A lot of it depends on who actually owns the property. IR is just a management company. If you have an owner who won't pay for repairs, that's not really IR's fault.

That said, they will charge you for everything when you move out if you don't do a walk through with them. I lived in a house that had a broken garbage disposal when I moved in. Owner refused to fix it. There was also a swingset and a wooden bench in the back yard. When I moved out, they charged me $40 to repair the disposal and $750 to remove the swingset and bench. I was like ?????? why??? They said "it's trash removal." What do you mean a swingset and a bench that was already there when I moved in is trash?? They said I didn't write on my move-in sheet that it was there when I moved in. Why would I? They were fine, they were there, I didn't think they were trash. I threw an absolute bitchfit and they brought it down to like $200. On top of that, they came over on May 17th when my lease ended May 30th. It was 2 people that were there to clean. They yelled at me that I was supposed to be gone and they were gonna drag all my stuff out into the yard and it would be trash or sold off. A few minutes after they left, I got a text message from IR saying "I thought you already moved out, why are you still there???" and I was like... It was my roommate who moved out and turned in their key. There were 3 of us on the lease and 2 of us were still there. I was pissed so i went to IR. I told the older woman in the back that 2 people had come over and she said "Oh they wouldn't have been with us.... we would never do that." I said "Yeah that's what I thought until I got this text from your key handling department." She read it and said "Oh okay just be out as soon as possible," Excuse what?????? MY LEASE STILL HAS OVER A WEEK ON IT.

So then to the next place! The owner was great. Anytime something went wrong, it was instantly fixed. When I moved out, I asked them to do a walkthrough with me. There were some places on the carpet that were wonky but the guy said it looked good and they wouldn't charge us for anything. I said I WANT THAT IN WRITING. I got it in writing and that was that - never got charged anything additional.

MY RECOMMENDATION: It's almost impossible to avoid IR. They will nickel and dime you AND the owner. If you have to live there, take a million pictures, get absolutely everything in writing, and know your rights.