Hi all,

I recently moved out of a condo in Toronto. I moved in December 2019 and the unit was brand new.

When I was moving out, I took down a wall painting I had and noticed the back of the painting scuffed the hell out of the walls. I didn't know it till then, but the landlord never painted the walls and the walls only had builders white, so of course the one painting I put up scuffed the walls.

In hindsight, I should have left this because it is normal wear and tear, but I decided to paint that section of the wall with some high quality white paint I bought. As anyone who has done this before knows, you can't spot paint becaude it wont match the surrounding walls perfectly. It wasn't matching perfectly, but I thought itd be good enough.

After moving out the landlord noticed this and was upset. I offered to pay for a professional contractor to come in and repaint that whole wall. He said that no painter would ever come in to paint one wall, so no shot. I offered to do it myself, he said he doesn't trust me. He said he has no choice but to repaint the ENTIRE condo.

Today I got the bill for $5000. It is the sketchiest bill I have ever seen, and I am skeptical of why it would cost $5,000 to paint a studio apartment that is about 400 sq ft in size.

I am very upset by this. I think the landlord is trying to pass the costs of painting onto me, since he never did it. The fact that allegedly no one would come in to repaint one wall isnt my problem: I have offered to repaint it myself and he said he doesn't trust me (it's an extremely small wall and I have no idea how you could mess it up…).

How do I approach this?

Thanks!