Tenant moved out early

[Karen W.]

Hi everyone, I'm in a situation I'm not sure how to handle. If anyone has any insight, any advice would be appreciated.  

My renter suddenly needed to move out because of family reasons with 1 week notice and very early termination of a 1 year contract. Because it seemed like he was having a rough time, I told him I would not hold the early termination against him. Instead, I would do my best to rent out the property asap so that if the house was left in good condition and there was no gap between his last payment and the new renter's first payment, I would refund all of his security deposit. 

Issue is that he left the house somewhat dirty. There's a lot of debris on the floor including muddy foot prints all over the living room. I need to hire a maid to clean up the place. In addition, he shut the water and electricity off. In his defense, he did tell me he was physically out of the house about 3 days before everything was actually shut down, but he paid for the whole month so it didn't occur to me that he would have shut all of that off without saying anything to me. Therefore in all this confusion, now I can't show the house until everything is back up and the house is cleaned (house is dark, hot, and dirty right now), and I need to get someone out to reactivate the water and electricity. Can I deduct the cost of the maid and the additional cost of having everything turned on from his security deposit, in addition to lost rent until the next renter moves in? Is this too much? Thanks!

[Craig Curelop]

@Karen W. - You are too nice :). Did you sign something saying that you would refund his security deposit in full? 

If not, you could say, "I thought you were going to leave the house in rentable condition. Because I need to clean the place and do all of these things, I will have to deduct the cost from your security deposit." 

Hope this helps!