Subj: Your Depost Refund Request

This article is part of the Roamin' Dad series.

Dear Valued Former Tenant,

In regards to your latest letter, we have consulted with our attorneys, and we have concluded that you will absolutely not be receiving your full deposit of $600 back. Not now, not ever. Far too much damage has occurred to the property, and the threatening photos you enclosed of yourself giving rude gestures did not help your case.

The "cat ecosystem" you mentioned (which we not only had to dismantle, but first hose out) cost the entirety of your deposit to repair. Not to mention the other things we'd found upon further inspection:

• A significant amount of prior horse activity. While horses were not explicitly forbidden in your lease, we did notice a great deal of damage and other property perturbations caused by the horse. This includes chewed-up fence boards, a crumpled piece of paper reading "Dad, please, the horse keeps sticking his head in our windows while we're trying to sleep," and a nearly complete horse skeleton.
  
• A mural commemorating a rather large cat. We do allow our tenants to provide a proper burial for pets, but a mural in the garage does not apply. Furthermore, the mural was poorly-done, the cat's head appeared to have been crushed, and the mural featured a caption of "RIP CAT!!!!!!!!!!!" with exclamation points that extended across two additional walls.
  
• A half-buried pamphlet about transsexualism in the workplace. This wouldn't particularly be a big deal, but it looks as if the pamphlet has been buried and then dug up repeatedly for years, as if someone had been reading it on occasion. The organic vegetable garden in which it was buried has been destroyed.
  
• Several dead rats, each with their own tiny cross made of popsicle sticks. Some of the rats had nametags attached to their tails that read "FRIEND" and "FOE" while others said "????". Supposedly their allegiances weren't entirely apparent upon death.
  
• An incredibly foul mattress placed on the floor of the gazebo and covered with a large plywood board, as if we wouldn't notice.
  
• Several disgusting, partially decomposed pillowcases. Extremely greasy and piled in the corner of a hall closet, likely to hide the fact they existed.
  
• A photo of a bulldog with the caption "Big Deal" written over it. This would not be a "Big Deal" had it not been paper machéd over the address numbers on the front of the property.
  
• A photo album full of photographs of an extremely obese woman on a rotating bed. The bed appears to catch fire.
  

We hope this helps you understand our reasoning for retaining your deposit. We wish you the best of luck with your future living arrangements.

ValuHome Properties, Inc.

– ValuHome Properties, Inc. (@fart)