unfair charges

[dawns]

My former landlord sent us an invoice for $900 (total left after including our sec deposit - original charge is about $1700) for 1/2 the charge of replacing carpet. We lived there 6 years and 3 years ago the landlord himself came into our place (after i asked him to look at the carpet because it was in such bad shape even when we moved in), inspected the carpet and said he would be happy to replace bc it WAS in bad shape and bc we had lived there so long. He told me I just had to take everything out so he could do it. We chose to avoid the h***le and buy area rugs to cover the folds in the carpet we kept tripping on and hide all the stains.

Im not concerned with recovering our deposit bc there were damages when we left, but I think the carpet charge is completely unfair. Should I take him to court to resolve this - I am worried about this affecting our credit bc we are not planning on paying this.

[ohiolandlord]

Taking him to court may be a good idea especially if you have proof of how the carpet was when you moved in. There's no hard and fast rule on how long a carpet should last. But if you could get proof of its age at the time you moved in, you would have a good case that the carpet was damaged as a result of reasonable wear and tear. Generally landlords have to deduct the value of the useful life of the carpet from any charges to you. So if the landlord initially paid $1000 for the carpet and the court ruled that the landlord should get 10 years out of the carpet and only got 8 years, then the tenant would be responsible for 20% of the lost value of the carpet or $200.