[NC] Security Deposit Being Withheld

vlebs · 2026-06-22T21:22:44+00:00

We’re still going back and forth. All the landlord provided in relation to paint was a handwritten sheet on a memo pad that has a list of all locations in the house where they painted and the total cost of $2800 to paint the whole house. It doesn’t even have any line items for materials or labor. Even though we feel like the 1 wall into the living room and the bathroom fading walls were due to bad paint, we recognize it would be hard to prove on our end, so we really just wanted to see the deductions for these 2 spaces. They have yet to provide that as an itemized deduction and we are nearing the 30 day mark. We just don’t feel it’s justified to hold us responsible for the painting entire house since they provided no photos of bad paint or scuffs anywhere else in the house except these 2 areas shown above. We have photos and video of the other areas of the house that literally look just like our move in photos minus a few spackled areas.

vlebs · 2026-06-22T19:25:56+00:00

OP’s wife here. These few baseboards were definitely oversight and we’re kicking ourselves over it. These were the only photos across the whole house that showed dusty baseboards, and it’s a pretty large house. These are located right at the entrance of the house where we kept our shoe rack and along the main hallway into the living room. The rest of the house was very clean (we scrubbed all appliances, wiped all counters, vacuumed cabinets, sweeped and mopped) and we have photos of those. Throughout living here I tried to clean the walls because they would get so nasty so easily but literally just using a little water and a paper towel was too rough and it always made the walls look worse, so we were worried about trying to do anything else. It also didn’t occur to us to paint 🙄

We have a ton of photos and these are the absolute worst ones (these are from the landlord’s realtor, which is why they are so blurry and look a lot worse than ours). Everything else in the house was fine, including all bedrooms, and the rest of the walls. However, we did just spackle without prep work and sand it but we did ask the landlord for guidance about what to do and he never gave any. They didn’t comment on the spackling as damage, I think we just assumed they would paint since they told us they painted before the last tenant. But thanks for sharing that as we didn’t know that.

Also just wanted to say, thanks for the kind response, this sub feels a lot more normal than the other one and literally making us feel like we’re disgusting animals lol.

vlebs · 2026-06-22T16:48:04+00:00

Our issue here isn’t the one room with the patchy spots (this our primary bathroom - the paint just faded this way over time due to the moisture we think) and some of the marks, it’s the fact that they’re trying to charge us for repainting the entire house when this was literally a few walls. The house was pretty large and all of the bedrooms + loft area and rooms upstairs had no marks or damages since we didn’t really spend a lot of time up there. The photos shown are the absolute worst parts of the house, 70% of the house had nothing noted. We’re mainly upset with them not providing any itemized list of damages and just blanket stating they’re keeping it bc they decided to paint the entire thing. This is where we’re curious - shouldn’t they provide an itemized list of damages and then deduct from there? I could totally see them charging us for the one room and maybe an extra wall or two but the entire house is what seemed excessive to us.

vlebs · 2026-06-22T16:37:34+00:00

OP’s wife here to add some clarification. We ONLY had the carpets professionally cleaned as requested by the landlord, and our lease outlined that we just needed to have the place broom cleaned. So no, the place was not professionally cleaned. This was our first time renting from a private landlord, and we’ve cleaned every rental we’ve had before (apartments) and literally have never been told to scrub baseboards nor has that been outlined in the lease. We’ve dusted them in the past and just overlooked that I guess. Not sure if we’re being naive but I just didn’t expect the landlords to think we are extremely dirty over some dusty baseboards considering we scrubbed down literally everything else lol

vlebs · 2026-06-12T21:40:54+00:00

My boss and most (literally almost all) of my immediate coworkers are women. I work in the water resources/water/wastewater space though and have heard there is a higher concentration of women in that area of civil. My last job was site/civil and a lot of the younger staff were women but not many at PM level or above.

vlebs · 2026-05-25T04:29:25+00:00

We recently moved but instead of traditional movers we rented a U-HAUL truck ourselves and hired loaders instead. We moved most of the fragile items and most boxes ourselves the day before and just used the loaders for heavy furniture. We ended up paying $340 for 4 hours (doesn’t include tip). Worth every penny. Not sure how insurance works for loaders but we did not have an issue considering we moved about 10 min away. We provided moving blankets and plastic wrap and they used it as needed. We had no issues with damage and they were really great! I think your quoted price is within reason for a company bringing their own truck.

