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“I Took Her To Court”: 61 Times Landlords Went Above And Beyond To Make Their Tenants’ Lives Hell
While the dream is to own your place of residence, to get there often means paying someone for the "privilege" of a roof over your head. As with roommates, one’s landlord can really make or break the experience.
Someone asked “What's your "my landlord is/was a complete jerk" story?” and people shared their worst encounters. So get comfortable as you scroll through, prepare for some unhinged tale, upvote the ones you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy and be sure to add your own experiences to the comments down below.
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#1
Seemed like the nicest couple in the world when we first rented the place, they even invited us to dinner and we had a great time.
3 months in we found out that they argue quite loudly and curse like truckers, not that big of a deal. Then my wife stepped on a piece of blue glass that was on our kitchen floor (we didn't own any blue glasses).
I remembered that dinner, they had blue glasses on the table. I setup a camera in the living room and over the next week caught this guy in our apartment when we weren't home.
Jerk was going through our dressers and playing with my wife's underwear, caught him red handed and gave him a nice beating and called the cops.
He tried playing it off like he smelt smoke and wanted to investigate, then I played back the previous weeks video's of him visiting on 3 separate occasions.
They locked him up, we found a new place really fast and never looked back.
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#2
My mom moved out of a house and after she moved out, the landlord sued her for $15,000 for damages to the house. It was all just regular wear and tear, roof was leaking, water heater needed to be replaced, that kind of stuff. My mom lawyered up and wound up not only winning the case but the judge ordered the landlord to pay her legal fees.
The reason he was doing that was it was 2009, he bought that house as an investment around 2005 and was therefore mega broke and couldn't afford to fix any of that stuff himself.
#3
Land lord found out I was a renovation specialist. With a long background in historic renovation and water/fire/storm damage. Asked if I would do little odds and ends around the place to fix it up. Took it off the rent or paid for materials to do the work. I did a lot for her. Refinished the concrete floor in the laundry room, replace ALL door knobs with new style knobs. (They were the old slide in glass knobs, so each door took about 6 hours to complete. Because of wood filling, sanding, and painting then resetting the new knobs.) Replaced the front door. Repaired walls all over and repainted the whole place. Hung new cabinets and installed a new dish washer after somewhat redesigning the kitchen to accommodate the dishwasher. Refinished the ancient front entry door. Rewired a few problem outlets/lights and switches.
When I moved in the place sat for a year empty. It was in rough shape. When I moved out the place was awesome. So nice on fact it rented out for 300$ more a month then I had rented it for. It also rented out 4 days after I moved out. She did not have to do anything to move a new family in.
So few weeks go by and I'm starting to wonder where my deposit is. Clearly I should be getting that back. Nope. Got a letter in the mail say she was keeping it because of a [nonsensical] list of stuff. So I took her to court and won. Her argument was basically that this is how she makes money. It's her only income. Judge looked like her was holding back laughter before he ruled in my favor.
#4
Last November I get a knock on the door of my "newly renovated" basement appartment from the fire department saying I'm living in an illegal apartment and will be evicted in 3 months if the landlord doesn't get the place up to code. Landlord kicks me and my girlfriend out in february for "just two weeks, but we'll say three just to be safe". I ask if i have to move out ny furniture, and he says "no, theyll just work around it."
I then spent 7 weeks living illegally in my buddy's basement 30 mins away, paying rent, and commuting to work. Finally, in April, landlord gives me the ok to move back in, saying the place looks great.
When I got back, the entire place was filthy. There was thick drywall dust on every surface, paintcans, tools, and garbage in every nook, and paint splattered on the floor, windows, and all of my furniture including the matress. Some of my wooden furniture had scratches in it, and the shoe rack and shower curtain were destroyed.
I argued with him for days. He gave me $150 for cleaning and damages, then upped rent by $100/month because the "apartment is so much better now".
#5
I rented a room from a guy who, a month after i moved in, got approval to sell the house. i found out when someone came in and told me to tell him the city council approved it.
The best part? he never even mentioned it was up for sale.
#6
We spent some time in South America, and our landlord there decided he'd been charging us too little rent, so he attempted to up it. We kicked up a bit of a fuss so he backed down, only to try again under the guise of having someone in every week 'to clean cobwebs off the outside of the windows'. He wanted an extra $150 a month for this - the same amount he was trying to increase the rent in the first place by. The windows didn't have cobwebs on them.
In that house, we used to get stray dogs coming by to say hello. We are dog lovers and used to feed them if they looked skinny, give them belly rubs and so on. Landlord didn't like this, but as there were holes in the fence we couldn't stop them coming in the garden.
One dog started coming every day, and then one day stopped leaving. She stayed outside our front door all the time, waiting for food or to be stroked. She was such a sweet little thing. Landlord noticed her and started complaining. We told him she never came inside, and wasn't doing any harm. We also mentioned the holes in the fence. One night when my husband was out at his regular gym class, I heard the landlord's car pulling up. I was already in bed so I assumed he'd knock on the door and realise I wasn't going to answer... but he didn't. I heard him open the gate, mooch around a bit, and then he started his car up again and left. In the morning the dog was gone. We never saw her again.
Laserleader 8 hours ago
Technically landlord did not do anything wrong, and in my city there's strict rules about dogs running free, and all strays are taken to the animal protection (a no k**l place for the past few years).
