Tenant Left Junk, should I withhold the Security Deposit

[Jared Baker]

Hello BP,

I inherited a tenant when I purchased my triplex.  Tenant left 1 week ago and left a bunch of "stuff".  Before doing anything I texted the tenant asking when he was going to be out since there was stuff left behind.  He replied and said he was out and that I could "keep" what was there.  Unfortunately the previous owner does not have any of the paperwork for the tenant and whenever I asked the tenant about things he would always say "that was left from the previous person that lived here".  It didn't look like a lot but we ended up have 20 bags of garbage, had to wash the floors and I will have to remove the sink and it took me and my mom about 6 hours to get it all cleaned up.

• 1. I don't believe him when he says that the stuff was already there when he moved in, but even if it was the case, is the tenant still responsible for cleaning everything out of their space?
• 2.  Since I don't have any documentation of the place before he moved in can I withhold anything from the security deposit for the removal of garbage?
• 3. Is it worth it to withhold anything?  Yes I spent a few hours and I have to make a few trips to the city dump(Doesn't cost anything and its a 2 minute drive) but the tenant is difficult and I wouldn't be surprised if he made a big deal about it and wanted to take me to court over it.  If that is the case it is going to become very inconvenient for me as I'm going to have to take days off I don't have.  I bought the place knowing that I need to redo the entire unit and clean things up.

People have told me I need to establish my own policies and should adhere to them.  One of the policies I'm going to enforce is the cleanliness of the place, but should I try to enforce this policy after an inherited tenant left and I never really discussed it with them in the first place?  It will definitely be something that will be gone over with the new tenants but it seems hard to enforce now.