Apartment and Rental Properties - nasty landlady civil suit help

What should I do? No small claims in our town so the courts gave me paper work for civil case! What am I getting in to with a civil suit?
Help! Landlord from H**L. In 30yrs this landlord has NEVER returned a deposit. She has a very bad reputation but your hands are tied, when you’re new to town and she has almost all the rentals in town. We rented from her for 2.5yrs.
In her 19 page lease I sign papers stating that I have my own vacuum that works to a form that states it needs to be used when giving 30day notice. Don’t lose it she will charge $30.00 for a copy. Yes $30.00.
So the correct paper work was filled out for 30 day notice to move. Two weeks go by and she at the door wanting to know if we are moved out yet! (No we have until the end of the month). 7 days before the end of lease: Landlord shows up to show the house(called with notice) However she hands me a packet of paper work and wants me to sign saying that I received them………I refused due to the fact I needed to read them first and I was in the middle of something. In the packet of paper work I was informed that I could only use the professional carpet cleaning company that she wants. I was not to start cleaning until everything was moved out of the house and to top it off I had to fill out a form “verification of time spent cleaning when vacating” (people cleaning, date and time spent cleaning!) had to have drapes dry clean. These terms were not given to use when we signed the original lease.
Okay so I hired the Professional carpet cleaner she said. Dry cleaned the drapes. Replaced all mini blinds instead of cleaning them $5.00ea from wal-mart (my choice). I cleaned, cleaned, cleaned this house, knowing her reputation of not returning deposits………deduction from a co-works deposit for not dusting off fire extinguisher (rented for 3 mo.) Landlord refused to do a final walk thru with us. She stated she does them by herself, fills out a “notice of cleaning required for return of security deposit” gives us 24hr. to do/redo. On the notice Living room was marked OK( her hand writing) so we did all the little things missing 1 of 2 light bulbs, dust under drip pan on a stove in basement that has not been used in 20 yrs. I even fixed the curtain that she stated that needed to be rehung or adjusted. They are pleaded thermal drapes that needed to be adjusted. She stated she did not inspect the outside because it was dark. She didn’t call or noticed us that anything was wrong with the outside.
Received a letter in the mail notifying us that these deductions have been made from the deposit.
Damage:
17 stains on Living room carpet 13 of the stains are red stains @ 50.00 each= $650.00 (Living room inspection she said it was ok).
Yellow spot on bathroom floor from bathmat. $100.00 (was questioned on inspection paper)
Needless to say she had a few more problem however they were from outside. (Unable to inspect because it was dark).
About the red spots……….landlord and husband had a phone conversation about them and there were only 3 red stains and they were preventable (he said that we well expect responsibility for them). As for the other stains on the carpet she changed the 3 to 13 after my husband said the red stains were preventable. By the way in the main lease we sign a paper saying NO VERBAL AGREEMENTS will be made. Husband didn’t remember that paper until I showed him. I’m the one that has been handling the move he had been working out of town. Please Note carpet cleaners where from out of town (250miles away) If she would have state on the inspection sheet that she was concerned with the spots we would have had the cleaners come back……..I thought the carpets looked good other than the 3 red stains. By the way we have 4 professional carpet cleaning companies in town (I was told that they will not do work for her because how nasty she is to work for/rent from.) So the Carpet cleaners that I was told to hire showed up 2hrs late, the owner stated he wish he would had brought all of his tools. So the filing fee is $35.00 and sheriff to serve is $100.00.
750.00 deposit -100.00 bathroom floor-150.00 red spots= 500.00.
Montana law state landlord puts deposit in saving account….what about interest? Wages lost to go to court and court costs? Civil suit $1000.00 is it worth the fight???????

Probably not. With 20/20 hindsight, if you knew it was going to be that much trouble & expense, the thing to do would have been to load up a moving van whenever the spirit struck you and moved. Could have called her the next day and let her know you left the keys on the kitchen counter and have a nice day. Sounds as though you already spent more than the original security deposit in time and $$$. Think I would have taken her new prospective renters aside and clued them in, too.

FWIW back in my service days when we were stationed in California and had to rent we ran into that type landlord twice. First time we were charged for replacement sink stoppers (there were none in the apartment when we moved in, so we took the ones WE bought with us). Second time we were charged for replacement of the bathroom sink faucet; it had about a 10 year accumulation of calcium deposits on it that were not of our doing.

It's not worth the time, money, and trouble to fight this situation. Chalk it up to lessons learned. Always return a property in better condition than you found it and insist on final walk through with landlord. Take before and after pictures.

Always attend to stains immediately. Red stains are the worst and very challenging to remove. Old stains tend to be impossible to remove.