Some people should not be landlords. Maybe they could be judges or under-pressers in a dry cleaners, where the line of the crease on the trousers of the judge would come in for scrutiny.

Once the trousers were hung and crease measured against a plumb-line, and was seen to be impeccably straight - ah, the presser of the crease would be a happy bunny. As would the judge. But neither of them would be happy as a landlord.

Such thoughts occur on hearing of yet another case of a landlord/tenant dispute. As relayed to me, it concerned a landlord whose student tenants disputed his charges for "damage" caused to the property. When the students were finishing their tenure, he held back the deposit, on precise grounds of damage to doors and fittings in the bathroom.

The three students were outraged and insisted on being paid back their security deposit. This is unusual, as students of that age tend to move on without looking back. As a transient species, students tend not to quibble over damages which, in all probability, was done at, say, a party which began informally on Saturday and continued until Monday morning.

Sensible students (contradiction?) will look to their new life, wherever it may take them. A sensible landlord, equally, might write off the damages as "going with the territory" of letting to students. Pay it and forget it. After all, most of us were chaotic students at some time excepting, of course, judges and under-pressers in dry cleaners.

But such were the already bad relations between this landlord and his tenants, that each wanted to win over the other, rather in the dedicated manner of our Northern neighbours. Too much bitter bile had passed under bridges for peace to be made. The students invoked the help of their parents, who in turn invoked legal opinion.

Within months, the matter of, at most a few hundred euro worth of "damage" to doors and a shower, became a cause célèbre among the families and consumed a lot of time that could have been used to, say, walk in the country or lie in bed on a Sunday or dig furry bits out of one's navel with a hairpin (with rounded edges).

The dispute escalated. The parents of the students met each other in a country hotel on Sunday mornings.

A campaign was launched, as "campaigns" are want to do. Solicitors letters were exchanged between the parties, expensive legal opinion was consulted on exactly what constituted "damage" to a door and a shower-holder.

What was the condition of the said door and shower when the tenancy commenced? What, legally, constitutes a "door"? By what appearance, design and material is it, to all intents and purposes, "a door" within the meaning of the Residential Tenancies Act of 1980, as amended by the Oireachtas in 2004 (subsections, 2, G 11).

Come to that, what are the legal obligations of landlord and tenant towards each other, as defined in the said Act of the Oireachtas? Under which section of said Act is "damage" defined? What defines a shower? Is it an item of sanitation and, if so, under which section of the "Wash the Filthy Students Act of 1886".

Dear reader, all this from an incident of six years ago, when a landlord refused to return a deposit to three students, one of whom was a foreign national. Last I heard, that student's embassy had become involved, on his behalf, refuting the claim for damages (civil) within another EU member state.

This dispute may end up in the European Courts of Justice, and cost enough money to buy a block of apartments in Brussels. It will involve many lawyers carrying into court many tomes of case law.

I can only hope the creases of their trousers stay intact.