I finally started taking photos of every apartment before I sign anything, and it saved me $400 last month
Toured a place in Phoenix on a Tuesday, the landlord swore the bedroom window opened fine, I had a pic from 3 days earlier showing it painted shut, and he knocked $400 off the deposit to skip the repair.
Get a timestamp on those pics too, either through your phone settings or by holding up something with the date on it. Landlords love to claim the photo is old or from a different unit, and having proof of when you took it kills that argument fast. Phones auto-stamp most photos anyway, you just have to turn the setting on.