**UPDATE 11/2011** After nearly 2.5 years, I was finally returned my security deposit at the end of 2010 or in early 2011. In recent months, my former subletter has apologized and begged me to remove her name and picture.
I hope she has learned her lesson about the ordeal that she put me through and thus I have decided to comply with her request. Her name will be removed and she will now be known as the letter "P" in my post. I will also miss my Photoshopped masterpiece of her face on the Hamburglar's body.
This blog post is long overdue but I thought it was still important for me to share it with you. In the summer of 2008, I interned in Philadelphia and rented a sublet from P, a law student attending the University of Pennsylvania. To make a long story short, over the next 18 months, I called and emailed Ms. P several times to request the $475 remainder of my security deposit that was owed to me.
$475 isn’t a huge amount and not worth it to take someone to small claims court (especially someone living 5 hours away). Some people suggested that I drive to Philly and confront Ms. P in person at her apartment. I thought that idea was a little extreme and also not worth the 10-hour drive (roundtrip) from Ithaca,NY to Philly.
So the question is, “What would you do if your landlord/original renter did not return your security deposit and you no longer live in close proximity?” And the amount owed is also not significant enough to justify getting a lawyer or going to court.
Well, after months and months of following-up with Ms. P and getting the runaround, I felt that there wasn’t really anything that I could do to force her to pay me my money and she probably also realized this. So instead, I decided to send (via priority mail) a personally signed letter to Michael A. Fitts, the Dean of the University of Pennsylvania Law School to let him know that one of his students would not return my security deposit and that I found it “appalling that a graduate student from an Ivy League institution would behave in such an unprofessional manner” (Yeah, I played the Ivy League card). Ms. P is a member of the 2010 class and had not graduated by that point in time so I figured I could at least call her out before she picked up her newly minted J.D.
Well, a week or two later, I got an email response from Gary A. Clinton, the Dean of Students, and he said that he met with Ms. P and that she had claimed to have sent me my money several times but that I had never deposited her checks and that she never had my current address on file (all of this was untrue of course). He then said that she would “handle the matter quickly, now that she has an updated address”. Well, it has been over 3 months and I still haven’t received a penny from Ms. P.
So the moral of the story is that Ms. P will go on to pursue a career in law.....I will most likely never be repaid my $475, which would come in handy now that I am unemployed.....And no one should ever rent or sublet an apartment from Ms. P again!
