet installed in the living room of the house. Carpet upstairs in the bedrooms was quite old but still usable. Upon move out I find that that there is blue paint (about 2"x12" long) on the carpet of the master bedroom and 2 large stains (about 3"x6" each) of unknown origin on the carpet of another bedroom. On the carpet of that 2nd bedroom I also discovered syrup. There were also stains on the *new* carpet in the living room.

The tenants didn't have time to have the carpet cleaners clean before move-out and asked if I could order the carpets cleaned and just take it out of the deposit so I said I could. I hoped all the stains would com out but wasn't holding my breath. In the end, none of the stains came out.

So the question is, in your situation, what would you do as far as penalizing the tenants such as by deducting something from the deposit for the stains (seems to be located in heavy traffic area where kids would be sitting where the couch used to be) on the new carpet and the stains on the old carpet?

I didn't have any intention of buying carpet right now for the bedrooms because it was obviously still functional and, for the most part, still in good condition, but doesn't look good with paint, syrup and other unknown stains now on it. I plan to try using scissors to cut the fibers infused with blue paint in the hopes I can make that area look better. And for the syrup my plan is to use detergent or something on that to help it. The other stains though I suspect just won't get any better. If I can't make any of those look any better then I feel the tenant should be penalized for being irresponsible and damaging my property. Do I have to actually go to the point of buying new carpet in order to legally justify deducting something from their deposit or do you think it would fly to just say "damaged carpet" as a line item and try to calculate some value to it (and if so then how would I calculate it since I wouldn't be replacing it?)

As for the new carpet in the living room, it's Stainmaster carpet and was *new*. Having this type of behavior from the tenants is just unacceptable in my opinion. 

Has anyone encountered similar situations and, if so, how did you handle it?

This is in Ohio by the way. No specific law covers this type of situation.

thank you

[Rob Witt]

If your attorney has no advice, then here is what I would do: sounds like your cleaned the carpet yourself with a wet/dry vacuum for carpets. I would use the rest of the money for a professional to come. They will be able to take out pant and syrup, no problem. This will probably take a few hours and you can't have any wood or metal touch the carpet. or you could spend a few days cutting small fibers out and have a bald spot in the carpet. either way charge them accordingly.

hope this Helps,

R