Loathsome landlord

Argh.

I felt this great relief when I left my prior apartment for the last time. I remember saying to my father, "I can't believe the final inspection went off so easily!"

Apparently I spoke too soon.

As you may remember, I had a few difficulties with my building manager and my building owner while I was vacating, including the manager showing the suite with no notice (it's always lovely to meet new people while you are cleaning the stove) and the owner trying to charge me for a paint job I never did.

While I was going through the process of vacating the place, I had a sense that they were going to be nitpicky, so I pretty much scrubbed the house spotless. I spent 5 hours cleaning my stove, filled in countless holes in the wall that were from the last tenants, and even cleaned beneath my fridge and stove, which I guarantee had never been done by the past several owners. I did everything on the checklist my manager had given me-- and I am a clean person-- I have never not received my damage deposit back in full before. I even had my sister and dad, who happened to be in town, help me clean the morning I was leaving.

In short- the apartment was bloody clean!

My building manager, who oddly turns on the charm when other people are around, does the walk-through. She's says its really clean, but claims they will have do to an hour or two of tidying. As it is only $10 an hour, I figure it's not worth disputing, and sign for that.

Today, I get back my damage deposit in the mail... or what's left of it.

They claimed to have spent an extra 9 hours cleaning my apartment!

Let's get this straight:
#1- It was CLEAN! The manager actually complemented me on it!
#2- After I left, they were painting the walls, replacing all the carpet, flooring, and fixtures, and recaulking and possibly regrouting the tub. How could they have had to clean for 9 hours when they were ripping the entire place up anyways?
#3- I have on my signed form that the bathtub is in good shape. I also overheard the manager tell potential tenants that they were going to have to re-do the bathtub because of the stains and such... it's a really old building, and the tub had mildew on it since I moved in that wouldn't come off with any of the cleaners I used. I certainly didn't moldify the entire tub myself over the past 3 years- then why was I charged $50 for cleaning it (at an even higher rate than the other cleaning!)

I feel like the saga of this evil bastard is never ending. It's a hard one, because $120 is enough to really bother me, but not enough for me to dedicate an insane amount of time to getting it back. I have emailed the residential tenancy office for advice, as I have a signed piece of paper which says that pretty much the entire apartment was in good shape and only approximately hour or two of cleaning was needed.

I'm also pretty convinced that $120 would be about the cost of primer for my apartment, and the owner was just determined to get that money out of me in one way or another when the direct route wouldn't work.

Bah.