A mother whose daughter goes to Quinnipiac University reached out to NBC Connecticut Responds after the student’s landlord charged thousands of dollars’ worth of damage, despite photos that suggest otherwise.
Leslie Nolan took the photos when she moved her daughter in to her off-campus Hamden house August 2015.
"(The pictures were) more of the dirt and grime that I had to clean," said Nolan. "I was a little upset over that."
Little did she know, her daughter and her daughter’s roommates would need that documentation just a few months later. Concerned over what they say they heard from other tenants, in a December 2015 email, one of the roommates questioned their property management group, Southington’s Uhouz, over whether they’d get their $5,600 security deposit back.
In the email, she wrote, "Lately we have heard of various incidents from different tenants saying that their security deposits were never returned to them."
"They kind of started getting nervous," said Nolan. "They wanted to be proactive."
The roommates also asked for photos of their move-in day from Uhouz’s perspective. A company representative emailed back saying, "The house looks better now than when you moved in."
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She then offered that the students attend the final inspection.
But Nolan said they never got to walk through the house with their landlord, and when it came time to move out, the girls were hit with a $3,300 deposit fee—much of which they could prove was damaged before they moved in.
The charges include $75 to clean the bathroom, $250 for scratches on the wall, and $1,000 for worn down floors.
When they brought their concerns to the landlord, Uhouz’s Mat Florian, he cut the cost down to $2,349. However that still didn’t add up.
"Clearly there was some dishonesty with our report," said Nolan. "We didn’t get any explanations for how this happened."
The NBC Connecticut Responds consumer team reached out to Florian. He did not want to go on camera, never explained how he got the the $2,349 figure, and wouldn’t comment on the other allegations his tenants had mentioned.
In an email, he wrote, "It’s discouraging to have a case like this after all the efforts we have put forth, not only in the lease term, but this matter as well. They are aware our doors are open."
Two weeks later, the Nolans met with Florian in person. There, for reasons that the family still can’t quite understand, Florian decided he would cut the charge to just $300.
"We are tired," said Nolan. "Tired of fighting the fight… we just never want to deal with this ever again."
