All landlords habitually don't return deposits. I have rented cheap apartments and expensive apartments and houses and vacation rentals, in college towns (Ann Arbor) and all over Chicago and San Francisco --- all places with good tenants unions. In SF, I paid up front my whole year's rent. I have never, ever had a landlord return a security deposit. Not once.

Landlords expect you to come at them for the deposit. If you don't, it's a 13th month rent. The serious renters just treat the deposit as their 12th month rent, but if you didn't do that, or care about your reference, you sue for it.

IANAL let alone your L, but at this point, in my 42nd year of life, if I don't get my security deposit back, I drop a buck fifty and put a suit in process, fully expecting the landlord to whine at me and then start the actual negotiation.

This got so prevalent in England, that the law was changed UK-wide to require all deposits to go into a third-party deposit scheme so that the landlords didn't have possession of it themselves. Any repairs need to be justified and it can be contested. It is a drastic step to take, but when a significant minority of landlords were abusing their privilege, it was I think a reasonable solution.