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174
Couple Enjoy A Glass Of Wine After Making Greedy Landlord Regret Keeping Their Deposit
A respectful and professional landlord is a blessing. But someone whose greed is off the charts is bound to make your life that much harder. That is unless you know how to enforce boundaries properly and aren’t scared of standing up for yourself when it truly matters. And if you know your rights as a tenant, well, you have a massive advantage.
Redditor u/wusselpompf recently went viral after sharing how, together with their wife, they got revenge against a landlord who tried to keep their deposit. The tension reached a boiling point after the couple had already moved out when their landlord suddenly demanded that they renovate the apartment. Read on for the full story.
Bored Panda has reached out to the author via Reddit, and we’ll update the article as soon as we hear back from them.
RELATED:
The way your landlord treats you can have a huge impact not just on your time renting, but can also affect you after you move
Image credits: Alena Darmel / pexels (not the actual photo)
One law-savvy internet user shared how they got revenge against an exceptionally greedy and undiplomatic landlord
Image credits: Frank Schrader / pexels (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Ketut Subiyanto / pexels (not the actual photo)
Image credits: wusselpompf
Figuring out whether or not your potential landlord is trustworthy is harder than it might seem
The more experience you have interacting with people, the better you can judge their character. That being said, it’s not like anyone can read someone’s mind. Even the best interpreters of body language, tone, and reputation make the occasional mistake. So, anyone can slip up and end up getting stuck with a bad landlord.
After all, you don’t have a lot of time to analyze them as a person. You probably view the apartment and chat with them for a little bit, and that’s it. Unless there are some major red flags, you don’t really get an in-depth dive into who they are as an individual, what they value, and how they’ll treat you in the future.
What really helps in any situation is to do some background research before you commit to signing any contract or lease. Search the internet to see if the previous tenants have left any reviews about the landlord or their property.
Whether or not there’s any information about them online, you should definitely go through the lease with a fine-toothed comb. If there’s any ambiguity in the phrasing, ask the landlord to clarify things in the document. You want to be sure that you know who’s responsible for maintaining the home, fixing the appliances if they go out of order, and how you’ll get your deposit back.
You can get a sense of who they are by how they react. Iffy landlords might try to rush you to sign ASAP and will be against any rewording. On the flip side, good landlords won’t mind making the phrasing clearer so both parties are on the same page.
Image credits: Pavel Danilyuk / pexels (not the actual photo)
If you know your rights and have a paper trail, you’re at a serious advantage against landlords who don’t follow the law
It’s essential that you properly inspect the home before you commit to renting it. Be on the lookout for things like mold, signs of low-quality DIY maintenance, and damage. The last thing you want is to live in a place that has shoddy plumbing, faulty electrical, and weird stuff growing in damp corners.
One sign of a truly good tenant, aside from paying the rent on time, is that they’ll look after the property as though it were their own place. It’s something that any landlord would ask for! So, if the home is in genuinely good shape and there’s no wear and tear beyond what’s to be expected after a few years, there’s no reason not to refund the deposit.
But in case the unthinkable happens and you don’t get your deposit back for some unusual reason, it helps a ton if you know your rights as a tenant. If your landlord has clearly breached the law, you can take action and hire an attorney. Something that’s going to be a huge boon to your case is if you have a physical or digital paper trail of your interactions with your landlord so the situation doesn’t devolve into a we said/they said sort of situation.
What did you think of the way that u/wusselpompf handled the greedy landlord, Pandas? Would you have done anything differently? What’s the very worst landlord you’ve ever had? On the flip side, who was the best landlord you’ve had the pleasure of interacting with?
We’d love to hear your opinions and about your experiences, so if you have a moment, scroll down to the bottom of the post and leave a comment.
Image credits: Anete Lusina / pexels (not the actual photo)
The tenant later shared a bit more context in the comments of the viral post
Many internet users were seriously impressed by how the author handled everything
There were a few readers who had very similar experiences. Here are their tales
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What do you think ?
Sinkvenice 1 year ago
My fiancé and I have just bought and moved in to a wonderful house. We moved out in April and the landlord is trying to keep £1000 of our £1600 deposit for various cleaning. We have them in writing saying that the house was in better condition when we left than when we moved in. They said the same thing about the back garden and how it was so much nicer. Thanks power washer! :-D We also had it professionally cleaned but they're dragging this out for as long as they can, for as much as they can. What if someone was relying on getting the full deposit back so they can move into a new place. It's utterly repugnant.
KatSaidWhat 1 year ago
I take timestamped photos before moving in and after moving out to show that it is usually in better shape than when I arrived. Some small agent came at me two moves ago by trying to not pay me until I threatened visits by council and police for on premises dealing and crack parties on monday night that we had turned blind eye to (never f**k with people on crack) - suddenly my deposit magically arrived. Waited 7 months, reported them anyway.
