We moved out a week ago. Our old unit had 2 damaged screen doors - one that our 75 lb dog ripped on the bottom trying to mistakenly walk through, and one that was ripped when we moved in but we didn’t notice until several months into living there because we literally opened that door maybe a total of 8 times.

During the walkthrough, she pointed this out and asked if we wanted to fix them ourselves or have her call someone and deduct it from our deposit. I said that I was happy to do it myself as it’s an easy fix and something I’ve done before. I bought the kits for the doors and spent about 4 hours yesterday crawling around on my hands and knees to get it taken care of.

This morning she texts us that the screens are not “ put on tight enough” and tells us to come back and fix them again. I replied telling her that there was no way to tighten it any further without ripping the material. I also pointed out that the screens are fully sealed with the rubber lining , are both now functioning as intended, that we are turning the property over better than it was given to us, and that I expect her not to deduct anything from our deposit should she choose to call someone.

My question is whether she is within her rights to deduct from our deposit for what feels like an aesthetic preference when we fixed the functional issue at hand? If no, what are our chances of arguing for our $$ in small claims court? (We’re in Los Angeles btw)

At this point, I am just pissed on principle because I very much made a good faith effort and it feels like that’s not being taken into consideration.