#7
I was renting a studio apartment with seperate kitchen in a decent building in an "up and coming" neighborhood. Rent was $500/month, rent stabilizes. Dot Com happened, population grew, a wine bar opened close by... my neighbor, who also had a studio, same size but imo not as good layout, passed away. They refinished his floors, painted, and rented his place out for $1300/month. Then I started getting letters from the owner, whom I had never met. Accusing me of mistreating the apartment, living in filth, causing roaches and mold, threatening to evict me. Ok my apartment was not filthy, you'll just have to trust me on that one. I responded to each of the letters, refuting the claims, offering to speak by phone and got no response other than yet more threatening letters. I finally offered to move out at the end of the month if they gave me my deposit back, which they did. I moved across the country, which I had been planning to do anyway. I get so angry when I think about that person.
#8
We found roaches in our apartment. I called and called and called the landlord but they wouldn't send anybody out. I called the leasing agency and they finally sent someone. The guy doesn't find anything so he thinks it's just a random one from someone else's apartment. Ok, problem solved from my end I think.
A couple weeks later, I get a thousand dollar bill for pest services to get rid of the roaches. It's from the leasing agency and the best part, it's been edited. They whited out parts of it and wrote over other parts. But the [idiot] sent me the original so if you held it up to the light, you could see through the white out.
I called them on it and they told me I had roaches, and according to the pest agreement I had to pay the whole bill. This place didn't have a pest agreement and I can see on this edited bill that most of it was for treating around their buildings for earwigs. But arguing with them is going no where so I call the pest control place and tell them if it's my bill, I should receive a copy of the findings and the unedited bill. They send it to me and I call back the leasing agency, tell them I have the original bill and that not only is it not for roaches but that it's not for the amount they wrote and if they really want to fight me about paying it, we can do it in court. Magically I didn't have to pay any more.
Tl:Dr leasing company tried to get me to pay their pest bill plus some but want smart enough to send me a believable bill.
#9
Downstairs toilet backed up. Totally horrible. The plumber said it was backed up with tampons and baby wipes. I'm a single male. She insisted I pay the plumber's bill because it was my fault. Two women occupied the apartment before I did
#10
My first landlord was the worst.
We were subleasing from another guy who moved upstairs. He moved out and didn't clean anything. We went to the landlord and he said it wasn't his problem. We found mice in the apartment, not his problem. Two windows opened in the apartment, not his problem. The toilet stopped working, not his problem. It completely backed up and was spilling all over the floor. We had to get a friend in there to snake the thing.
We had one key for two people so we had to share it. We ended up going out and getting one made. Then he got pissed because when we moved out, we gave him two keys. He didn't give us permission for two keys.
#11
My property manager failed to put a carbon monoxide detector in my unit. Surprise, surprise: I had a major gas leak in my unit and was inhaling fumes for a little over a month and a half. my health began to dramatically decline. By the time I found the leak, I was hospitalized and blood results came back revealing that I would have had a stroke or heart attack had I not found the leak sooner...
#12
Old dude that refused to ever pay someone else to fix anything. Once wrote us a note to [urinate] in a bucket until he could fix the toilet a week later. To family of 4. There's more, but that was the worst.
#13
One apartment I rented had on the lease that they paid water and sewer. 3 months in the water was cut off because they did not pay it and they insisted that it was a mistake to put it on the lease and I needed to pay it. I ended up having to pay for the water and sewer but then when I moved out they billed me $1500 for breach of contract.
Seems the clause in the contract stated "In the event of a breach of contract the renter will be liable for a $1500 breach of contract fee." When I pointed out they were the ones in breach of contract they replied "The clause has nothing to do with who breached the contract, it only states that you are responsible for the breach of contract fee."
#14
While deployed, my wife remained at our home in Texas. The A/C broke in the middle of summer. They told her that the temperature wasn't hot enough to constitute a repair. When she showed them pictures of the thermostat reading over 100 degrees indoor they finally said that they would send a repairman but that I needed to be there because I was the primary name on the lease although she had power of attorney. I threatened to sue. A/C was eventually Jerry-rigged (the repair guy told her that he was paid to do the bare minimum fix) near the end of summer.
Fast forward. I'm home, it's getting hot again, and the A/C breaks again. Same story as before claiming it wasn't hot enough. This dragged on for awhile and I finally had orders to move to a new duty station. Gave them 30 days notice and moved out. They tried to tell me that I couldn't leave the home with a broken air conditioner and wouldn't honor my military orders, I had to pay to fix the A/C, and wouldn't get my deposit back. I once again threatened to sue and contacted the actual owner of the house. He was a cool dude living in New York and said he'd take care of it for me. He flew all the way to see me in Texas, fired the property managers, sued them himself, said I was actually the cleanest/most respectable tenant he's had, and eventually paid me double my deposit for my troubles. Nice guy.
YakFactory 9 hours ago
There are some good people in the world, then there are "landlords" who only want the money, with no duty of care.
#15
I never actually met him, but we nearly ended up taking him to court. We complained about a ton of broken things that he would never fix. When they did get fixed, it was by the unqualified worker that he hired from the Home Depot parking lot (no offense to those guys, but they didn't fix our roof correctly).
Being college kids, we go to the free legal council out university offered, hoping we had some options to get things fixed. The lawyer found out that the house we were renting had been foreclosed on 2 months prior and the bank owned it now. Extremely pissed off, we decided to stop paying rent to this guy while we got our things in order (we never did get our two months rent back from when he didn't own the house).
About 6 weeks later, he comes by the house furious that we hadn't paid rent in over a month. My roommate simply said, "We aren't paying you anymore, get the hell off this property." This pissed him off even more and he started threatening my roommate until my roommate said, "We know you don't own this place anymore and we are going to sue you for the money you stole from us." He shut up at this point and left, never to be heard from again. We didn't sue him because each of us were only out like $600 dollars (rent was stupid cheap for 4 college kids in a big city).
We made a deal with the bank to pay them the same rent we had been paying in order to stay until graduation in May. We were also responsible for cleaning up the yard and they would get someone out there to fix a few big issues (roof and plumbing) since they were going to sell the house anyway. We held up our end and enjoyed our last few months of college without a [bad] landlord.