Anagram margana 1 year ago (edited)
I moved out of my rented condo after 4 years, leaving it in very good condition, repainting the walls, and shampooing the rugs. The calculatingly dishonest landlady, about whom I’d heard horror stories, decided that because the grout between the main floor’s white tiles was now grayish - which I’d naively chalked up to normal use over 4 years - I would not get my deposit back. when I rented the place she had just had the tile installed, and of course it looked new. What she and her weirdly antisocial adult daughter (who was petrified of her mother) failed to understand is they had not SEALED the grout and they denied any fault. I filed all the necessary paperwork to take them to court and was a week away from doing so when Covid hit. The CT courts were putting anything new on hold indefinitely, so I reluctantly let it go, praying to the karma gods that they would someday get their just desert s.* ***[Note: autocorrect INCORRECTLY keeps changing that last word to desserts, so had to put a space there just to make it right..unbelievable.]
ucp 1 year ago
I had the opposite experience. I bought a small flat in my hometown, as insurance in case work stress became too much (sell house, live in flat). Rented it out in the interim. It was let in a state that I would have loved to live in (new kitchen, carpets, curtains, fully decorated). Had the best views in my town/small city: cathedral views, countryside. My letting agent didn’t do his job. Tenants moved in. Paid rent for four of the ten months they were there. And our deposit holding scheme gave them all of the deposit money back straight away, despite the fact that the two lads didn’t clean the kitchen once while they were there; they stole curtains; and blocked air flow which caused damp. I sold that flat at a loss.
R Dennis 1 year ago
The only time I ever rented, we did so much updating at our cost: repainted a bedroom that had been sprayed orange (even the window frames), replaced the carpeting in two bedroom, had the stairs professionally rebuilt. Never got our deposit back even though we left it far nicer than we got it... haven't rented since!
ENSJ 1 year ago
Apartment I rented was sold (entire building was). The new owners wanted to turn it into a B&B and wanted the tenants (me and a foreign exchange student) out of there. They claimed the curtains were damaged (old curtains) and I looked up the value of those curtains (for each year you deduct a certain percentage of the initial cost). It wasn't much, but they insisted on keeping my entire deposit and had the gall to sent me an invoice for new very expensive curtains. I refused to pay, they also knew they couldn't force me to pay for new curtains that way so dropped it in the end, but the foreign exchange student did fall for it.
arthbach 1 year ago
Yes, Germany has raccoons. They were introduced to Germany in the 1920/30s, primarily for the fur trade. During WWII, raccoons escaped and made themselves at home. Other colonies of raccoons were released. In Germany, they are called 'Waschbären' (wash bears).
Load More Replies...
Sinkvenice 1 year ago
My fiancé and I have just bought and moved in to a wonderful house. We moved out in April and the landlord is trying to keep £1000 of our £1600 deposit for various cleaning. We have them in writing saying that the house was in better condition when we left than when we moved in. They said the same thing about the back garden and how it was so much nicer. Thanks power washer! :-D We also had it professionally cleaned but they're dragging this out for as long as they can, for as much as they can. What if someone was relying on getting the full deposit back so they can move into a new place. It's utterly repugnant.
KatSaidWhat 1 year ago
I take timestamped photos before moving in and after moving out to show that it is usually in better shape than when I arrived. Some small agent came at me two moves ago by trying to not pay me until I threatened visits by council and police for on premises dealing and crack parties on monday night that we had turned blind eye to (never f**k with people on crack) - suddenly my deposit magically arrived. Waited 7 months, reported them anyway.
Anagram margana 1 year ago (edited)
I moved out of my rented condo after 4 years, leaving it in very good condition, repainting the walls, and shampooing the rugs. The calculatingly dishonest landlady, about whom I’d heard horror stories, decided that because the grout between the main floor’s white tiles was now grayish - which I’d naively chalked up to normal use over 4 years - I would not get my deposit back. when I rented the place she had just had the tile installed, and of course it looked new. What she and her weirdly antisocial adult daughter (who was petrified of her mother) failed to understand is they had not SEALED the grout and they denied any fault. I filed all the necessary paperwork to take them to court and was a week away from doing so when Covid hit. The CT courts were putting anything new on hold indefinitely, so I reluctantly let it go, praying to the karma gods that they would someday get their just desert s.* ***[Note: autocorrect INCORRECTLY keeps changing that last word to desserts, so had to put a space there just to make it right..unbelievable.]
ucp 1 year ago
I had the opposite experience. I bought a small flat in my hometown, as insurance in case work stress became too much (sell house, live in flat). Rented it out in the interim. It was let in a state that I would have loved to live in (new kitchen, carpets, curtains, fully decorated). Had the best views in my town/small city: cathedral views, countryside. My letting agent didn’t do his job. Tenants moved in. Paid rent for four of the ten months they were there. And our deposit holding scheme gave them all of the deposit money back straight away, despite the fact that the two lads didn’t clean the kitchen once while they were there; they stole curtains; and blocked air flow which caused damp. I sold that flat at a loss.
R Dennis 1 year ago
The only time I ever rented, we did so much updating at our cost: repainted a bedroom that had been sprayed orange (even the window frames), replaced the carpeting in two bedroom, had the stairs professionally rebuilt. Never got our deposit back even though we left it far nicer than we got it... haven't rented since!
ENSJ 1 year ago
Apartment I rented was sold (entire building was). The new owners wanted to turn it into a B&B and wanted the tenants (me and a foreign exchange student) out of there. They claimed the curtains were damaged (old curtains) and I looked up the value of those curtains (for each year you deduct a certain percentage of the initial cost). It wasn't much, but they insisted on keeping my entire deposit and had the gall to sent me an invoice for new very expensive curtains. I refused to pay, they also knew they couldn't force me to pay for new curtains that way so dropped it in the end, but the foreign exchange student did fall for it.
arthbach 1 year ago
Yes, Germany has raccoons. They were introduced to Germany in the 1920/30s, primarily for the fur trade. During WWII, raccoons escaped and made themselves at home. Other colonies of raccoons were released. In Germany, they are called 'Waschbären' (wash bears).
Load More Replies... 
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