My landlord tried to charge me for a stain on a different floor

The first time I noticed the charge, I was sitting in my car outside the Shop-N-Save on Route 9, eating a gas station hot dog and checking my bank balance on my phone. It was a Tuesday. I remember because Tuesdays were when my ex-husband had the kids, and I always did the grocery run alone.

There it was. $89.00. “Harborview Property Mgmt – Maint Fee.”

I stared at it for a second. I’d lived in that apartment for six years, and my rent was $1,150, due on the first, auto-drafted. There was no maintenance fee. Never had been.

I called the office from the parking lot. A woman named Darlene answered. She had that voice, the one that sounds like she’s smiling while she tells you no.

“That’s for the hallway carpet cleaning,” she said. “Third floor. There was a stain.”

“I’m on the second floor,” I said.

“Well, the invoice says third floor hallway, unit 3B area. Your account was billed.”

“I’m in 2A.”

She paused. I heard her clicking a pen. “I can put in a work order for the bookkeeper to look at it.”

“Can you just reverse it? It’s not my charge.”

“I don’t have that authority, hon. You’ll have to wait for Cheryl. She’s in on Thursdays.”

I sat there with the hot dog getting cold on the wrapper. Eighty-nine dollars. That was my electric bill. That was two tanks of gas. I was a medical receptionist at a podiatry office. I made $17.40 an hour. Every dollar had a name.

Thursday came. I called. Cheryl was in a meeting. Friday, I called again. Cheryl said she’d look into it. Monday, I went down there in person, on my lunch break, still in my scrubs.

The office smelled like plug-in air freshener and old carpet. Cheryl was behind the desk, maybe fifty-five, with reading glasses on a chain and a stack of papers she kept straightening.

“I see the note here,” she said. “But the charge was applied because the stain was outside your door.”

“My door is on the second floor.”

“The invoice says third floor.”

“Then why am I paying it?”

She looked at me over her glasses. “Because the tenant on the third floor moved out in June. And the stain was reported in May. So it goes back to the unit below.”

I just stood there. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“It’s in your lease. Common area damage is billed to the nearest active tenant.”

I went home and read my lease. It said nothing about carpet stains or nearest active tenant. It said tenant is responsible for damage caused by tenant or guests. That’s it.

I called my sister, Renee, who’s a paralegal in Albany. She told me to send a certified letter disputing the charge and to keep every receipt and every note. So I did. I wrote a letter. I mailed it. I waited.

Two weeks later, I got a notice on my door. Late fee. $25. For nonpayment of the maintenance fee.

I called Cheryl. “I’m not paying a fee I don’t owe.”

“Then it’ll go to collections,” she said. “That’s policy.”

I hung up and just sat on my couch. The ceiling had a water stain from the bathroom above me that they’d never fixed. I’d called about that three times. Now they wanted $89 for a carpet stain I never saw.

I started keeping a folder. I printed my lease. I printed my bank statements. I took a picture of the hallway on my floor, clean beige carpet, no stain. I wrote down every phone call, every name, every time I was told “Cheryl’s not in” or “Darlene handles that.”

Then I did something I’d never done before. I called the state attorney general’s office. Just to ask. The woman on the phone listened and said, “You can file a complaint online. It’s free.”

So I did. I uploaded my lease, my letter, the late fee notice, the photo of my hallway. I typed out the whole story in a little box on the website. It took me an hour. I didn’t expect anything.

Three weeks later, I got a letter from the property management company. Not from Cheryl. From a regional manager named Marcus. The letter said the charge had been “removed in error” and my account had been credited $114, which was the $89 plus the late fee. It said they “regret any inconvenience.”

No apology. No explanation. Just a form letter with a signature stamp.

But the money was back in my account. I checked it twice. $114.00. I sat at my kitchen table and just looked at the number for a minute.

I still live there. The ceiling stain is still there too. But I don’t call about it anymore. I just take pictures every few months and save them in the folder, just in case.