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

So, about 10 years ago my husband and I were renting a house while we tried to buy a place. The landlord seemed so nice, and it was a great situation. When we found a place to buy, we gave him our forwarding information along with the keys. It took about two months to get our deposit back, and we were shocked to say the least. He had taken $400 out. He had an enclosed porch that had screens with no glass. It had outdoor carpeting that was gross, and we bought a remnant to cover the carpet since we had little kids and it was questionable (no doubt due to the year round screens – including rain storms, etc). It wasn’t ideal, but it was a rental. When we left, we rolled up the carpet and threw it out. Anyway, the landlord stated in his letter that he was taking out the $400 because we had broken the lease by having a dog – and his proof was the condition of that carpet. We did not have a dog, and that carpet was gross when we got there. We tried to explain that, but he was having none of it and would ignore our attempts to reach out (plus, how do you prove the absence of something?). Cue malicious compliance: you want to follow the lease so carefully as to make up animals? Well, perhaps you should read the laws a little better. According to our state, landlords have exactly one month to send the deposit back. He took two. According to the law, you can be held liable for three times the amount (1800, in our case). So we sued. We no longer wanted the $400 back; we wanted $5400. While it was somewhat painful (he dodged attempts to serve him, he had out of state attorney friends try to intimidate us) he eventually had to hire an attorney, and we settled on $2000 (in addition to the $1400 we got back). We filed with the help of a friend so we didn’t owe an attorney – just filing fees. He ended up paying $2000 plus attorney fees instead of our $400 for a phantom dog. Know your rights as tenants!

leigh10021 , Andrew Riefenstahl Report

So this happened in college to me and my friends. We moved into a house from some small rental company based in the area after signing a year long lease. House is great, no problems, but we were told a week or so after moving in we would have to send our rent checks each month by the 5th by mail to their new office in the town 120 miles over. Whatever, barely a problem so we just go with it. So for the next 6 months or so we both mail our rent checks at the same time by the 1st of each month, and never had any problems. Then one day my friend receives a call from the landlord saying we owe 100+ dollars each in late fees becuase 2 months our rent checks came in the mail a day after they were due. They were DEFINITELY postmarked AT LEAST 3 days before that, but thats not the point. So he says, “per the lease you each owe 50 dollars for each month it is late and so that is 200 dollars total” and we said well it was definitely postmarked multiple days in advance and its not our fault the USPS didn’t deliver it on time, and that we had no way to know that it wasn’t delivered on time, so how could we be accountable for these fees? He responded with, “Go read the document, per the lease your late fees are stated clearly, you have until next month to pay” then he hung up. We pulled up our lease, and just as he asked us to do, we read it. He was right – based on all we knew we each owed them 100 bucks – [darn]. But, in a section regarding payment, CLEARLY stated, we were to HAND DELIVER our rent checks to their office which was still addressed to their OLD office in town, and the address we were supposed to deliver them to WAS NOT the one they had us sending our checks to. So we called them back, “we looked at the lease, and per the lease, we are not required to send checks to that office but to this office insert old office address so we will be bringing our checks there from now on and will not be paying any late fees because we technically never even agreed in the lease to mail our checks. The landlord flipped saying we were being children, that this was unfair, and he was going to get our parents on the phone (he literally said that, despite the fact both our parents were obviously on our side and we were 20ish year old people). We just said “well if you want your rent money we will bring it to the location described in our signed lease, since as per the lease you need it delivered there and we don’t feel comfortable mailing them to unknown locations”. Inevitably he buckled, he knew he was at fault, and dropped the late fees and said we wouldn’t owe any more late fees ever so long as the envelope was post marked on the right day. Every month after that we waited until the day before to mail them out, ensuring they wouldn’t receive their money until at least a couple days after it was due. We stayed in the house the next year (aside from this instance, they weren’t too bad compared to some other college town landlords) and they changed the lease so it couldn’t happen again. Felt good.

suan213 , Alexander Suhorucov Report

It’s about seven years ago. I’m living in a trailer (like, legit trailer, not a double wide) in a trailer park because it was my own place and it got me the h**l away from my parents and didn’t cost me an arm and a leg for rent. Cramped? You bet. But living on my own was a freedom I can’t understate. That price came with its own price, though: The landlord was…kinda lazy. h**l, I didn’t even get a tank of propane when I signed the lease, I had to pay for it myself! But rolled into the rent was all utilities besides electricity, which, oddly enough, the landlord was responsible for adding that to our rent every month. (This led to some interesting issues that eventually got resolved but that’s not within the scope of this sub.) Other than that, landlord paid everything. My trailer already had issues, mostly parts of it breaking from just old age. But one of the bigger things was the outdoor lighting. You see, there was this very small step that went up to the concrete platform my trailer sat on, and it was small enough that I have no idea why it was put there but big enough that you’ll easily trip over it. The landlord had put down those cheapo solar lights to keep it lit, but those had since died. I brought it to the landlord’s attention. Promises it’d get fixed. This went on for weeks. Finally after a particularly bad day at work, I decided I had enough once I tripped over it for the umpteenth time. Went to the Homeless Despot and picked up some better solar lights and stuck them where the old ones were. Finally, bliss and not having visitors and myself trip up on their way to my front door. …or so I thought. Couple days later I come home from work, my solar lights are (crudely) ripped out of the ground and tossed aside, and there’s a notice taped to my door that essentially said RESIDENTS ARE NOT ALLOWED TO MAKE THEIR OWN REPAIRS OR MODIFICATIONS TO ANYTHING ON THEIR PROPERTY, IF YOU NEED ANYTHING PLEASE CONTACT $LAZYLANDLORD (For those curious, for the entire year and a half I lived there, no, they never replaced the lights. I did, however, stick a directional light on the one outdoor light I was allowed to replace, and aimed it right at the offending step.) This becomes relevant later. I just sighed angrily, and went about the rest of my day. Now, remember when I said things were breaking on my trailer from old age? A few months later, I come home from work to hear running water near my trailer. I round the corner, and notice that the big water hose feeding my trailer water had basically disintegrated from being old and worn, and was spewing water everywhere. I also remembered that 1. The landlord pays the water bill, and 2. They were lazy and never did anything, and 3. When I did try to correct for their laziness they went HAM on me for daring to make my life somewhat better. So I turned around, went back to my car, called my mom, and asked if I could stay the night at her house, to which she agreed. Sure, I knew exactly where the shutoff valve was for the water line going to my trailer. Could I have engaged it? Sure. But seeing as the last time I did something good I was screamed at for making “my own repairs”, nope. Landlord was going to pay for ALL that water. And her laziness too. (Seriously, that hose should have been swapped LONG ago, and wasn’t.) The landlord did try to hassle me over it (the irony is she lived directly adjacent to my trailer, so her not noticing the GUSHING WATER is next-level laziness), but I pointed out that she specifically told me I’d get a paddlin’ if I tried to do anything on my own again, and figured I’d leave water issues to the “professionals”. And maintenance of the water system was never spelled out in my responsibilities to the property. She eventually got relieved of her job a couple months after that whole thing went down. Her replacement was much better about things.

Kolbentine , Matheus Bertelli Report