#16
I lived in a few different apartments while I was in college and all my landlords where cool except one. I lived in the first floor of the building while he lived in the second floor.
He has many "interesting" stories but there is one that stands out.
One day, all of a sudden I found small black things that looked like burnt rice through the living room floor. At first I wasn't sure what it was and swept it up with a broom. Not long after I found the same in a desk I had in the living room. At that point my roommate realized it was rodent droppings.
We called the landlord to find an exterminator, and he just told us "I'll be there in a moment". About 15 minutes later he comes down with a small carton box full of fruits filled with rat poison to put around the apartment.
I looked at him in disbelief and he just proceeded to let us know that his pet snake had [passed away] and decided to release the rodents he had to feed it as he had no longer use for them and was sure they would just go and live in the woods peacefully.
Still in shock I asked him to leave and dealt with the issue myself.
I did not accept his offer to renew the contract and left as soon as possible.
#17
It was an apartment complex, but this one stands out still.
They didn't pay the power.
Not, "they forgot to pay the power." Not, "they were in financial trouble." They just wanted to see if they could call the power company's bluff.
The power company locked half the breakers in every building.
I dunno if you've ever seen a riot take shape, but try cutting off the AC and refrigeration for a few dozen Alabamians in the middle of June in a heat wave.
#18
I have two, because I live in a city dense with students so every landlord is a "slumlord".
First was an Indian family who had a little rental business and some large apartment houses. It was my first year living on my own, and in my youthful idiotic nature I did not notice some clear warning signs. After I moved into my ground floor studio it became immediately apparent the place was a dumpy shithole. I had *every* type of pest, minus bed bugs, that you could imagine. Two species of roaches, house centipedes, mice, spiders, flies, and squirrels. I lived next to a nightclub that was loud, gross, and full of drunk baboons who did coke and shot each other 12 feet from my window.
I toughed it all out for a year with minimal complaining to my landlord. Even when they broke into my apartment, or told me "no, that open hole in the foundation that lets the squirrels in *can't* be patched", I steadfastly survived it all. I did let them know how uncomfortable and pissed I was about the living situation but they gave a "meh" response.
Until move-out day happened.
The lease did not specify a required date to provide move-out notice, and they relayed zero info of when I was to let them know I would not be renewing. So, I only gave a 35-day notice after I secured another apartment. They got back to me saying, basically, that was too late and they re-signed the lease in my name and bumped the rent up by $150.
I threatened to sue. They immediately backed down, tail between their legs, whimpering about how they "were just a small family business, why was I mean?" Thieving bastards still yanked most of my security deposit. I left mouse carcasses behind for them.
Second landlord story! This was more recent when my SO and I were looking for a place together. We found a first floor one bedroom that my gut said "no" about but we had been looking for close to 3 months and just wanted the search to be over. We sign the lease, get the keys, start moving my boxes to be moved in.
Surprise! You got *roaches*" The German kind. These landlords were also family, a husband and wife with a son who acted as the liaison because the parents were not native English speakers. Yeah they could speak and understand English but not as well as their adult son. We called the son about the infestation. "Oh yeah haha, this is a city so there are roaches" he said cheerfully.
I called him out. Because this was not a roach or two, but *thousands*. Everywhere. The molding on the ceiling was caked with roach filth. You don't notice it during the walkthrough when the lights are on and people stomping about but upon our inspection it was evident that the roaches had been there for a long time. It was a couple who were there for 2 years before us and they had been living in this filth.
What occurred was 6 days of nonsense. At one point, the wife called me at 9:30pm, hysterical, because "why was I doing?" "why was I such an awful person?" For breaking the lease and moving out of their roach motel. Lots of screaming involved. I essentially told them to get lost for knowingly letting us move into their [trash hole].
We broke the lease and the landlords came over to collect the keys. Over the 6 days my boyfriend and I were there, we did not clean up a single roach after we took them out. Hundreds of roach bodies on the floors. The husband took a look-see, shrugged, and said "It's not that bad."
What disgusts me most of all is in both situations, the landlords had children. I asked both sets of landlords, "how would you feel about your daughter living in these conditions?" to which they could not answer. I despise slumlords. Most operate without a license and all their properties are gross biohazards.
#19
My landlord appeared to be a nice, little old lady living in Alaska; in reality, shes a manipulative and unstable.
List of grievances:
- Water stain noticed in my room the day I moved in. A 6 week long saga of her coordinating the cheapest/slowest contractor to come repair the hole in the roof/ceiling above my bed.
- Threatened to kick us out because we were paying her in check instead of direct deposit and checks were bouncing cause she was sitting on close to 10k in checks she hadnt "had time" to deposit
- Tried to kick us out May 31st and had a contractor come in to start to do work, even though our lease said we did not have to move until June 30th.
- Claims she never got our security deposit even though we have multiple bank statements to prove otherwise.
- New lease at new house (we are getting far away from this lady) doesnt start til July 1st and the landlord is putting up a fight over us staying there an additional 12 hours, even though no one is moving in to the new place.
#20
When I was a kid, our slumlord refused to fix anything that broke in our house or do any preventative maintenance. The house had already had an electrical fire from a leaky upstairs bathroom, but he refused to fix any further leaks.
When I was about 13, a family of squirrels moved in to the space between the ceiling & roof in my room. I could hear them scratching and running all the time. They eventually scratched through the ceiling and left a few areas with small holes. I was always afraid they would drop into my room and attack.
Then, my ceiling started leaking when it rained, first in just one area and then gradually across the entire beam that ran across the ceiling. We set up buckets and I would fall asleep to the music of raindrops hitting different containers. The sound of water hitting carpet would wake me up in a panic and I'd have to find another bucket to catch the new drips.
