Glossary
Normal wear and tear
The gradual, expected deterioration of a rental from ordinary living, which a landlord cannot deduct from your deposit.
Normal wear and tear covers the small changes that happen to any lived-in home over time: faint carpet paths, slightly faded paint, loose door hinges, or minor scuffs on baseboards. Leases and most local tenant laws treat this as an unavoidable cost of renting, not something a tenant caused through negligence, so it cannot legally be charged against a security deposit.
Damage is the opposite category, and the line between the two is where most deposit disputes happen. A single nail hole from a picture is usually wear and tear, while a cluster of unpatched holes, a burn mark, or a broken blind slat is treated as damage because it goes beyond what ordinary use produces and typically needs repair rather than routine touch-up.
The safest way to stay on the wear-and-tear side of that line is to avoid anything that leaves a permanent mark in the first place. Renters lean on tension rods, adhesive strips rated for the surface, and peel-and-stick materials specifically because they can be removed at the end of a lease without repainting or patching, keeping the unit in the same condition it started in.