All Forum Posts by: Marc Estepa

@Mary Mitchell yeah, I’m going to talk to my carpet cleaner about high powered fans as well. He didn’t have them during the initial cleaning. My wife wants to continue fighting, and I’m just about done arguing and going around in circles with the LL and his emotional wife.

@Todd Pultz appreciate it brother!

@Kimberly Moore. Exactly. She sent her family members as delegates to conduct the walkthru. Of course, I can only assume her sister was briefed to look specifically for smells. I’m biased because I was slaving away cleaning the week leading up to it and smelling nothing but cleaning supplies. Anyway, don’t get me started - I’m not there to fight on my behalf and defend myself so I’m just frustrated.

@Mary M., you are right and I appreciate the support forreal.  This whole situation is pissing me off and it’s incredibly draining.  If I hadn’t moved of island, I would take this as far as possible.  I feel like he’s got me by the balls right now and I hate it.  I’m a LL too, and I save 10% of my rental income toward capital expenditures.  Carpet will have to be replaced eventually.  He doesn’t even know what that means.  I’m getting taken advantage of and I know it but I simply don’t have the time and it’s killing me.  

@Mike Cumbie, you clearly know this life.  I’m two years out from retirement and can’t wait.  This will be my 13th move and it never gets easier.  We put a lot into taking care of this house, so this is super frustrating.  I know if we took this to court I’d win, but the amount of time and effort it is going to take to get my deposit back is going to break me off.  I hate the thought of even making an offer to settle this because my pride is messing with me and it feels like I’m admitting defeat or something.  But I am just straight up tired and I need to move forward.  Ugh.

@Colin Reid, its incredibly frustrating.  I need to move on, and I need to focus my energy on finding a proper place to live.  This move has been killing me as it is, and I can’t keep moving forward with one foot stuck in the mud and fighting.  In the 4 years we were there, we professionally cleaned the carpet once a year.  I did a deodorizing spray hoping to kill it, and now I’m about to spend $600+ to do it again.  

The LL has already stated he needs to replace the carpet due to his wife’s allergies and thinks we should split the cost, because he agreed to allowing dogs to begin with and simply because our dogs are large.  Don’t see how this is completely on us, as the carpet is old and there were other tenants prior to us with dogs themselves.  Just pissed all around.

@Todd Pultz, no offense taken man.  I’m pretty thick skinned.  Those are the kind of Comments I’m looking for from the outside because it’s hard to see the bigger picture when you’re all in it.  If I’m wrong, I’ll admit it - but sometimes just need help seeing it.  

We’re landlords too and we didn’t want to be those kind of tenants beating up the landlord over petty **** we can manage ourselves.  It’s annoying.  In the beginning we even hammered down most of the nail pops because it was starting to really piss everyone off.  We figured it was old carpet and was just something we could deal with.  

By all means, tell me if there’s something I don’t see.  I want to be fair to the landlord, but I also want him to be reasonable in his expectations.  I definitely don’t think he’s a bad guy necessarily but maybe uninformed on what he can hold the tenant liable for within reason.  This is just frustrating all around.  

@Todd Pultz - looking at your statement more, maybe I was a bit exagerrated.  Did we contact the owner each and everytime we stepped on a nail or staple in the carpet?  No, that would be too much. We noted it when we moved in and noted it more and more as we would get minor injuries. I wouldn’t be petty and call them everytime I lost a sock or snagged my pants on the exposed staples or nails - that’s just unreasonable.  

It did happen enough that we had to mention it a few times, but it wasn’t an emergency to be fixed immediately.  We just informed him that it was an issue here and there but we simply knew where they were and walked around them.  

One of the main times in particular was when my daughter snagged her foot pretty good on a rusty nail  and started bleeding.  My wife has had enough and contacted them to let them know how significant the nail pops and staples were because she was concerned with Tetanus.  During that conversation we were having various issues with something else and informed him.  The owner brought out a plumber for our issue and asked the plumber to also look at the carpet.  Obviously this is not the plumber’s lane.  We let the owner know, but nothing came out of it and we just noted the area once again and walked around it.  

So no, it’s not an everyday occurrence that we contacted him about various nail pops, and staples - but it is no secret either and has been documented.  My point is that the carpet has been an issue for a little bit and I highly doubt was brand new upon us receiving the home. 

We showed pictures to the owner’s delegate from our initial walkthru and physically pointed them out to her again during the final walkthru as well.  

@Alexandre Marques dos Santos, yeah it’s complex.  Both the owner and I are Army - so that old school mentality is the way we’re brought up.  “Bring it back the way it was received or better.”  But yes, that’s not realistic with rental properties and I know that.

As for the air ducts, we change our filters regularly and changed this one in Early July.  I don’t know about the air ducts.

I do believe it’s the carpets or the foam padding underneath.  Like I said, we have professionally had the carpet cleaned once a year leading up to this and its never smelled bad.  Part of it is we kept it aired out until it dried. 
 
This time around, there is absolutely no furniture in the house and the carpet cleaner deep cleaned everything.  I was present in the house as it was being done, because I was supervising and also touching up with cleaning myself.  

The issue is the environment.  Hawaii homes are expensive, but many are built cheap.  The homes in our neighborhood are easily 1 million dollars but lightly insulated, if at all.

 It is humid and hot during the summer, and the home can reach up to 90 degrees if the AC is not on, or the windows open to let the island breeze cool it off. 

Knowing this, if you have damp carpet and close up the house during the summer with the indoor temperature of the house reaching the mid 80s, it will absolutely create a bad environment for the damp carpet.  It needs proper airflow to dry.  

We’ve decided to deep clean again, that’s only fair.  If he needs to replace it, I can understand contributing some of the costs, but definitely not all of it.  That carpet was there before our time.  I can’t vouch for its care before us, as it was already damaged when we received it.  

@Todd Pultz, thanks for the words of support.  In all fairness to the owner, yes the home is nice and in a very desirable part of Oahu. The landlords have been doing this for some time but you can tell are pretty inexperienced as they do it themselves.  We have struggled at times to get people out there to do various repairs.  

As to what you are saying with regards to the nail pops and staples, what are you assuming?  Do tell. I’ve shared everything that’s happened thus far and trying to make it right within reason, just trying to find a proper way out of this fairly but without using our deposit to fund his carpet remodel.