One night while I was staying with a friend, the entire ceiling collapsed directly over my bed. All of the soaking wet sheetrock (?drywall?) Landed on my bed, desk, etc. And the entire family of squirrels was released into my room. They hid in my closet, under the bed, everywhere, and it took three days to get them all out.
That landlord took another week before sending someone in to "fix" it, and even then, it was only his son, who had zero experience/skill fixing anything.
#21
We had a huge storm blow through, tons of rain, tornado warnings, the whole 9 yards. It turns out that the storm drain was clogged in our parking lot so we had about 10 inches of standing water in our parking lot. Nobody could drive their cars in or out of the lot. We called out landlord who berated us about not telling them earlier. The same landlord also took several days to fix our heat in the middle of winter. And also accused us of mold growth in a closet the day after we moved in.
#22
Had termites. They refused to believe me. Didn't send someone out for a month to check it. 3 months later it was fixed. I never had termites, so I didn't know how fast they worked, and my upstairs neighbors were, judging by the vibrations in my apartment and thuds everywhere, colossal giants chucking bowling balls across their apartment all day, I was worried they would come crashing down thanks to those termites. Hated that place.
#23
I subleased a room from my friend one summer while he did an internship.His three roommates also were out of town the entire summer but paid rent and their portion of utilities for the summer.
At the end of my sublease, I cleaned the house, moved my stuff out, and turned in my key. Three months later, I get served with a lawsuit for over $5000, alleging excessive damages and cleaning fees. I sent them back a letter demanding an itemized list of all fees I was being sued for.
When I get the itemized listing, it's absolutely nonsense. For example, they'd charge me a $500 "chandelier cleaning charge" to clean the dining room overhead light, then a $300 "chandelier maintenance fee," and then a $700 "chandelier replacement charge." $1500 to clean, maintain, and then throw away a chandelier? Nope.
They also obviously fluffed their expenses, charging me $25 to replace a lightbulb in the basement and charging me $750 for 2 hours of "lawn maintenance," which was the responsibility of the landlord in the lease anyways! It turns out they also filed a separate lawsuit against each of us, so they were suing us all for $25,000 total for what couldn't have been more than $1000 in expenses (covered by our security deposit).
Anyways, I work for the Housing Department of my city and sent them a response on my office letterhead saying that I refuse to pay for the damages and that they could come and get me if they wanted to try. I never got a response, but the suit was dropped and I promptly advised the city to deny them any future city contracts for what I alleged was extortion of a college student.
#24
There was literally one handicapped parking spot in the entire townhome complex. He parked his jet ski in it.
Edit: Should clarify this was the landlord of the complex.
#25
So he wasn't actually the land lord, but I rented a room from this dude for a month and he was an absolutely PoS.
For starters he basically sold it to me as mi casa su casa, provided I don't go in his room or touch his truck. How I understood that and how he understood that were two very different things.
Again, he said I could use what ever was in the house, be it his dvd collection, the bow flex, kitchen tools, provided I don't mess with his truck or go in his room.
He then slowly started to put things off limits:
"Hey it's not a huge deal, but could you not sit in that chair, it's my chair, I don't let other people sit in it.
"The weight machine makes too much noise, there's a gym down the road."
"The microwave is using up too much electric, I don't think you should use it.
I was basically relegated to my room.
He also asked me to front him $100 for his child support, said we'd call it an advance on rent.
I got out of their when he made a vague threat about the fact he had a criminal record due to my stove usage.
#26
After five years of renting I discovered my place didn't exist on paper. The city only knew it as a pigeon coop. No building permit, no renting permit, nothing... All the money I paid in these years went directly to the guy without the government knowing he was renting something out. Oh right... of course the fact that there is no way to get insurance for something that doesn't exist. (He always reassured me insurance was totally fine).
#27
My landlord knew I was a clean and quiet tenant who loved baking. He "renovated" and removed the stove while moving the "kitchen"(cupboards, sink and fridge) to the other wall. He replaced the stove with a toaster oven. He also removed my living room door. He increased my rent by 30% for those "renovations."
We've been in legal hearings ever since, and now he's trying to keep my damage deposit out of spite because I hung shelves (no storage in bathroom) and curtains (huge window almost to the floor by toilet, which faces a busy street and a few pictures. The neighbour upstairs flooded 3 apartments and kept their deposit.
#28
I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHO MY LANDLORD IS!
story time: My landlord was this older fella, don't even remember his name. I think it was Ray? Anyway I never had to call him for anything except the occasional issue, like once every 8 months maybe. After having not spoken to him in a long time I called him and I gave him this big long spiel and he sat their and listened to it all before finally saying "Well, I'm retired now." Uhm... what? since when? Why was I not notified? He told me a woman named Kat handles all his accounts now. Called the agency, spoke to Kat. Called back a week later and Kat is no longer with the agency. Got transferred to whoever took over her accounts and never even got her name. That was over a year ago, no idea who I'd ask for if another issue arises.
#29
Week before Christmas our heater went out during one of the coldest Winters on record. Landlord said nope not fixing that, wait until the new year and don't call me again it's Christmas.
Well, we paid rent through an estate agent so I called her first and said what's my legal options here. She said "He said what? OK it'll be taken care of". That very afternoon a plumber showed up to fix it. He took a look around and asked us if we were aware our bathroom was not up to code. It's not? The next day we got a new toilet, bath and shower. Hearing the landlord arguing with the plumber and estate agent lady and then freak out at the cost that he was 100% legally liable for? Priceless.
