As rent prices climb in San Diego, every dollar counts for residents looking to get into new houses and apartments.

Erin Rounds is the owner and lead attorney for the Tenants Legal Center in San Diego. Rounds said a large percentage of her cases deal with landlords taking large chunks of tenants' security deposits. Those cases, she says, have increased since COVID.

"I see these cases extremely often now since the pandemic and the financial issues that went as well as as the cost of rent going up. I say people are paying more attention to it. They need that money."

Rounds said that tenants need to know their rights and the law.

"There are tenants that pay $3,000 a month, and that $3,000 was also their deposit. They assume that they're never going to get that money back when in reality, they're entitled to it. The onus should not be on the tenant to force the landlord to do what is ultimately the landlord's job, the landlord has chosen to rent out their home, their unit, that space, they should be familiar with the law, and it should not be the responsibility of the tenant to tell them how to do their jobs."

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