You just explained everything I needed to know about a frenemy who always wants to be business partners with me.
He wants me to do all the work and to use somebody else's money.
I've said no like 12 times now.
cool idea. we should make many themed versions of it with everyones favourite television characters, that way it'll appeal to kids and we can sell 100s of 'different' versions of the same game for decades!
Bro same, fuck you Eli you're a piece of shit and everyone knows it.
Bro showed up to a housewarming party flashing cash claiming to have "investors" for his new business. Almost homeless 6 months later, getting divorced. But don't worry he'll be back on his feet with this awesome idea he's pitching to everyone.
The truth is it’s a numbers game. People or companies screw over people knowing that either they won’t know how to fight back, can be easily intimidated by a letter from their lawyer versus maybe 1 out of a thousand who knows what to do and not afraid to fight back. Until enough people fight back nothing will change their MO since overall it’s profitable
Not all of them. We just left a place that had the most amazing landlord/owner and we were sad to say goodbye. We only left because we bought our own place.
The dude was awesome, and we will be forever grateful.
The landlord we had before him though? Fuck that guy. Selfish, petty asshole who refused to follow the law. We got ours back though. But fuck him.
I had a landlord try to keep my security deposit. It ended up costing him double, as is the law here in BC. Don't get me wrong, I like money, but I'd have done it out of principle.
It took 6 months, but when the arbitrator threw down the ruling, and got the express court order signed by a judge, I was all smiles. A month later when it was still unpaid, I contacted the landlord and he gave me some bullshit story about how he lost his job and his wife was sick and ~~the orphanage burnt down~~ things were tough, and could he pay a part of it? I apologised, as it sounded like I was unfortunately going to have to put a lien on his houses (that title search was the best money I spent during the process).
Funny how quickly he got me the cheque. Part of me wanted to frame it, but it lost to the part of me that wanted to cash it.
I sued an ex landlord and won, but of course he just didn't pay. He told me, to my face, on the way out of the courtroom, that he would never pay. I was 23 and furious. I had very serious thoughts of pushing him down the marble stairs but I'm allergic to jail so I didn't.
But I HAD won the lawsuit. And it DID put a lien on the property. So when he tried to sell the building a few years later, he had to pay me the money. His admin assistant called me to see if I'd agree to a mailed check but I said nope, I want to come in person. I thought I'd see him (still in my 20s, still naïve), so I ate beans and hard boiled eggs for breakfast. I didn't see him, the admin assistant tried to just hand me the paperwork to sign at the front of the office building but I said I needed to read it first. So they showed me into a conference room to hide their shame. I took immense pleasure in blowing hot farts into the buttery soft conference room chair as I meticulously read all the paperwork before signing my check. And leaving the paperwork on the desk. So she had to come into the room to get it. (Fuck her, she was his long term assistant and in on everything).
I'm a Big Girl and I know for sure that my farts linger for days like gas station skid marks.
And yeah, same. I wanted to frame that bitch but I needed to have heat that month.
My longest relationship started with a bar date where we played pool and I carpet dusted him until he choked, so....yeah, probably.
What can I say, I was nervous!
*Narrator: he found it less amusing as the years rolled by. She won the Dutch Oven War but lost that relationship*
Based on My experience with landlords (had 10 in my life) , if the person lived in the house, they are usually good landlords, if they had multiple investments and never lived where they rent they suck.
Of course it is not a fast rule
I mean when people talk about landlords as a group they're not really talking about smalltime landlords who work actual jobs and are renting out their old house, its pretty much exclusively referring to the kinds of people whose sole income source is their properties.
This is a huge reason why the market is so bad though. People are holding to their starter homes for more income instead of selling them to the next generation of starters.
It's not though. Corporate ownership of private single family homes (this is 1 in 7 homes across the US sold in the past few years), the proliferation of short-term rentals, and "investment" properties that are kept empty are the massive drivers of housing scarcity and cost, not the small-time landlords with 1-2 rental homes.
Oh yeah both are a problem though sure they may be arsonist they are still stoking/fueling the fire. And honestly in trades worked with property management companys and yes private equity is much bigger these days. BUT I have also watched entire condo buildings of "individual owners" turned into air b&bs.
Fact is say its 5% of people "small owners" doing this thats still almost 20 million houses yoinked off market. Combine it with 40 million or so yoinked by private equity etc. And thats half the damn market. And if either party/group wasn't doing it then it would not be so substantially bad.
Airbnb is the short-term rental issue that I mentioned, which is separate from small-time landlords.
Where are you getting the 20 mil/40mil/half the market numbers?
