If you read the comments, one guy had a tenant who left faeces all around the house!

At the moment, they've received a very modest list of £1200 of damages, which is our application to keep their entire £450 deposit (less the bill from the oven cleaner). The point being, if they dispute two-thirds of it, one third remains agreeable without going to arbitration.

We expect to have to do some tidying up and some decorating when a tenant leaves. The area likely to be under dispute is what is reasonable.

We've so far spent 200 hours of our own time on restoration and expect to have to double that to get it back into shape.