Shop Vac The Carpets

Another great way to ensure you'll get most of your deposit back involves a shop vac. If you don't own one, I'm sure you know someone who does or this might be a great time to acquire one yourself. They can be amazing handy in cleaning and in emergencies. No matter how clean a person you are, you will leave your smell behind when you move out. If you cook a lot, have pets or are a smoker, the smell you leave behind will be even stronger. After you've moved everything out, instead of vacuuming, use the wide attachment on the shop vac and slowly work your way across all carpeted areas. You can even sprinkle a little carpet freshener down before you do this, it can give the air a clean smell. Depending on the size of your apartment or house, this could take awhile but the results are spectacular. Along with normal move out cleaning, this will remove all odors you've left behind. A landlord likes nothing better than to walk into a recently vacated apartment and it smells as if no had been living there. I use this method on my final two apartments and received my entire deposit back both times. Pretty good considering I have a cat and cook with mad amounts of garlic.

Change The Drip Pans

When moving out of an apartment, a major concern is always whether or not you get your security deposit back. There are a few things you can do to improve your chances of getting most or even all of your deposit back. If you have cooked at all, the drip pans under the burners on you oven will not be pristine and they're nearly impossible to get perfectly clean. Drip pans are very cheap. You can pick some new ones up at the dollar store for next to nothing. Your landlord will likely deduct several times the cost of new ones if you don't take the initiative and change them yourself.

The Great Pan Ban

One Christmas, I received a fabulous set of pots and pans from my parents. As I love to cook, I was thrilled. It was also a time I was just sort of hanging in there to finish out a lease with a spectacularly messy roommate I no longer wished to live with. I brought my new cookware home and was having a great time with it. My roommate, who also loved to cook, was also enjoying the cooking implements. Fine, I wasn't going to begrudge her use of my cookware as long as she washed it afterward, which she didn't. After finding several of my new pans soaking in nasty sludge, I banned her from the new pots and pans. She had had several warnings and took it in good humor. We even laughed about it. After being out of town for a week, I returned to find my large soup pot full of chili unceremoniously popped into the fridge. Judging by the consistency, I would guess it had been in there all week. After I calmly asked why she didn't put the excess chili in a Tupperware instead of leaving acid based food to congeal and eat away at the nice new soup pot, she sheepishly mumbled something about never getting around to it. In the following days I began moving my cookware to a box in the back of my closet. I'm sure she noticed its absence, but she had the sense not to say a word about it. Things stayed friendly through the end of the lease and my favorite new cookware survived. Don't be afraid to protect your possessions, but it's best not to be an ass while doing it.

Time To Move Out

If things aren't working out with your roommate for whatever reason, don't be afraid to end things. Try to do it nicely, a sort of "Sorry things aren't working out" approach. The more anger and accusations that come out in this conversation, the more uncomfortable and strained the move out process becomes. If you live in a dorm, go chat with the folks over at housing to see the best way to proceed. If you are renting, it's best to try and ride the lease out, sometimes they can be tricky to break. If you're coming to the end of your lease, you probably need to give your landlord at least 30 days written notice before the lease is up. You should probably give your roommate a little more notice than that. If you fear for your saftey for any reason, and I've had friends in this position, don't worry about leases or talking to the people at housing, just take what you need and get out. Or organize it with friends to move all you stuff out while you're roommate isn't present. The other stuff can be sorted out later.