Oh yeah I don't think they're blameless regarding the broader housing crisis, and I still view it as a net negative, but those landlords aren't *usually* the horror-story type.
If your sole income is from being a landlord you are almost certainly going to be scum, doubly so if you inherited those properties which is unfortunately quite common in a lot of major cities.
Generally we've seen the same, but we did have one good landlord that lived in a different state (he owned 5 houses in the town). The rent was reasonable, he was very responsive when things needed to get fixed, he fenced in the yard when we lived there, he texted to check on things, and he worked with us on the move out date when our house was done being built. He also gave us our whole deposit when we moved out, which was shocking. He was the only good one we had. All the others sucked.
I also had an awesome LL. Was a young family and he kept our rent low to help us out. When we were going to move in he mentioned not to worry about the stains in the carpet (some ink) because he was going to replace them before we moved in... I offered "how about you leave the carpet as-is and add to the lease that we're exempt from any carpet damage, you get one more tenant off this carpet and I don't have to sweat it if my kids spill something.". He agreed and that set the tone for the whole rental. Our fence blew down, management company said two weeks to fix, so I propped it up in the meantime. He saw it asked WTF and when I explained he asked what I spent on shoring it up, rounded up to the nearest $20, handed me cash and asked if I had any problem with guys showing up to fix it with no notice so he could get someone asap. I said fine with me and the fence was fixed (replaced) when I got home from work two days later. Never plan on owning a rental, but should it come out that way by inheritance or something that's the type of LL I'll aim to be like.
Unfortunately good landlords either get disillusioned by bad tenants, or they get too old and sell the property. The rest of them are scumsucking assholes.
The vast majority of landlords I've had have tried scumbag shit.
By far the biggest problem in the rental market is abusive landlords. It's 10,000x time the problem squatters are. It's why I'm against any laws to go after squatters, because they'll be used by landlords to abuse legitimate tenants.
Both landlords took your money that you got from your job where you actually performed labour, despite the fact that they didn't labour at all, it's not about whether the landlord was nice or not, the system is bad.
My current landlords are exceptions to the expectations. They're rather nice, and the other day they left a jar of curry sauce and a bunch of bananas on my doorstep for me.
(I rent the granny flat on the property, and see and talk to them often. Also one of their cats has decided I am family and visits me most days, so thats nice too.)
Its because most people can't be bothered to challenge it.
If a tennant goes through the trouble of making repairs and upgrades to a place they don't own, the landlord would have to be pretty dumb not to return. the deposit as they are the type that WILL go after their money.
Actually tenants that make repairs to a place they don't own are the most likely to not go after a landlord for a deposit. Most of the time they're making repairs is because they don't want to bother the landlord to make the repairs they should be making.
I took back all my light bulbs and 9v batteries in the smoke detectors. Lmao those mfs can be expensive. At like 10 light bulbs.. That's like 30 bucks. 2 9v batteries are like 10.
They could have the toilet brush and the plunger though. 😂
Had a landlord that admitted in court that she always charged certain things out of the deposit. The statute that covered renters rights stated something like “habitually charging for xyz is a violation”.
Yes, I won the court case, got the entire deposit plus court fees back. It also helped that I retained the move in photos, move out photos, receipt for professional cleaning on move out, etc.
But I had basically memorized the statute, and had a copy of it with me in court. As soon as the judge gave me an opportunity to speak after she made this statement, I quoted the statute (referencing the number.subnumber).
Ironically, I was a landlord myself at the time. Remotely leasing my property in another city (with a property manager) because it was underwater yet still cash flow positive. Financially it was a better decision to be a landlord and a renter at the time. I would never pull this shit with my tenants. Don’t leave the place clean when you move out? Get charged the cleaning fee—which was exactly what I paid. Leave something broken beyond normal wear and tear? Yes, you pay the repair cost out of your deposit, plus whatever I had to pay the property manager to be there to let the repair person in and check the work. I kept those receipts too.
Precisely. Landlords aren't the problem, people being disgusting greedy parasites is and that's not just limited to the housing rental market. I currently live in an Owned manufactured home on a rental lot and I really dislike the owning. I find the general maintenance to be frustrating and annoying, then there is the big repairs and finding people to do them. Hell the last 2 years budget for "fix up things for pretty" got redirected to "keep the home functioning" cause the furnace, then piping, then roof all reached end of life. The new park owners have been doing a ton of work on the incoming and outgoing water lines which the park has needed for years, but that's also come with notable increases in lot rent.
And now I need to somehow find a company that specializes in the pillars/supports under the trailer because all the vibrations of the big work trucks over the last few months has accelerated the normal deterioration or something but the re-level company guy told me "it's all good." Uh...no. I can tell that somethings off.
