<human>: Hello /r/legaladvice!

**Background:** I'm a student in Boston, MA who paid to rent an off-campus apartment for the past two years. Our landlord was pretty invisible during my stay except for a little, as-needed maintenance and the occasional strongly-worded email targeting other groups of students living in the complex. I graduate in December, so I moved out in August to avoid signing another inflexible one-year agreement in favor of on-campus single-semester housing. 

My roommates and I were prepared to expect some unwarranted deductions from our security deposit. Ultimately, we were charged $700 from our initial $2700 security deposit, some of it well-deserved and others unreasonable, though we don't have any proof to debate the charges. Lessons learned, which I fully appreciate.

That all said, we were charged $300 to paint over the walls in one of the bedrooms. The photos provided by the landlord show discoloration where gray paint was presumably used to cover marks on beige walls. We do not have our own photos from when we first moved into the apartment, but that was the condition in which we received the apartment. What we *do* have is an email that I sent the landlord upon moving in that specifically points to this discoloration on some of the walls, to which he replied that he would not repaint them as it was, and I quote, "a natural depreciation item".

**Questions:** Am I right to push back on this $300 charge? I understand we should've taken photos, but is our email exchange from two years ago enough grounds to demand that the painting of the walls be removed from the deductions schedule? Am I missing any details in this case that I could use to leverage my position against the landlord?

Can you summarize the given text in a few sentences?
<bot>: Being charged my security deposit for the conditions of an apartment that existed when I first moved in, and I have a bit of evidence to support that. How do I proceed?