Any landlords on chorus? Looking for some advice

I just recently moved out of an apartment and the landlord is being a major pain in the ass. On the day of the walkthrough, she showed up without her keys and we were not able to walk through the place with her. Now she hit us with a $200 charge for "Cleaning and repairs". The pictures basically include pictures of a dirty (using that word loosely) fridge and some boxes left under the sink. She also says we didn't shampoo the carpets but there were no stains.

The second thing is that before we moved out, the neighbor living under us rewired his garage to use the electricity from our apartment causing our electricity to sky rocket. Peco noticed the change in wattage and sent out a electrician to then find out what our neighbor had done. Peco then took the bill out of my roommates name and changed it into the name of our landlord since we shouldn't be paying for his wattage. Our landlord charged us full price for the last two months of the peco bill, took it out of our deposit, and is saying she'll send us a refund after she figures out what our actual usage was. MY thought is that it's not really our problem and we shouldn't have to wait around until she settles a dispute with PECO.

Also, in the state of Pennsylvania you have to do send the deposit within 30 days of the move out date. She sent us the deposit after the 30th days based on when she dated the letter.

Any thoughts?

 

I'm not a landlord, but my father rented properties for decades, so I got some advice from him when I had a similar thing happen to me a couple years ago. The landlord said that we "destroyed" the place and that he was keeping our entire $1000 deposit PLUS he wanted me to pay an additional $300

First, he had miscalculated the total and added in some of the numbers multiple times, so I sent him a letter pointing out the miscalculation and also disputing certain charges and what I thought was a reasonable amount to charge for cleaning/repairs. I (in so many words) threatened to take legal action if he did not refund me the portion of the deposit that I felt I was owed and had outlined in the letter. He wound up just sending me a check back and cutting his loses.

Most (shitty) landlords know that they already have your deposit and that you will have to do the work to get it back. They are counting on you just saying "fuck it" and then they get to keep your money. If you let them know that you're not going to just let them take your money and that you are going to be a thorn in their side until you come to a fair resolution, they are forced to do something. Unless you really left the place dirty/damaged, it's not worth it for a landlord to go to court. They probably just rather come to a solution with you and be done with it.

Just my 2 cents.

tl;dr
If you can't get your landlord to be reasonable and come to a solution you can both agree on, threaten to sue them for your deposit.

 

This sounds like a job for the honorable Judge Judy. Seriously.

 

He said he needed a landlord not a shitlord Dan