Would you hold back the tenant's pet deposit for carpet?

[Sarah Young]

I just recently switched over tenants in my manufactured home out of state. The old tenant was good, and left the place in decent shape. Then only thing is that the carpets, which area bout 5 years old, are in such disrepair....tearing at the edges, etc. I had a carpet guy go out to stretch it and re-staple it down, but he said it is too worn to even be stretched. The tenant had two big dogs (which I made an exception for, and she gave me a $1,000 pet deposit on top of her regular deposit to cover extra issues they might cause). 

The new tenant is texting me pictures, showing me how horrible the carpet is, which I did not know it was that bad. I have a friend who does my turnovers for me, and to her it was just "normal wear and tear", but two people in one year...I just don't know if that is normal wear and tear? Would you hold back the pet deposit to cover the carpet replacement that I now need to do? I'm sure the carpet would have been coming up for replacement sometime soon, but now it is in disrepair, and I just feel like her dogs did more damage to it than she wants to admit. Do I have any recourse to hold back the pet deposit?

[Jeff Brower]

Carpet has a 5-7 year useful life in my opinion. So you were probably going to have to replace them soon anyways, like you said. I would split the difference. Send old tenant pictures that the new tenant sent you, you can be the 'nice guy' and offer to split it with her. Have you received a quote for new carpet?