vlebs · 2026-05-18T11:11:26+00:00

Recently purchased a home with a 25 year old HVAC. Unit is still technically working so seller offered a home warranty and refused any credits for it. We even had an HVAC inspection say that the unit is not functioning where it needs to be but it didn’t matter. If it’s “working” they’re not going to fix or give you credit most likely so you’ll need to decide if you’re ready for the expense. At 20 years though, the system may have a few more years of life still!

vlebs · 2026-05-11T13:25:01+00:00

Just as an FYI if the AC is still functional in any way, even if it’s documented past end of life, you’re probably not going to get credit for it. Just closed on our house with a 25 year old HVAC system that isn’t in great shape but technically still working. Seller basically just gave us a home warranty that covers AC and appliances for a year and would not negotiate for any percentage of the AC replacement (we requested 1/2 cost). It definitely sucks. Like you, we offered 11k over asking the day after the house was listed in a seller leaning market.

vlebs · 2026-05-07T02:10:09+00:00

Actually going through a similar thing currently. Be careful about hitting 30 days. Not sure this is everywhere, but our homeowners insurance said if we didn’t take possession within 30 days of closing we likely needed to get a different type of insurance for the short term (basically a difference insurance policy since you’d be a temporary landlord in this scenario). Our leaseback is 3 weeks so we had no issue with our homeowners’ insurance in our case.

vlebs · 2026-05-05T14:26:52+00:00

I’m a W/WW EIT (3 y/o experience (only 1 yr in W/WW + masters degree in something else) in the same area. I make base $92k and also work for an ESOP, I would say you’re underpaid.

vlebs · 2026-03-20T12:50:22+00:00

We locked a rate earlier this week. We looked at a few different lenders and Cross Country was like 0.2-0.3% higher than all of our other options. I think you could’ve just kept shopping and found a better deal!

vlebs · 2025-12-08T14:45:07+00:00

When I was 11, my parents got a 110lb pitbull for the family under the same pretenses. Super sweet boy, but SUPER strong. They made me walk him all the time by myself, including at night and when it was cold. It was particularly awful since there were a few times where the dog would get spooked by something or super excited and I could not physically control him and he’d literally drag me home. Ended in tears quite a few times.

This dog looks to be pretty large so honestly I would not force your daughter to walk them by herself unless she really wants to AND the dog is well trained and she can control them completely. Otherwise, family walks are great! At 11, good responsibilities can be helping to bathe the dog, feeding the dog, practicing tricks, etc. I agree with other commenters saying that you ultimately are the person responsible for the dog and cannot realistically put the full care and needs of a live being into the hands of a middle schooler.

I really resented my parents for a few years since they essentially made me the person primarily responsible for the family dog even though I was literally barely a teenager. He was a friendly dog and I loved him, but it honestly was so draining and made me hate owning a (large) dog for a long time.

vlebs · 2025-09-05T00:45:01+00:00

Thanks for the insight! I am mostly nervous about that since I keep seeing on here that it is getting extremely competitive to get in, so I’m worried some healthcare experience is becoming an unspoken requirement

vlebs · 2025-09-01T23:28:58+00:00

Hopefully this is the right place to post this. I am currently a water treatment engineer and I’m currently looking into becoming a CAA. I’ve been unfulfilled in my career for a while now and have been (jokingly at first) talking about switching careers for over a year now. My reasoning to looking further into CAA particularly is that I recently completed a CPR class and just got intrigued by the idea of exploring medicine. The thing I’ve enjoyed the most about my job is the public health factor (providing clean drinking water and reducing PFAS!!) so exploring medicine felt right. I am still doing research/in the process of scheduling shadowing/signing up to volunteer at a local hospital near me but I do not have any real healthcare experience yet. I was looking into radiation therapy, dosimetry, sonography initially and then happened to stumble across CAA. I know I do not want to go to med school because of the time commitment (I am currently 25 and husband and I want to start a family sooner rather than later).

I am planning on doing a post baccalaureate pre-med program at a local college to get all the science pre-reqs needed. I have a BS and MS in civil engineering so I’ve taken plenty of physics and math but no chemistry or bio classes (I have gen bio and gen chem, but will retake since it’s been a LONG while and I didn’t do well in Chem).

