I'm just here wondering why the whole epic about the yard crews matters at all in this situation...

Seems like if someone gave me notice that they were leaving and didn't give me a forwarding address, I would have asked them for a forwarding address at some point before they moved out. I don't really want to have to deal with going to get a certified letter from the post office so email is much more convenient for me.

The fact that all of these things got strung out because the landlord did the absolute minimum possible work and trying to find a reason to hold onto their money for longer is what makes this seem sketchy. Also, unless you can prove the condition of the carpet before the rental that proves that it wasn't close to needing replacement and after the rental proving that it did need replacement I feel like you're probably going to lose on trying to stick replacing a regular wear item on a tenant.

You occasionally have to paint and replace carpet/flooring and other regular maintenance items in a rent house, you generally don't recover that from a tenant.

TMoney2007 said:

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I'm just here wondering why the whole epic about the yard crews matters at all in this situation.

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It doesn't. But the OP gave the info and is wondering what to do next time while insisting he's 'not a dick' and doesn't appreciate being called one yet seems oblivious to why pulling yard work out from under his tenants when it seems that was part of the lease is a total dick move.

Why it matters (and I'm sure the OP knows it does otherwise wouldn't have shared). Basically for next time… instead of giving tenants a speech about how busy you are when they sign the lease and burden them with problems that contractually aren't theirs, just do a little over the bare minimum as a landlord and everybody is happy. Lesson learned and hopefully OP has read this and figured out he was the dick even if he didn't mean to be.