#30
After a year and a half of living in her apartment, landlord decided to take the new/nice appliances that the apartment had come with to put in a house she was working on refurbishing. Just one day said hey, I'm taking your appliances on Thursday. She replaced them with some old beat up, not even cleaned, missing parts appliances from her storage unit. She told me they'd been sitting in her storage unit for years, so she didn't know how well they worked.
Also, there was a family of possums under my back porch (this is in a city area). My landlord went back and forth about leaving them be or calling animal control, whatever, didn't think anything of it. Turns out, they brought a flea explosion. My dog ended up crawling in fleas because I found out the hard way Frontline isn't quite as effective as it once was.. Got my dog cleaned up, treated, out of there to go stay with parents, but needed to get the apartment all taken care of. You could sit on my couch and watch fleas jump on your arms. She told me not to do anything myself, that she'd get her exterminator in, but then didn't do it. Then, she had me contact him to set it up, so I did, but she vetoed it saying she didn't tell me to do that, that she wouldn't pay for that, especially while the possums were still there...but wouldn't do anything about the possums. It was this whole thing that spanned over a month or so.
#31
* They straight-up lied to me about the place being cable-ready, and that was one of the reasons I signed the lease. Apparently by "cable-ready" they meant the area was serviced by AT&T U-verse. Now, I wound up liking U-verse better than cable, but there was a while when I was preparing a lawsuit against them for tricking me into signing a lease under false pretenses.
* The air conditioning was out all summer. It took them two months to repair it because their unit was so ancient it took that long to order the proper part. This was in Texas.
* One of my neighbors was an old man who had to move into a hotel because the lack of air con was causing health problems. The complex promised him they'd pay for his hotel costs. After he checked in, they went back on their promise.
* I got to I know my next-door neighbor well. She'd lived there for 20 years, but she decided to move out because the new landlord "turned this place into a ghetto" and actively tried to bully and harass her into leaving because she'd been living month-to-month for 20 years. She moved out around the same time I signed the lease at the place I moved to after that shithole.
I'm thankful I only had a six-month lease with that piece of trash complex. It's been ten years since I lived there, and I still feel utter rage when I think of them. Oh, and despite only being there six months, I outlasted the property manager, and then the landlord sold the complex to another company right after I left. The landlord only bought the place and hired the property manager a month before I signed the lease.
#32
I was 19 and lived with 2 girlfriends of mine. Our landlord lived nextdoor. Our landlord decided she wanted to come check out how we were living one day, by breaking the lock on the front door and walking around our apartment. My roommate was asleep in her room and heard her come in. She screamed, and my landlord ran out. About 2 weeks later, almost the same thing happened except my roommate was in the shower. I stomped over to my landlord's house and lost it on her. I went as far as to print out a copy of the NJ tenants rights laws and tape them to every window on the front of the house.
#33
$600 security deposit kept because of a dime sized knick in the sheet of linoleum in the kitchen. Her husband was a contractor and there was a spare, room sized sheet of the same stuff in the kitchen closet. I got a bill after we moved out for $13 dollars because it cost $613 to replace. How convenient.
#34
I took a banister off the wall because my kids were hanging on it and I was afraid they'd break it. He lost his mind and said I'd have to pay him an extra $500 deposit right then.
Within three months we bought a house and moved, so really it worked out great for us.
#35
My girlfriend and I rent a house and we've lived in there for a little over a year now. Last summer the landlord came to visit for 10 days, in the house, in some blocked off section right next to our kitchen. I get that it's her house and everything but if you rent it to people you can't use it as your vacation house!
Also, she's quite the hoarder. Loads of useless stuff in the basement so we essentially have no storage space. She has had a bathroom installed in the basement by some shady contractor during the summer we moved in. A few days into this bathroom installation, we have an electrical fire in the basement at like 2am, the water pump ceases up and the breaker never trips. Filled the entire house with smoke and the smoke alarms don't go off since the batteries were in backwards from the last guy who lived there(granted, I should have checked those but we had only been moved in for a few weeks). Luckily our dog woke us up. So anyway, the fire department finds scorched wires near a soldered pipe and say that's probably what caused everything. So I text the landlord to let her know what happened and she calls back asking if fire department had to spray anything and if her stuff in the basement was okay. She NEVER asked if we were okay!
She's coming up this weekend to stay another 10 days and we're dreading it. She also tried to raise our rent by $150 a month out of nowhere. Now we're in the process of buying a house, so I've got my fingers crossed for all that.
#36
I posted a long time ago about my first college apartment landlord cleaning the ash out of my grill and then charging me $4 for clean up. What I didn't post about was how he also built a garage in between the three buildings he was renting and tried to get us to pay all tenants an extra $50 a month to use it. We declined because we didn't need any more room but we noticed something that was more concerning. He tied into our breaker box to run power to the garage. When we complained, he told us to write to the public utility company to see how much electricity a few light bulbs and outlets would cost to run. If we can get an answer he'll pay us back.
We pulled the breaker immediately.
Our freezer went out during winter break and all the meat spoiled absolutely stinking up the entire apartment. We complained and said we needed a new fridge/freezer. He went ahead and made a rule that we are not allowed to keep food in the freezer if everyone leaves for more than 5 days. He would then come into our unit during breaks and check the fridge and write us letters about not following the rules.
Finally after moving out, he pulled $125 out of our security deposit because the tops of the ceiling fans were dusty and he needed to hire someone to clean them.
#37
My family and I used to live in this specific section of town homes, where the Maintenance men, to the landlord would often times schedule appointments to check on things, then come early. If they came early they'd knock like the police, and be upset when they were made to wait... and they *were* made to wait.
It became a real problem when it was discovered that they had keys to the house, and would often times just enter while we were away. I wouldn't have minded much if they didn't look like ex criminals, I wouldn't have thought twice about it, but my mother would have been pissed either way. That was just the icing on the cake.
