Renters, what you need to know!!!

I have many stories to tell, I thought of this one tonight as I was talking to a friend about hiring and attorney for credit repair. About seven years ago, I was ending my lease and had a dispute with one of the managers in the front office of the apartment complex I was moving from. After I moved out I recieved a bill for damage done to the apartment over $1000. Well the damage was for normal wear and tear. Normal wear and Tear cannot be charged to the renter. The girl in the office was trying to be a bitch to me and thought she was funny by trying to keep my desposit, which ironically was only $200. I think this is funny because this is probably the least I have every paid for a deposit on a rental in Florida. This apartment complex was considered a 10 property, which is the best. I had to hire a lawyer, for $300 to dispute this action, which he did do, by calling the collection agency and saying," if they put this on my credit report we will sue them". The collection agency responded by letter that they were dropping the action against me. I took the letter to the office of the apartment complex to try to get my deposit back and the manger in the office told me I still owed them that money. I spoke with my attorney and he told me the only way to get my money back was to take them to small claims court. At the time this was not an option for me, I was too busy and distracted to fight for the $200 which I would have had to pay $225 to file in court and then who knows how long it would be before I get a pretrial and or go to trial from there. What I can say, that I know today, that I didnt know at this time, is that the court has a payment plan! It takes about five minutes to fill out the paper work, your approved in like two minutes because there is no verification. Then you tell the courts how much you want to pay every month. Tip: When filling out the paper work show them you have or make very little money they dont need to know how much you have!