When Following the Rules Backfires: 39 Tenants’ Brilliant Acts of Payback That Landlords Didn’t See Coming

My grandfather was born in 1943 and was sailor in the 60s. He subscribed to a very tight honour code when it came to taking care of one’s friends and community. So when a little old lady who had lived in her house as long as anyone could remember had her rental lease passed on to a new owner, no one was pleased when he evicted her, after higher rent. My grandfather, however, offered to help with the exit maintenance, and the landlord requested a new paint job. So paint it he did, in one day, with all his sailor mates. Every interior wall, floor and roof with black ship paint. You know, the stuff that’s supposed to withstand being at sea. My grandfather said he was irate, but couldn’t do anything because all he had requested was a paint job with no other stipulations, and that’s what they had done.

[deleted] , Adam Hornyak Report

About 10 years ago, my at-the-time girlfriend (now wife) and I moved from the area we went to college to an apartment near where we planned to start our careers. I say it was an apartment, but it was really the basement of a house that the landlord had walled off to create 2 “apartments” to rent. The place was kinda c*****, but the rent was cheap for the area, and we were close to work. Everything was fine for a few months, but the only parking for us was on the street out front – the couple that rented the upstairs “apartment” had rights to the garage and driveway (they paid more than we did). Suddenly my car got a couple [nonsense] tickets for parking on the street – I’m guessing some [butt]-clown cop needed to meet their quota – and my girlfriend’s car got sideswiped in a hit & run. This [p**p] had to stop, so we emailed the landlord (her preferred form of communication) to ask if there’s anywhere safe for us to park. She replies, “Park anywhere you want.” We had noticed that our upstairs neighbors usually eschewed the driveway to park in the front yard (they were horribly lazy), so we figured that would be a good spot for us too. We parked in the front yard the rest of the year. We figured that would be the end of it. We finished our lease, left the place in better shape than we found it, and requested our $1500 security deposit back. After a couple weeks, we got a check for $700… [why?]!?!?!? Since there was no explanation, we asked the landlord for one, and she replied that the deducted amount was to “re-sod the lawn”, claiming that parking on it had damaged it. Now, I was the one who cut the grass at this house while we stayed there, so I was well aware that the lawn was more weeds and bald spots than grass – picture the African savanna in mid-summer. No one had ever lifted a finger to landscape any part of the property, but the landlord wanted to sell the house once the leases were up, and she figured she could get the renters to pay for a nice, new lawn. I complained to the landlord: didn’t care. I put in a complaint with the local housing department: didn’t care. I threatened to take her to court: didn’t care. So, that’s what I did – took her to small claims court. I had never sued anyone before, so I was going in prepared! I took pictures of the entire front yard – the area that we “damaged” was actually one of the best patches of grass, though it did have a small rut that my tires made when the yard was muddy in the summer. I got testimonials from our upstairs and across-the-street neighbors. Most importantly, I printed out the email where the landlord told us to park anywhere. We were suing for $1800 to cover court costs and us both missing a day of work on top of the full security deposit. In mediation we said we would settle for $1400, but she must have thought she was in the right because she refused to offer a penny more than the original $700 check, which we never cashed. When we got in front of the judge, it was pretty clear that she had no evidence, hadn’t prepared anything, and just assumed that us “kids” would fall on our faces. We did not. We put everything we had in front of the judge and made our claim (he was impressed). He stopped us when we showed him the email to ask the landlord, “Did you really tell them to park wherever they wanted?” When she said “yes”, the judge replied “Then what are we even talking about?”, and that was that. Judgement in full for us, and that b***h had to pay to re-sod her own [darn] lawn. Next time you tell someone to “park wherever you want”, you’d better mean it. Or at least don’t try to f*** someone over when they comply with what you said! If you made it this far, thanks for reading!

Clintosaurus_Rex , Kashif Afridi Report

This happened in 2018, I just moved to a new apartment. It was a three bedroom first floor apartment and it had a finished basement. It had two bedrooms, a living room, and a kitchen on the first floor. It also had a bedroom (with a full bath) in the basement and a bar/gaming area. It was also in a very nice area of the city. The apartment was owned by a corporation. Honestly, we loved that apartment, until it kept having recurring issues in the basement. The carpet was wet from time to time, at first the landlord would send a cleaner to come and handle it but it keeps happening. I asked them to check and fix the issue. They did not do it, I told him I’ll call the city inspector to check the building, they laughed at me and told me ‘go ahead, call the city inspector’, so I did. I called the city twice until I finally was connected to the right department and they sent an inspector a week later. The inspector found so many building violations. They told me they’d contact the building owner and would come again. The next day, the owner called and begged me to tell them what I know about the problem with the apartment. I told them that I sent complaints multiple times, they should check their record. The city inspector, the owner and the property manager came two weeks after that, the city inspector was whooping their a***s. He laid it to them, it was bad. They have to deal with structural and foundational issues and some safety issues too. There were 4 tenants in that building including us, imagine it was a big colonial/multi family home divided into four apartments. They had to break the lease with all of us to fix the building. They couldn’t fix it with us being there. We were ready and already consulted a lawyer, we told them that: 1. We want our deposit back before moving out 2. They paid for all of our moving expenses 3. They paid for our deposit at the next place They could not kick us out, they could not rent the apartment after the inspections, there were four of us and we could all sue them for placing us in a dangerous building. In the end they spent so much money to relocate us and fix the apartment.

movingtocincinnati , Rene Schwietzke Report