Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in California

Yes, you are required to return the premises in clean condition. Smoke covered walls and ceilings are not clean. You can't just paint over smoke residue. The paint will peel very quickly, especially after 5 years of smoke build up.

As for the water damage, it depends on what the damage was. If the damage was only to the paint, then painting would be what you do to fix it.

I agree with attorney McCormick. you must also remember that the majority of Californians do not smoke, so"nomal" wear and tear damage from smoking is still abnormal wear and tear. New, reasonable tenants will not object to a carpet not being brand new but they wil to a smoke smell throught out the unit. When you are a smoker, you do not notice that oder as much because your brain reports to your conscious level unusal smells, but non-smoker normally find such smells offensive. Your smoking reduces the likelihood of being able to re-rent the unit so justifies having to wash the walls down and then repainting. After 5 years, repainting likely would need to be done, but if the walls have to be washed down repainitng is mandatory, so it is not unreasonable to charge you for those costs.

As to the water damaged wood and the charge to repaint it, you are correct that the landlord should likely have done more repairs than just repainiting, but that would result in an even bigger charge to you, so do not press you luck on that.