A group of students claim they lost £210 of their house deposit after allegedly leaving behind a single pea in the freezer.
Liverpool John Moores University student Matilda Hargreaves posted a TikTok video, which has since gone viral, outlining the reasons she claims she was refused her deposit.
The footage shows just one pea left behind in the freezer, a bottle of Febreze, a piece of paper and the landlord's dehumidifier he himself forgot to pick up.
Matilda said: "We were told to return the property clean and we did. It was certainly in a much better state than it was when we moved in.
"To be refused the deposit and sent a picture of a single pea in a freezer as way of explanation is just beyond ridiculous. We were also sent a picture of a bottle of Febreze we'd left in one of the rooms.
"We were shocked so much had been taken.
"I felt like replying saying for £210 I'll come and clean it myself. It wouldn't have taken long.
"There were seven of us renting the property, but only three living there due to Covid.
"We did have a good chuckle at it. One of the images they sent that really made us laugh was the outside area.
"When we moved in, there was a lot of cardboard and we cleared it.
But because we left a couple of bits of it, behind they've charged us for that as well."
The 20-year-old English Literature student also shared how hard studying during the pandemic has been for students and believes the landlord should have cut them some slack, given the circumstances.
She added: "We've had a hard year during Covid as students. We had issues all year with the WIFI, we were emailing them telling them our lectures were online, and it was to no avail.
"We lost a year of our student lives; it was very draining. They should've cut us some slack.
"We were debating appealing it, but we were so fed up with everything we thought, let's just take it.
"It's so frustrating dealing with student landlord companies because they can make you feel like you don't know anything.
But we're lucky we've got parents that have experience in this."
The video racked up over 700,000 views and encouraged others to come forward with their nightmare landlord stories.
One said: "When we moved out, our landlord took half our deposit for a deep clean for Covid purpose…Cuz Covid was definitely our fault."
Another wrote: "Our landlord charged £500 for (unnecessary) carpet cleaning and then we walked by the place a week later and all the carpet was in a skip."
The landlord, Address Properties, has been contacted for comment but not responded.
