$23,000 for what? Landlord fines NC State students for a beer pong table
A group of North Carolina State University students said they were stunned after their landlord tried to charge them $23,000 in fines when they moved out.
An investigation into the landlord, Evagelia Eustathiou, reveals she owns four properties in Wake County near the university and has a long record of incidents involving student tenants.
When Tyler Parziale and his friend built a large table out of wood, they had no idea the turmoil it would bring.
“We used it for beer pong, beer die,” Parziale said. “I used to play board games on it. It’s just an all-purpose table.”
Parziale can use the table for all those things now, but not when he lived at 410 Dixie Trail, a property owned by Eustathiou.
Parziale told WRAL 5 On Your Side that from the moment he signed his lease, he had a bad feeling about Eustathiou. He alleges that she would show up at the rental mad about things like shoes left on the floor and schedule apartment showings during inappropriate hours, but the table remained the sticking point.
“She hated the table,” Carrie Parziale, Tyler’s mom, said. “She eventually paid someone late at night to come try and take it from us.”
Parziale alleges Eustathiou had a worker come into their rental unannounced to take the table, but the worker eventually left.
Things got even worse after they moved out. Not only did Eustathiou refuse to return the security deposit, she charged Parziale and his roommates $150 for the worker’s failed retrieval plus $50 a day for an entire year for refusing to remove unallowed patio furniture. The total price was more than $23,000.
To justify the charges, Parziale says Eustathiou pointed to sections 6 and 7 of the lease, but those particular sections deal with the removal of garbage.
“We went to the Raleigh city government site and found the definition for trash, refuse, and garbage,” Parziale said. “All of it related to organic matter or cars, and we were able to say this isn’t garbage by law, you just don’t like how it looks.”
WRAL 5 On Your Side called Eustathiou. When asked about the charges, she got upset and refused to say anything on the record.
A joint investigation by WCNC Charlotte and WRAL News found records showing this isn’t the first time she’s tried to recoup money at the end of a lease, charging thousands of dollars to two additional groups of students who rented two of her other homes. In those cases, parents say the landlord also kept their security deposits.
“The thing that’s interesting is there is so much consistency [among] the complaints,” explained Michael Avery, an attorney with student legal services at NC State. “It’s like we know these are different people, but the complaints all tend to be very similar.”
Avery tells WRAL 5 On Your Side that his office has received complaints since at least 2009.
Parziale is now living somewhere else near campus; he says Eustathiou is still asking for the money, which he won’t pay. He wants this story to be a cautionary tale for other students.
“I’m pretty sure she knows she can’t get this money out of us, but she hopes that with a big font, and a letter, and a big number at your door, you’re going to just pay,” Parziale said of Eustathiou.
According to Legal Aid North Carolina, landlords cannot indiscriminately try to collect fees that aren’t agreed upon in a lease or authorized under the law. If they do, landlords can face $500 to $4,000 per violation. So, really check your lease and understand the situation before paying anything.