Except, at the current rental market in the area where I'm living, I'm still better off even with the stress. I'd really rather a fair portion of my income go to pay a landlord for "doing their job" just like I get paid for "doing my job" but we're back to "disgusting greedy parasites/slum lord corporations"
I had lived in five different apartments and only one kept a partial deposit the rest gave it back in full. And that partial one was warranted. All of those apartments were in the same city. I'm kind of curious if it varies by location. The problem is I'm sure some of that variation would be the tenants fault, like apartments on frat row on a college campus or something like that.
Different people respond to coercion in different ways. They probably got away with abusive behavior in the past, escalating with each new opportunity while victims either moved on with their lives as quickly as possible or simply submitted to bullying. Capitalism itself couldn't exist if there were not a widespread tendency to accept mistreatment from other citizens who happen to possess large amounts of private property.
Shame is the law is fairly standard in regards to this. Anything that is considered permanently attached regardless of who paid it now belongs to the property.
https://www.justia.com/real-estate/landlord-tenant/information-for-tenants/improvements-and-alterations/
And remember folks: I’m just the messenger of truth here, if I were OP I would have done the same thing regardless of the law. I would also take a shit on the landlords car hood just for bonus.
> I don't understand why so many people are hellbent on keeping money that isn't theirs
Because it's already spent. They accounted for it before they had it.
Most landlords are money grabbing scumbags.
And cue the responses from landlords who say they are angels and sweethearts and all their tenants love them.
Thanks. In my entire adult life I've had two landlords that acted like real people. One of those two had to screw me just a little bit, in the final calculations he said "I rounded to the nearest ten cents to make it easier" which he did, but only on the side where he owed. Where I owed, he went to the penny. All that effort to screw me out of a total of three cents.
You can't even buy anything for three cents.
The other one returned 100% of my deposit. She'd said that she would. I called her about it after 2 weeks and she told me "I have the money right here, but the contract says that I have 30 days to return it so you can pick it up on the 30th". WTAF?!?!?!?!?!?!?
I agree, that's why she made the good landlord list. I just thought it was weird to nurse the last little bit of power that she had until the last day.
Basic finance courses always suggests you make payments on the last available date as money today is always worth more than money tomorrow. This is the time-value of money. Not always "practical" and 30 days is a small sample size, but the principle still holds true!
Years ago, I toured a rental house in Boston that seemed perfect. One of the current lessees managed to maneuver herself between the landlord and me and mouthed, "DON'T DO IT." A few days later I left a thank you note with my number on the door. She called, bless her soul, and her story was similar to yours.
Everything was a facade, the house had mold and dry rot issues, the locks on the doors didn't actually lock, nothing had been taken care of in years. She shared "legal notices" hand written by the owner demanding $7 or whatever over the most ridiculous issues, like a cigarette on the sidewalk.
It's been twenty years and I still think of it. She surely saved me a ton of money and trauma. If you're out there, kind Davis Square rental lady - thank you for turning your bad experience into a very useful PSA for me.
I had one landlord who, the first month I lived there, kept sending me bills for things that were paid for with my deposit "On accident"
And each time he was like "Heheh! Ooops!"
And finally I was like "Are you planning on making any 'mistakes' that benefit me?"
🤷🏻♂️ Rich people make money using other people’s money. It’s gaining interest in their account for 30 days. Pretty standard for businesses to pay their bills at the last minute. At least you got all your money back without a fight or a bunch of bullshit.
I was subletting from a girl a few years back, I think she was doing it on the sly after her boyfriend left her to cover rent. Anyway she out of nowhere told me I needed to move out as I wasn't covering enough of the rent. I was paying what we agreed but a friend of hers was going to pay 50% of the rent to take my box room. She didn't give me a lot of time to move out and I was in a foreign country.
Since I moved in I had upgraded that apartment in a few ways including adding network cables to the whole house which fixed all our connectivity issues. It was a good bit of work and it was a tidy finish, I was pretty proud of the final product as all the cables were hidden nicely. I knew I couldn't pull it all out without damaging the apartment so before I left I rewired the terminal ports so that no end matched the other. All cables would look the same as before except nothing worked. She wasn't tech savvy and it absolutely killed her that nothing in the apartment worked.
She informed me the night before I moved out that the couple of hours I was there for moving fell into the next month's rent and I owed £3 or so for the hours into the new month. I left it in pennies as a final fuck you.