So like any normal people we got new new locks. The owner of the rental office sends a letter to the house probably a week later saying, she's going to need a copy of the key. My mother sent her a hell no, and we started looking for a new place to live.
#38
Last place I rented. It was a small house that the guy built specifically as a rental property. Nothing but problems from the moment we moved in. Place was always moist, floors were impossible to keep clean, the front closet leaked during rain and got a bunch of our stuff moldy.
After renting for a few years we move out. The place is spotless. Not only did I clear everything out but I patched holes, repainted, washed the floors etc.
Do the final walk-through with my landlord and he says "Yeah, well, I'm gonna need to hire a cleaning crew to go through this place. You need to make sure this place is pristine to where it can be rented immediately after you leave without me having to do anything."
So he told me he would hire a cleaning crew with money from my security deposit. I told him that was nonsense. He decided to get back at me for being belligerent he just wouldn't give me my deposit back at all and would block my number.
So I sued him, got the full deposit back and, despite the lease saying I would cover any legal expenses for disputes arising out of that lease, recovered legal expenses from him as well because the court found he wasn't approaching the matter in good faith.
I had video and photos of the place after I turned it over to him. It was obvious to the judge he was being a jerk.
#39
Two years ago I was living in student apartments. They entered without my permission and fined me for drying dishes on a drying rack ($75 for a "mold hazard").
#40
A couple of my friends and I had a guy I will call Petey as a landlord.
We rented this 4 bedroom house in a nice part of town with a pool in the back and backing onto parkland , pretty much a perfect house. And we were paying accordingly $250 a week each ($1250 Australian dollars a week)
Everything was pretty good for the first month but then he changed the lease and we lost access to the common areas on the ground floor, and we had to move all our stuff from their upstairs and combine the gaming room with the lounge/dining room and he used the ground floor for storing random [stuff] he bought at bankruptcy and estate auctions and government surplus sales. (the guy was a hoarder and using the space to store his horde)
We grumbled and he reminded us we were locked into a 12 month lease so we could not move unless we paid the remainder of the rent and forfeited our bond. So we had no choice but to accept.
Then a couple of months later he decided to start storing old car bodies and junky caravans in the yard which he intended to sell later as scrap and make a profit somehow. This blocked off our access to the yard and we could no longer use the pool.
Again he reminded us of the lease and we had no choice but to agree.
And then he decided our rent was for just our bedrooms and he wanted to store stuff in the rest of the house , at this point we only had a month left on the lease so we stuck around paid the remaining month of rent and started looking elsewhere for a place to stay.
And as a finally he decided we were in breach of the lease since the house was a complete wreck (due to all of his stuff being scattered around the house) so we did not get our bond money back until we dragged him through the RTA (Residential Tenancies Authority) and they forced him to pay back the bond which he finally did 6 months late.
#41
Rented a house in the southern US that was managed by a property management company. It was an older house but seemed to be in good shape when I toured it. After I moved in, it was one problem after another. The (wooden) windows were painted and nailed shut. There was absolutely no water pressure in the master bathroom shower (ended up fixing that myself). The back door didn't latch quite right and frequently popped off the slider track. There were cockroaches everywhere. The biggest problem was the A/C, which broke 8 times in 6 weeks, and the HVAC company finally said there was nothing more they could do, that the system was too old and too broken to fix anymore, the best they could do was patch it but it still never really worked. The landlord refused to pay to replace the system because he said patching it was good enough, but in Alabama summer heat and humidity, it was 85+ in the house.
The property management company just ignored my complaints on all the rest of the issues, until I finally threatened to sue, at which point they said they couldn't perform maintenance because I had a dog in the house (allowed per the lease) and their maintenance guy was afraid of dogs. I gave up, bought a house, broke my lease 2 months early, and moved out. They then withheld my entire ($1000) deposit because they said they needed to clean the carpets because they "smelled like dog" even though I had had them professionally cleaned when I left and it definitely did not smell like dog.
#42
My neighbors in my apartment complex hadnt taken their trash out in a few weeks and my landlord assumed it was my trash and dumped in on my doorstep to where i couldnt open my door without picking it up first. [Dirty] diapers and all and i dont even have kids. This was the 2nd time this happened mind you. I have every intension of dumping copious amounts od garbage on his door step when I finally decide to move out.
#43
Landlady lived in the duplex below us decided to sell the place and move out of state. So for 3 months everyday she knocked on my door and asked me to help her. I pulled weeds, cleaned the basement and garage, washed the windows, etc. but she never really acknowledged it -- just asked me to do more. We also had to keep our place clean all the time in case there was a showing. On her last day at the place after it sold she asked me to help load the moving van. I obliged because I just wanted her gone. Then, just before she left, she gave me a bottle of wine as a thank you for all my work. It had a picture of a frog playing a banjo on the label, but hey it's the thought that counts. An hour later the realtor showed up to thank me for helping him make the sale. He gave me a bottle of wine with a picture of a frog playing a banjo on the label. It was just like the one he gave her that she re-gifted to me.
#44
After I moved out, he pulled up the rose bushes that were there before me, and charged against my deposit for their removal.
#45
Our a/c unit was overheating causing smoke to fill the unit. Cue smoke alarm and middle of the night calling the fire department. They determined it was smoke from HVAC unit but building okay. He "fixes" HVAC unit but it happened again. His fix that time? Bought new "less sensitive" smoke detector.
#46
I bought my house from my landlord this year (a tall, skinny house in a historic district that's kind of a hip German town), after renting it for a few years. It was constantly a struggle to get the landlord to do anything. All maintenance was done through a contractor, who they apparently were really bad at paying because he eventually just stopped working and showing up.