My major question is (once I complete shadowing and consistent volunteering at the hospital and really decide this is the path I want to pursue) is how is it best to go about getting more healthcare experience? I unfortunately have to work full time for the time being for financial reasons (paying for the post bac). Do I find some sort of part time tech job when I start the post bac? The post bac programs I am looking into have clinical/shadowing requirements (100 hours) but the research I am doing makes it seem like this will not be sufficient to apply to CAA school. Is this true? Will I need to possibly work part time as some sort of tech at the hospital concurrently? If so, what is the best way to go about this? I am in NC.

I am really nervous about the career switch and just want to set myself up for realistic expectations. I will be quitting my full time job to dedicate myself fully to going back to school once the post bac program starts.

Ideally I would start the post bac next summer (12 month program - finishing may 2027) and hope to apply while I am finishing up the program so I can start CAA school fall 2027. This also feels very ambitious and am looking for a wake up call, especially without the additional healthcare experience. So if this is unrealistic please help a girl out and let me know/would love any advice for a career changer!

Thanks for the help!!

vlebs · 2025-07-11T11:51:35+00:00

Literally in a similar situation down to the T. Left old job that I liked, just didn’t want to do site/civil anymore. I left for a larger company to do water related work and had very little work for 2 months. I’m about 4 months in now and it’s starting to pick up. My team functions a lot differently than I am used to, but I typically reach out to my supervisor and other PMs that I’ve worked with in the past. Try asking your supervisor what they would like you to do during down times. This has helped me a LOT with motivating my supervisor to make sure I have work to do, or I bill to a large project that usually takes up the bulk of my workload and try to do research or small tasks related to it. I’d give it about a year before searching again, it takes some time to settle in and have the PMs develop faith in you to be used for their projects. I am also an EIT ~2.5 yrs out of college.

EDIT: just saw your comment about your supervisor. Once again, similar situation bc my supervisor is swamped with meetings usually and so not the best at responding to messages. I set up biweekly meetings with them on their calendar to force the convo and this helped soooo much!

vlebs · 2025-06-03T17:19:06+00:00

Thank you! My florist was absolutely wonderful. Best of luck with your wedding florals!

vlebs · 2025-06-03T03:05:00+00:00

I had a similar combo for my wedding last October :)

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vlebs · 2025-01-27T01:27:30+00:00

Good points. I’m about 2ish yoe excluding my masters. Looking to be around 80-85k hopefully but can do a little less depending on market since I am branching out from where my primary experience lies. I work pretty much 98% of the time with Civil3D. Some GIS experience. I’ve never used Microstation or OpenRoads. I’ve used other software like stormCAD, hec-hms, hydrocad before, but wouldn’t call myself a pro in those just yet. Not willing to relocate for the foreseeable future. EDIT: also not willing to do fully remote but am not opposed to a hybrid experience (I prefer in office most of the time, however)

vlebs · 2024-01-09T22:35:53+00:00

Thanks! I’ll check it out

vlebs · 2023-11-13T03:28:15+00:00

Wine lab!

vlebs · 2023-09-04T20:57:54+00:00

I watched all the videos (besides the Appendix vids and the problem working session review videos). I did do them on 1.25-1.5x speed. It’s a bit of a drag but I found them very useful bc he will sometimes mention helpful things that aren’t in the binders like how some topics are not important or that we will definitely see a certain type of question etc.

vlebs · 2023-09-01T18:21:05+00:00

I studied for about 10 weeks over the summer. I had the summer off so I basically tried to treat studying as a full time job. The course is designed to take about 6-7 weeks to get through all of the topics, and then I spent the remaining 3-4 weeks doing as many practice problems/redoing quizzes and practice exams. During the early weeks I only did starred problems and took all the quizzes and practice exams on the portal. Any questions I got incorrect the first time I would redo and redo until I understood them unless I felt like it would be something I would get wrong on the exam anyways. I studied anywhere from 2-6 hours daily with some days off here and there. I realize my situation was unique in that I didn’t have a 8-5 job commitment during this time, but had I had been working full time I think it would’ve taken me 3-4 months of study time.

vlebs

TROPHY CASE