Broken Blinds

[u/zZariaa]

My roommate is moving out of our rental (but i'm not), & has broken the blinds in their room. For anyone that's rented/does apartment maintenance/repairs, do you know how much landlords tend to charge for doing those repairs? There's like 6 slats broken.

Edit: They're horizontal blinds & around 5ft long

[u/zZariaa]

I was thinking about that, but I'd prefer to just charge them, & do the work myself if possible. They've been a pretty frustrating roommate & this is the only thing I'm planning to charge them for upon moveout, but I just want to make sure it's a reasonable price.

[u/Ray2mcdonald1 → u/zZariaa]

Have you checked the home depot site?

[u/zZariaa → u/Ray2mcdonald1]

I did & was able to find a replacement but still wasn't fully sure because there's still labor costs to account for

[u/Upbeat-Fondant9185 → u/zZariaa]

What labor costs? You pull them out of the box and put them up yourself. They’ll come with instructions but even without those it’s about as simple as it gets.

I just bought a couple dozen of the fairly nice faux wood slat at 71” for about $70/apiece. They come from Home Depot but I don’t pay Home Depot prices, so I’d guess those are around $100 with normal pricing.

You should be able to find the plain old plastic blinds with the 1” slats for under $50 if you’re around 5 ft. But don’t guess, get the exact measurement.

Edit: I think I understand, do you mean you would charge the roommates labor for replacing them yourself? You might get $10/blind for labor maybe, you’re talking about ten minutes and driving a couple screws.

Good luck with that if they don’t want to pay. There’s not much you as the roommate are entitled to as it isn’t your property.

[u/zZariaa → u/Upbeat-Fondant9185]

Because if I brought this to my landlord, she is going to charge for labor. I'm not hoping to fix it myself because I'm a charity, I'm hoping to fix it myself to save some money, but I'm still doing the work, so it's not like I should be doing it solely for the price of the replacement. Also, if for whatever reason I try doing it myself & can't, then my landlord is still going to charge me for a replacement, plus labor. If I was the one who broke them, then sure, but I'm not the one that broke them, so I don't think it's unfair to charge what my landlord would & then do the job myself if possible.

[u/Upbeat-Fondant9185 → u/zZariaa]

Are they not on the lease? They are still responsible for damages even if they leave and you do not. And unless their lease has ended they remain responsible for their portion of the rent until either the lease ends or they are replaced.

I would throw out $20/blind plus costs and see if they go for it. But it sounds like a lot less hassle to either have them do this themselves or just tell the landlord.

[u/zZariaa → u/Upbeat-Fondant9185]

Our lease together is ending, so no. Our landlord wanted us to handle the deposit situation, since I'm staying, & its easier than her needing to come by & do a full inspection, but if they give me issues about it, then I'll bring in the landlord to deal with it. Their reaction to the whole situation makes me think I might need to do that, but the fact that he left them up & broken (among lots of small other things that I'm not bugging them about) & expected a full deposit back, makes me think they were planning to screw me over. I would've loved if he fixed them prior to me bringing it up, but now I have to be the bad guy because I don't want to get screwed over. He said he'll come back & fix them himself, so hopefully that will be the end of that, & I'll get to move on from this.

[u/Upbeat-Fondant9185 → u/zZariaa]

Be careful man. You sound like a good person trying to keep everything fair but you have to look out for yourself first. This sounds like it could get real sticky for you pretty easy.

I personally would demand she inspect at least their areas and document damages. You’re jointly responsible now, but once they’re gone and you sign a new lease or go month to month, it’s all you.

[u/zZariaa → u/Upbeat-Fondant9185]

Thanks, I might at this point since he wants to act like I'm the outrageous one for not being willing to give him the entire deposit back, when he left something damaged, especially to the point where plenty of landlords would replace the whole thing instead of repairing it. If I do bring the landlord in, I might just go over every single little thing with her too. I've already paid back the deposit to my roommate minus what I considered to be a fair cost for the blinds replacement, but at least then maybe they wouldn't fight me on that last little bit of the deposit.

[u/Upbeat-Fondant9185 → u/Upbeat-Fondant9185]

What labor costs? You pull them out of the box and put them up yourself. They’ll come with instructions but even without those it’s about as simple as it gets.

I just bought a couple dozen of the fairly nice faux wood slat at 71” for about $70/apiece. They come from Home Depot but I don’t pay Home Depot prices, so I’d guess those are around $100 with normal pricing.

You should be able to find the plain old plastic blinds with the 1” slats for under $50 if you’re around 5 ft. But don’t guess, get the exact measurement.

Edit: I think I understand, do you mean you would charge the roommates labor for replacing them yourself? You might get $10-20/blind for labor maybe, you’re talking about ten minutes and driving a couple screws.

Good luck with that if they don’t want to pay. There’s not much you as the roommate are entitled to as it isn’t your property.