Deca Property Management, which manages roughly fourteen hundred residential and commercial properties in the St Louis, Missouri, area, says its tenants “know we’re here to help.” In the company’s newer lease contracts, that help includes a mandatory monthly payment of $45.95 for a “resident benefits package” that includes a fee to Deca for reporting whether they’ve paid their rent to various credit bureaus. In effect, tenants are paying for the privilege of their landlord hurting their credit scores.

This so-called benefit package is just one example of a menagerie of junk fees that landlords across the country are charging their tenants, according to a Lever analysis of approximately four hundred court records from eviction and other civil cases. These fees significantly increase the costs of renting an apartment, experts say, and can be for services that landlords are legally required to perform as well as “benefits” that are not in tenants’ best interests.

Practically anything can be a reason for landlords to charge a tenant a fee. Have a low credit score? That could cost you a “risk mitigation fee.” Live in an apartment infested with bedbugs? That could leave you with a pest fee. Even applying to rent an apartment can set potential tenants back hundreds of dollars in application fees, which tenants pay despite no guarantee that they will ever be allowed to rent the apartment.