Reminds me of a similar bind I got into back in SG in the mid 90-s
I took over a flat from a colleague mid-3-year-tenancy as he was leaving (yeah me as a junior got a mega-chick-magnet of a
condo on Mt. Sophia for free
). It was cheaper for my employer to give it to me as a new arrival than break the remaining lease.
Anyway, most of the buttons were broken on the oven. But there was a clause in the lease (repeated verbally by the agent when I moved in), that I had to turn the oven on every 3 months, 'so damage would not be caused to it'.
Well of course I was too busy working my nuts off and parting like hell. And when I came to leave? Well, the oven buttons were broken, so clearly the oven was ruined as there was way I could have turned it on, and so I had to pay for it's replacement despite never having touched it.