Collecting Maintenance Charges

[Jamie Hoth]

I am looking for help on ways other landlords collect charges for Maintenance issues caused by tenants. We do have these items spelled out in our lease and the lease was created with the help of our attorney who specializing in real estate. I am specifically talking about things that happen during the lease time while the tenant is occupying the property such as broken windows, door locks, toilet/drain clogged etc. All of these items would 100% be the responsibility of the tenant per our lease. The tenant reports these needs we make the repairs in house (we self manage) or send contractors depending on the situation and then cover all of the cost upfront. We do have a separate sheet along with our lease that is signed at move in just describing basic common charges for these items blinds/broken glass/ drain issues etc. The problem we are trying to figure out is most of the time the tenants refuse to pay these charges and most say to "Take it out of my deposit" this of course is against what is in the signed lease. When its a $150 bill from a drain service it puts us in the bad spot. We don't want to wait to get reimbursed for the expenses which were not general maintenance but caused by the occupants. We also don't want to loose a portion of a paid deposit which is almost always completely used up with the repairs due to move out condition. We really are in need of a practical way to enforce and collect small fees that are fair and agreed upon at move in. I have looked through the forums and got some information but was not able to find a lot on this specific kind of question. Any thoughts or practices others have would be appreciated. 

Thanks