hmm, not cool of him to keep both checks in the first scenario, even if he opted to hold the 2nd one till next month, but that's just my humble .02. If he is somehow holding 'late rent' against you in attempts to keep deposit, he can't do that. That needs to be addressed directly at the time of payment (typically via charging a late fee). He can put sec deposit towards rents not paid (in my state, anyway) but not hold it as a 'nuisance' fee for late payment. As an aside, I live in the same zip as two of my tenants. They either mail or drop off check here. Typically it's one day via USPS, however if post office were consistently days late, I would simply ask tenants allow a few extra days in mail and date their check for the 1st of the month. Or drop off at my house. OK, on to deposit issue. The privacy invasion is a non-issue now and has nothing to do with security deposit. That's fall under category of issue that should have been addressed "at the time". All too often security deposits are viewed as being deservedly refunded in full because of bad blood. Laws are very clear about what deposits are to be held/used for, and in most cases even a lease cannot override a particular state's law on deposits. So you paid a $1100 deposit, he kept $1000, you provided a forwarding address with keys per his request. You did not receive anything for 90 days and then there were deductions without an accounting, correct? I checked, and Virginia law is much like my state's 45 day rule. Virginia's Landlord Tenant Handbook can be viewed here. Have to hand it to them, VA is quite clear and provides many venues for help (addresses, phone numbers) should it be needed. They are thorough. Scroll to the bottom of page 17 for Sec Dep info. "The security deposit, any accrued interest and any deductions,damages and charges shall be itemized by the landlord in a written notice given to the tenant, together with any amount due the tenant within 45 days after termination of the tenancy and delivery of possession"....If the landlord willfully fails to comply with this section, the court shall order the return of the security deposit and interest thereon to the tenant, together with actual damages and reasonable attorneys' fees, unless the tenant owes rent to the landlord, in which case, the court shall order an amount equal to the security deposit and interest thereon credited against the rent due to the landlord.....If notice is given as prescribed in this paragraph, the landlord shall have an additional 15 day period to provide an itemization of the damages and the cost of repair.....Upon request by the landlord to a tenant to vacate, or within five days after receipt of notice by the landlord of the tenant's intent to vacate, the landlord shall make reasonable efforts to advise the tenant of the tenant's right to be present at the landlord's inspection of the dwelling unit for the purpose of determining the amount of security deposit to be returned. If the tenant desires to be present when the landlord makes the inspection, he shall so advise the landlord in writing who, in turn, shall notify the tenant of the time and date of the inspection, which must be made within 72 hours of delivery of possession. Upon completion of the inspection attended by the tenant, the landlord shall furnish the tenant with an itemized list of damages to the dwelling unit known to exist at the time of the inspection. You need to take time to print that out and read it all, I have only pasted partial quotes below. There is much more on the deposit issue. Then make some calls to the numbers provided. I am not a lawyer, only a landlord who has to keep abreast of landlord/tenant laws, and it seems like your landlord has fudged on a few issues. Even if he had legitimate claims for deduction, 90 days is well beyond the time frame allotted by the State of Virginia. This can all be handled in small claims court. However, I would first send him a letter (Certified) pointing out how he failed to comply (lack of notice to you of inpsection day so you could be present, lack of notice within 45 days of what he was deducting, etc. Quote the Virginia statute that applies. It might be just enough to nudge him to rectify this rather than go to small claims court (where it's typically addressed in my state). Have to run, rental issues of my own, will check back later.

I am using a no name 4 channel DVR with all four channels being used. Everything works the way it should except for when I want to split the DVR's signal from one TV to multiple TV's. I have a run of RG6 QS coming from the DVR to the back of a television and everything works great. When I take the cable off the TV, connect it to a splitter and then continue from the splitter to the same TV I don't have any signal. I've tried a couple splitters, but all of them are for digital TV (5 - 1000MHz). Is the "speed" of the splitter the problem or is it because of the DVR's internal quad processor? I've also tried modulating the signal using NetMedia's MM-70 prior to the splitter, but the results were the same.

When an alarm company installs a system, they often do it at a reduced price if you sign a monitoring contract because they want your longterm business. I think you are misinterpreting this as a hard sell. If you just want a local system installed -- one where police and fire won't be called -- then pay an installer the full price for what it will cost to have the equipment installed and forget about the contract. However, in my opinion, a local alarm is not worth very much. I moved into a house that was fully pre-wired for security and all of the doors and windows had 1/4" caps over the holes and the wire ends were just inside waiting to be pulled out. You could always stick the wires in the holes, cap them off, and forget about it, too.

There's a big difference between being "robbed" and being burglarized. Robberies are generally strangers, while burglars often know the people and/or their activities, or the neighborhood. Alarms are effective at giving people peace of mind but, as shown, people think that you don't have to USE the alarm for it to be effective. And that, isn't true. Dogs CAN be helpful to burglars, but to a robber they'll generally just kill the dog. A serious burglar often brings a piece of meat or some treat to quiet the dog. People unfortunately set themselves up to be robbery or burglary victims all too often. Walking around with lots of jewelry, expensive clothes, fancy cars just entice a robbery so caution is required but people expect to never be a victim since it only happens in a "bad" neighborhood or to the other person. People leave expensive electronics in plain sight, post everything about their lives on Facebook or other social media, "tweet" that they will be gone for three days and wonder why they got burglarized! Add in all the privacy fences and landscaping to hide behind makes it easier for burglars. Robbers don't care. People will sit in the back yard, mow, work in the garden and leave the front door open for anyone to just walk in and help themselves to what they want. Purses, keys, wallets, computers, televisions, etc, all in easy reach to walk out the front door while people are in the back yard. Of course the alarm is off since they're right there. Alarms don't work when they're shut off. Then the alarm itself. People seldom have personal alarms for robberies. As said, it's well known that alarms take quite a while for a police response. Neighbors more often than not ignore activities, usually because they don't know the neighbors. Clanging alarms are a thing of the past it seems, since it's like the infamous car alarms that keep going off and only annoy people since most are false alarms. A large number of burglaries happen when people are at home. Obviously a robbery requires someone to be at home, can't happen when they're away! People leave garage doors open or leave garage door openers in cars sitting in the driveway and that's an easy target. Plus there's the opener code devices that burglars use just driving down the street. My neighbor was a victim of such a burglary. There's also the false sense of security of having a sign up saying they have an alarm system. Even when they do, obviously most people stop turning them on after a couple of months so alarms are seldom activated. This actually invites the burglary when people are at home. Decades of involvement in crime prevention still makes me shake my head at what people do and don't do.