Mike Fredendall’s apartment he leased during his senior year didn’t have carpet.

But when he moved out, he was charged $250 for a “Carpet Cleaning Fee,” which was deducted from his $595 security deposit.

His lease was with Jeremy Brandow, who manages a realty team under the Coldwell Banker Real Estate Group that manages and sells property in east central Illinois. Brandow did not return a request for comment. 

Fredendall did not seek legal help, but mentioned possible court action to the property management. After nearly a week of back-and-forth emails, he received his full deposit back.

“This was probably helped by the fact that I was still in town and that if I had to end up in court over this issue, I could have appeared remotely given COVID restrictions. I don’t know how successful this would be today,” Fredendall, who graduated in 2021, said in an email to CU-CitizenAccess.org.

Many students at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have said they struggle to get their initial security deposits back from different landlords across campus, typically on social media posts. While some university resources can provide legal help, some landlords have been employing new tactics to avoid returning deposits or charge fees during move-out.

Student Legal Services provides free legal services to students at the University of Illinois, including help with security deposit issues. Its attorneys provide “consultations, advice, representation, and education to students on a variety of legal issues,” its website says.

Allegretti said he could not say how many students complained to his office each year because it did not have a complete log of complaints for security deposit issues. However, he did say the number is increasing because the number of students enrolled is increasing.

Under Illinois law, a landlord who owns a building with five or more rental units cannot withhold any portion of a tenant’s security deposit for damages unless, within 30 days after moving out, they provide an itemized list of the alleged damages along with repair estimates or paid receipts.

When asked whether there are problematic landlords, Allegretti said that, from small to large, he has dealt with almost all property management companies in town.

“It’s just that bigger properties have more students living in them, and we get a larger number of complaints from students about them,” he said.

Illinois law also limits security deposits to no more than two months’ rent for unfurnished units and three months’ rent for furnished units. Based on apartment listings from local housing providers such as Smile, University Group, Yugo and Octave, monthly rents typically range from approximately $400 to $1,200 depending on the size and features.

For apartments located in Urbana, the Urbana City Code mandates extra protections:

• Landlords must pay interest on a security deposit if they hold it for more than six months. 
• The deposit must be returned minus any itemized damages within 45 days of moving out.

A current PhD student at the university, who asked not to be identified because they feared potential repercussions while still living and renting in the area, subleased an apartment in Champaign from Octave at 210 S. Fourth St. in fall 2024. When they moved out in late July 2025, Octave withheld $575 of their $2,200 security deposit, worth two months of rent.

The student said management did not initially say why they were charged and asked management to give them an itemized list.

“They replied with an itemized list that included damage charges for a broken window panel and bathroom floor tile replacement,” they said in an interview with CU-CitizenAccess. “They charged me $575 for that, whereas all these items had been broken since the time I moved in. My move-in condition report clearly mentions these.”

The student disputed the charges and kept reaching out to the Octave management for a refund, but said management ghosted them.

They eventually escalated the matter to the Student Legal Services department at the university, and once an attorney from Student Legal Services emailed the property for further clarification, Octave returned the withheld amount to the student.

Octave did not respond to multiple requests for comment about the student’s complaints.

“Admin fees” among different tricks applied by landlords

Allegretti said Student Legal Services has been seeing new language in leases in the past few years that says, “well, you’re not paying a security deposit, you’re paying an administrative fee.”

In this case, people think they’re simply paying a one-time damage fee upfront that they would otherwise have been charged at the end of the lease, and they don’t have to worry about it. However, even after paying that one-time fee, they’re still being charged cleaning fees and damage fees or other charges at the end of the lease, and then the landlord attempts to recover those costs from them.

Additionally, Allegretti said Illinois law is very clear about how a landlord gives notice to tenants about deductions from their deposits. Tenants have to be notified in writing within 30 days, either by physically handing it to them, mailing it to them at a forwarding address or emailing it to them.

In recent years, instead of emailing or mailing, Allegretti said landlords have been using their own software portals for communication, which are controlled or contracted by the property management company.

“[Communication via the portal] doesn’t comply with the law because that’s not strictly stated. The landlords can change the portal, and they can change those things if they need to,” Allegretti said.

Allegretti said the office sees a lot of disputes about cleaning charges and whether or not they are necessary. Oftentimes, he said landlords use generic language to describe the charges.

“We see words like cleaning, painting, et cetera,” he said. “There are no further details.”

But Allegretti said what’s clean to one person may not be clean to another person.

“I’ve seen students who have hired their own cleaning company to come in and clean,” he said. “They’ll pay a couple of hundred dollars to have it cleaned, and then they’ll move out. But they’ll still end up getting a cleaning charge from the landlord, even though they’ve already paid someone to professionally clean it themselves.”

Students encouraged to share poor experiences on social media by university

This fall, university sophomore Frank Fu raised concerns on Reddit about cleanliness and maintenance at Octave apartments. He later spoke with the Daily Illini about his move-in experience after the original posts were deleted.

He said he has a pet allergy and requested an apartment with no history of pets before signing the lease. Fu paid $1,849 a month to lease a one-bedroom studio managed by Octave.

Upon moving in, he said he found urine stains, embedded dog hair, and what appeared to be feces on the carpet, along with stained walls covered in fur and a strong, persistent urine odor throughout the room. Fu said he immediately contacted Octave management but was repeatedly told the unit had been professionally cleaned before he moved in.

He also said the unit was infested with fleas and that he was bitten several times, eventually seeking medical treatment at McKinley Health Center.

When Octave management later stopped responding to his emails, Fu reached out to the Off-Campus Community Living office, which advised him to post his situation on Reddit. Unable to stay in the unit, Fu said he is currently staying with friends.

Octave did not respond to multiple requests for comment about Fu’s move-in issues.

The community living office is a unit within the university’s Office of the Dean of Students that educates and helps students who live in privately-owned apartments and houses rather than in university residence halls. 

Stephen Bryant, associate vice chancellor for student advocacy at the office, said in an email that every year they get between ten to 15 students meeting with staff each fall to discuss concerns related to security deposits. When applicable, the unit refers them to Student Legal Services, the county Regional Planning Commission, the cities’ governments, Better Business Bureau and Land of Lincoln Legal Aid for additional support.

However, he said the office does not contact landlords specifically to discuss or intervene in security deposit disputes. It rather educates students to carefully document the condition of their apartment both when they move in and when they move out.

Lease language hinders university legal support

A 2022 graduate, who wished to remain anonymous, lived at a Smile Student Living property during their senior year. This was during the COVID-19 pandemic, so they did everything before signing a lease virtually, including the tour.

Before the lease, instead of paying a security deposit, the tenant said they were charged a one-time $150 administrative fee for “light cleaning.” They were told they would only need to clean anything excessively dirty.

However, they were charged an additional $300 after moving out.

“They then took photos of prior damage, claimed it was mine, and refused to allow me to consult my move-in list that I had submitted to refute any damages,” the tenant said in an interview.

Smile did not return multiple requests for comment.

The tenant was only able to negotiate the $50 that Smile tried to charge for putting the smoke detector on its mount.

“I am 5’2″ and complained many times that it would go off randomly without any smoke or issues,” they said, referring to why the detector was taken off.

They reached out to both Student Legal Services and Off-Campus Community Living, but neither were able to help, so they paid the remaining charges.

“I emailed someone with my case, and they let me know that since it’s an admin fee for light cleaning, they can dictate it as they wish,” the tenant said.