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How much deposit money do you collect before someone moves into your apt. building?

Cigarette smoke ruined walls???
You mean you have to tear out the walls and replace them because they need to be washed and painted?

When you rent to non-smokers, you don't have to paint between tennants?

If a smoker rents from you for 1 year and then moves out, you put in new carpet?
I usually just have them cleaned unless they are threadbare because they haven't been replaced during the last 10 tennants.

I didn't say anything about smokers damaging property.

Most of the expenses are normal, as you say. We always paint, clean and shampoo the carpet. That will usually take care of most problems. We replace carpet as necessary. Occasionally we will need to paint an apartemnt more than once if someone was a heavy smoker and lived there a long time.

I just had a guy move and we had to paint the place twice but the guy lived there 11 years. I have other apartments that have been painted 11 or more times in 11 years.

Smokers, IMO, are no worse than people that like to fry greasy food. That really makes a mess in the apartments. Any extra costs incured by renting to smokers are more than off set by being able to fill a vacancy quicker. If I automatically eliminate smokers from my list of potential renters it takes longer to fill vacanies. Vacanies equal lost income which equals higher rent increases for the residents living at my property. Since most don't object to living in a building that allows smokers it doesn't make business sense to have non-smoking buildings.

My experiences have been smokers inately do more damage to rental units. I am not suggesting they destroy the place by smoking, but that cleaning up and readying the apartment for a new tenant requires more work and money.

If I rent to a smoker even for only a year, a thorough washing and repaint is always neccessary. Non smoker repaint is rarely needed between short term tenants, and touch ups are possible... touching up a smoked in apartment even with a good cleaning doesn't work... paint never matches no matter how good you clean... so even the most minor blemish requires an entire room to be repainted.

Carpeting doesn't wear out in one year, but I am guaranteed it will need a thorough cleaning if a smoker lived there, not so with a non smoker. Not that non smokers don't ever need cleaning as well, but its a given if the unit was rented to a smoker.

I have nothing personally against smokers, but a unit lived in by a smoker does in general take more effort and time to be cleaned and prepared for another tenant. Cigarette smoke gets into and onto everything, its just a fact of life. Its just like pets... they incur with them, no matter how well behaved certain things that you don't have without them. Of course with Pets you can demand extra deposits and rents for your troubles... Generally not the case yet for smokers... I do suspect though it will in time though.

Security Deposit is always close to rent, but not exactly.