Remember my last journal entry? the one about moving out of my old place? Surprise! My deposit disappeared VERY quickly when they sent me a 990 dollar bill for damages. To make it even more laughable, they didn't actually send me anything other than a letter saying that I needed to pay them 990 dollars or else. Seriously. They claimed that they had to replace the carpet. There is no way in, well, you know, that that carpet, which at moveout was only a year old, needed REPLACED. Yes, I had cats, and yes, there were a few places that didn't look brand-new because of it, but there was nothing wrong with that carpet.

They are also charging me to replace the mattress and box spring in the apartment. My thoughts on that is: wait, are you telling me that you expect people to re-use someone else's mattress year after year? That's gross!

Even better: their letter claimed that there was 'cat feces on the walls.' OK, first thing: I WANT my deposit back. Why in the name of God's green earth would I do something as gross as leave cat poop on the walls? Second: the walls were so crappily painted to begin with that scrubbing them with anything stronger than a wet sponge took the paint OFF. I'm totally serious. And now because of it, they are also charging me to repaint THE ENTIRE APARTMENT.

If you hadn't figured it out by now, this is how they make their money.

Tell everyone you know NOT to sign a lease with University Village apartments in Charleston IL; they'll rip you off.