Marv stopped chuckling. There was a long pause on the phone. Then he asked me which tenant.
I told him. Her name was Donna Reyes. She had rented a two bedroom from him in 2023 and lost her whole deposit over a crack in the bathroom tile that was there when she moved in. Last spring, the city had hired her as a rental housing inspector. Every landlord in town has to renew a rental license every two years. His came up next month.
My old neighbor, Tasha, put down the lamp she was carrying and stared at me.
Three years of being the tenant who coaches people to sue, and all it took was one video and six people finally talking to each other.
I had started a group chat the night before. Me, Tasha, and five other families who had moved out of that building since 2022. Everybody had the same story. Scratches nobody could see. Carpet cleaning they never got. Paint touchups on walls that were never touched. Most of them had given up because two thousand dollars in small claims court did not seem worth the fight against a man who owned four buildings.
But together, it was fourteen thousand dollars.
I sent my video to Donna, officially, through the complaint line for tenants at the city. So did everybody else in the group. Some of them had photos from move out day. Tasha had a text from Marv where he admitted the carpet was never cleaned.
Donna could not handle the review herself, since she was one of the tenants. So the city gave it to her supervisor, a man named Mr. Okafor. He called Marv in for a meeting.
I do not know what was said in that meeting. I know what happened after.
Within two weeks, every one of us got a check in the mail. The full deposit, every dollar, for all seven families. Tasha opened hers standing in her kitchen and screamed so loud her dog hid under the table.
The city renewed his rental license, but on probation. For the next two years, every move out inspection in his buildings has to be done with a city inspector present, with photos, before any deposit can be kept.
The new tenants in my old apartment are a young couple with a baby. Tasha told them the whole story when they moved in. She gave them my number and told them to film everything.
They did. They also joined the group chat. So did the families in the other three buildings. There are thirty one people in it now. Mostly we share recipes and complain about the weather. But every time somebody moves out, somebody else shows up to help them film the walkthrough.
Tasha used her deposit money to take her kids to the beach for the first time. She sent me a picture of them standing in the ocean.
Marv was right about one thing. Nobody ever takes him to court.
They never have to now.