We even had the gutters break and rain water start leaking through the wall and causing huge stains/mold to one of the rooms. They never fixed it. The basement is unfinished and filled with dirt along with all of the old [stuff] from past tenants (there's an old Gateway computer monitor down there, along with old tables and rolls of carpet padding and old water heaters. Also found out the dryer has no vent out of the house). There was a tacked on kitchen (to make it a multifamily, which it was until I bought it) that was little better than plywood and had no insulation. They never fixed our fence that someone slammed into with their car while speeding down an alley behind my house.
They also got into a petty email argument with me because we replaced a door that had been broken, and when they had someone (in hindsight, I don't know who, you'll see why below) try and come by the house, they couldn't get in because the locks had changed. Even though I had tried to contact them multiple times about fixing the door and about the locks changing. They just did not care about this house or ever really even take care of it.
When my fiancé and I bought the house (we do love it, and are fixing it up), we were trying to find out construction and renovation information from my landlord for our mortgage. It turns out he had never been to the house, he lived somewhere else (way out west), and didn't actually know anything about the house. His best guess is that some of the plumbing was updated "in the 90s" when the second kitchen and bathroom were added.
Which worked out in our favor, because he didn't want to deal with a realtor and he didn't know the value of the neighborhood had gone way up, so he offered us the house at almost $150,000 less than other houses in the neighborhood/what the house and land are technically worth.
So there was never one particular thing that was *very* bad, but just for three years they were absent, annoying, low key jerks, and miserable to deal with. and that adds up.
But in the end, I came out on top with the price that I paid.
#47
Lived above a small insurance company and started off fine, then one of the brothers was going through a divorce and suddenly decided he wanted to move it. I was actually fine with that was I wanted to leave, but they started going after the smallest things possible. We finally went to court, blah de blah and left.
About a year later, he runs up to me like we're old buddies. I acted like I didn't know know him, so he says "I'm Mr _________"
So I said "Oh, right! Leave me alone."
#48
Sketchy jerks tried to bill me $350 to repaint a room that had well over a hundred nail holes in the wall when we moved in (according to THEIR walkthrough), and $850 to refill a tank of home heating oil that was empty when I moved in (again according to THEIR walkthrough).
If someone firebombed their office and I was on that jury I would acquit.
#49
Lived overseas, housing company managed multiple "landlord" properties. I had multiple issues with them.
First incident, was that we noticed ants started making their way into the house. But, instead of normal places, they were on the ceiling, in clumps. Thousands of them, and they weren't interested in food, they just were in palm-sized clumps along the edges of the ceiling. We called housing several times, to which one came out to look at them and say "sorry this is normal" and didn't want to do anything about it. They finally bought us special traps that helped.
Second and final time before we moved houses, I somehow pulled our oven door off, twice. The outer piece with the handle came away from the inner piece that faces the food. Once they drilled the door back together, the second time they just put it out of commission, and said I would have to wait until the owners of the home came over (we were in Japan, they lived in the US) and bought a new one. We were looking at almost two months until they would return. We complained that it was ridiculous to pay rent and not have a working oven for that long. The company then said instead we could buy an oven ourselves and then they would pay us back.
In the end, we complained so much about that house and what the company wasn't helping us with, nor the owners, so they allowed us to move into a different house owned by the loveliest guy who came by once a month and did yard trimming for us.
#50
A couple years ago I lived with my aunt and uncle, whom I'd lived with most of my life. My aunt fell and had a traumatic brain injury - she has lived in a nursing home ever since and can never live independently again. A couple weeks after the accident - I still hadn't been able to see her in the hospital, and neither had my uncle - and the landlord said we were ok to stay at our house for the time being. That was a total lie, since the next day he had my cousin (aunt's son, but my uncle wasn't the father, aunt's POS ex-husband was) and his wife tell us we had by the end of the month to leave. About 3 weeks to pack up everything and go after having lived there for over 20 years. (No, that's not legal.)
Landlord went to church with said cousins and I guess thought the news would be better coming from family but why lie? I was livid to hear this and everyone else tried to tell me "Oh, but he's been so good so far, he's charged you a low price for rent etc..." as if that cancels out giving us 3 weeks notice to leave. I looked into the laws for my area and was still told that the landlord didn't want to have to go the formal eviction route (He was just an old man who wants to retire! He doesn't want to be a landlord anymore! He's just asking nicely that you be gone by the end of the month.)
In the end, we got an extra month to move out, which was much appreciated, but the initial deceit and lying still angers me to this day. I lost my house and nearly lost my life-long mother figure within such a short span of time.
#51
When I first moved out I lived in a basement apartment in my aunt's house. The first walk through was fine and she didn't mention any issues so I thought we were good to go. Turns out, the pump for the sink in the kitchen would back up into the boiler closet in my bedroom, she had a cave cricket/regular cricket issue, and the shower leaked into the bathroom as soon as you turned it on.
First, she told me the water in my room from the backed up pump was just rain water coming in through the windows (almost all of my floor was covered in an inch of water).
Second, she told me I was being dramatic about the bug issue (I was putting down 10-12 new traps every 3 days because the traps I was putting down were COVERED. Before I got the traps I walked in to at least 10 cave crickets in my kitchen).
Lastly, she took a MONTH to fix the shower. So that meant either I had to deal with the water, soak some of my towels to shower, or go to my mother's to shower. I chose the last option even though my mother lived almost an hour away. When she finally fixed the shower I had all but moved out and she complained that I "made her fix the shower for no reason".
OH and she turned the power off in my kitchen to fix something and never turned it back on so all of my food went bad because I was away for a few days and wasn't there to notice it.
The moral of the story? NEVER move in with your family. She thought she could get away with all of this because we were related but there was no lease so I pretty much took all of my stuff and moved out and didn't pay her any more rent.
#52
I live in the tropics so sometimes buildings, especially made for rental aren't always the best.
I was the first tenant of this upstairs apartment another rainy season was approaching so my landlord asked a few tenants to report any leaks that may occur. Now what I failed to realise was that the roof he built were basically triangles set next to eachother with guttering running between the lowest part to the edge into the main section.
I was at work for the first heavy rainfall of the season and instead of going inside as I got home I sat outside speaking with one of his workers who just got off and was having a beer while we watched the small river behind the property fill up when suddenly he turns to me and asked if I checked for any leaks in my apartment. Realising the worry I'm his voice I quickly went to check and discovered a few inches of water in my bedroom and water falling as if there was no roof.
Took me hours to get that amount of water out of my room and when I called him to speak about damages caused all he could tell me is that my renters insurance should hae covered it because it was an act of God. Apparently God is [bad[ at building roofs and uses 2 inch pipe for guttering. Moved out as soon as I could after that.
#53
My landlord really, really wants me out. My neighbourhood rapidly gentrified just after I moved in which means that he could rerent my unit for about 30% more than I pay and he is fairly eager to do so.
Here is a short list of things he has tried:
1. Refusing to cash my rent cheques and filing eviction for non payment. I started emailing him within a week of the cheque not clearing my account and eventually set up an escrow account so that I had a legal trail of me actually paying rent.
2. Entered my unit, constantly. I set up cameras and recorded the entries and very politely told him what I was doing and asked that it stop. I am super cool about 24 hours notice. He come through my unit about once per month still - but with notice.
3. Started demanding damages and additional utility charges, which he could not verify. My roof leaked - he demanded i pay to replace the floor. The faucet on my sink sheared off due to corrosion, he demanded I pay for that (despite sending several repair request for it over the course of a year prior to the final failure). My 8000 BTU air conditioner? Well that is using too much electricity, he demands I get rid of it (There is one panel of the building).
4. Recently he cut both my phone and cable lines and refused to provide allowance for new lines to be run.
Telephone lines are considered a basic right in Canada. Without internet, I had plenty of time to spend on the phone with Tenant advocacy organizations and the CRTC. That took a couple weeks to resolve.
5. Send me an eviction notice so that he could move in his Daughter. I replied via my lawyer and said - sure! No problem i will take one of other available units in my building at my same rental rate. (this is a 68 Unit building, at the time of filing there were 5 other units for rent). I have not yet heard back.
We have been to court or Tribunal 9 times in 6 years, for a whole pile of stuff. Things have been calm for a couple months.
I feel like I also need to defend myself. I keep a clean home, I am very quiet, my rent is paid on time in full. I am by all accounts a model tenant. The only problem is that I pay $1300 / mo for an apartment which could easily fetch $1700.
#54
In 2003 my manager started telling one of my friends he shouldn't come around here any more and started calling him "Muhammad" and "Rag Head" to his face. My friend is part Native American and part Sicilian and just has a decent tan.
The owner was contacted and the manager fired. Good ol post 9/11 racism.
#55
Part of the patio near the pool had tiles that are meant for the floor inside the house, and thus were very slippery when wet. My Mom (who has MS) slipped and fell on the tile and told the landlords (it was an older man and his son) about it and the son soon after sent us a letter saying we needed to be out of the house in 15 days (my mom always paid rent on time, so this was completely unexpected). We took our sweet time looking for a new place and moving out.
#56
Was offered a discount on that months rent for putting up a new fence, new fence went up at a cost of 800$. Claimed i broke the lease by doing permanent modifications to the property and used that reason to evict me.
#57
I know someone who had a good one. He paid his rent and by some mistake underpaid by five cents. The landlord freaked out and sent him tons of bills for the five cents and then threatened to evict him. The guy then grabs a postage stamp, marches up to the landlord's door, knocks, hands the landlord the stamp, and then demands change as the stamp is worth more than the outstanding amount.
#58
Probably not as bad as some others here but I just moved into a place and when I tried to get internet installed Comcast told me that my cable jack isn't actually connected to anything and I would need to get my landlord's permission for them to run a line. My landlord has totally ignored me so now I'm stuck in an apartment that can't get internet for the next year. I've also discovered that I might not get any water if too many other people in the building are trying to use water at the same time.
#59
During the time I had an off-campus apartment, the landlord bought a large "Winnebago" that he and his wife could drive away in for spontaneous vacations.
Not realizing that my car was parked inside the garage that came with the rent, he parked his regular car in front of my garage bay door and took off, never thinking about my inability to get in or out.
The landlord was away for over two weeks and left no contact information - just gone in the Winnebago. He was furious when he got back that I had his car towed to a nearby parking spot during his absence. (He also said he wouldn't pay the towing fees for having blocked me in all that time.).
#60
Told me my roommates gave their notice to move out (I knew nothing) and that I would have to move too. My roommates had no intention of leaving.
#61
I rented a single bedroom of a three bedroom house.
At first, he wanted rent paid entirely in cash, but I told him I'd be more comfortable with a check (all for my protection of course).
He had a washer and dryer in the garage, but when I tried to use it at night he told me it was too disruptive. The rent covered utilities, but he quickly figured out that I stayed in my room using the computer mist nights and on the weekends and he hadn't anticipated that, so he'd have to raise my rent from now on.
That was ridiculous already, but then he told me the rent hike also applied retroactively as well so I owed him extra for the first few months I had lived there as well.
I think he expected me to only rent the room to have a place to sleep, not to actually live in, so he didn't like that I seemed to not live up to my side of the agreement. I got out of there as soon as I could find another place to live.
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