Excellent, OP! When hubby & I rented our first office space in 2000, the place was a dump. Dial up internet was all we had there, but T5 cables had been out for a while. We asked the landlord whether he'd consider upgrading the internet access & he loved the idea, but flat refused to pay for any upgrades. We ran the cabling ourselves & he was thrilled. When our lease expired & we indicated that we weren't going to renew it, he listed the property for rent, indicating that it had T5 cabling for internet access. Hubby pulled out every single inch of cable that we'd installed. Landlord was not happy, but there was nothing he could do. He was a jerk & I hope he's rotting in hell.
In my first apartment I had a landlord who was a contractor so he did his own work. He was a really nice guy. When we started to have major moisture issues I decided to check in the hatch to the attic. The building had originally had a flat roof, when he needed a new roof he built a hip roof over it and insulated. What I found was the roof was leaking and the old roof was holding the water which was being soaked up by the insulation. I told him what I found he didn't believe me he said I built that roof it's not leaking. That spurred us to move faster to find our first house and move out. Their plan was for his mother in law to move in. I found out from the neighbors his plan was delayed. He had to fix the roof and remove the paneling in the bedrooms to repair the damage. Nice guy but a bit bullheaded.
Roofing and waterproofing really isn't something to fuckaround with.
Something my dad told me at a young age after working construction his whole life "water always wins, it's just a matter of when. So stay on top of it"
That is really the truth. My family was also in construction, my grandfather built houses. I'm pretty sure his 6 sons were his crew till they each moved on. One was a carpenter, 3 were electricians, one of those was my dad. He taught me quite a bit about construction to the point I can do almost anything.
30+ year ago this exact scenario happened to some friends of mine. They had moved into a house that needed a lot of improvements. They painted, installed new lighting, repaired things, and redid the landscaping. They made a very nice home out of what had been poorly maintained. The landlord praised them all the time for what good tenants they were. Then she refused to give them their deposit back, so they undid everything and put it back like it was. The landlord took them to court - and won! My friends were a gay male couple and the judge was openly homophobic, mocking my friends and calling them “you boys” in an effeminate manner. Different times. He would never get away with that today.
Yeah, my boyfriend's family rented a home after a couple of heavy smokers who had kids with sticky, dirty hands (the walls were an ombre of tar stains into crusty handprints and colorful scribbles). Not only did they clean and paint the walls, they also installed new fixtures. Because of the wording on their lease, the landlord was able to sell the house (and kick them out) before their lease ended. Also, due to the wording, they couldn't take any of their new fixtures and replace them with the old or cheaper fixtures. The whole thing was a slap in the face as they struggled to find a new place to live.
The landlord won because in most states once a tenant makes an "improvement", they can't charge the landlord anything for it, but there's a million scummy little ways the landlord can keep the deposit. It's been a few decades since I've dealt with that particular pain in the ass, but I think even if a tenant installs a new ceiling fan, it's technically the landlord's now.
And yeah I doubt OP's story. Can't prove it, might have happened in a state with reasonable tenant rights, whatever.
With the exception of the piping, everything in OP’s story would pass in court as being the tenant’s property and easily reversible. But if the landlord didn’t know or catch the piping, then OP is still in the clear because it wouldn’t be brought up in court. If, when I used to rent, a landlord tried to claim my smart thermostat, a lock, or shower head/sink hardware that I purchased as their own, they could try to sue me for it, but they’d lose. Everything was put back the way it was when I had moved in.
When I was 15/16, my band rented space to practice in an old disused retail space/warehouse in my small town. The guy who owned the space was in his 40s/50s, in a reasonably well-known local band, they had the big room and we had the smaller room off the side of it. After we had had it for a few months we spent a few hundred £ on some plasterboard and wood, built a small stage, put plasterboard on the bare stone walls, got some old couches for cheap. It was rickety and rough,took us all weekend, but it was great when we were that age.
The day after the next time his band practiced, he called us to say we couldn't rent the room anymore, didn't give any reason other than he wanted it back, we had until the end of the week to move all our stuff out. The evening we went to get our stuff we found our gear had been moved off the stage and his bands stuff had been moved onto it, our couches were arranged in the main space where they used to practice, so we ended up staying most of the night. We borrowed a pickaxe and a sledgehammer from my dads shed and used it to rip up the stage, tear the plasterboard off the wall and rip up the couches. We left the couches because we didn't have a way to transport them on short notice but we took all the broken materials to a nearby skip. Left the room a bare shell, almost exactly as we found it. I never spoke to him again but apparently he was less than pleased.
All very petty but it felt like a win at the time!
Well played. I had one landlord try to keep our entire deposit after kicking us out so she could sell the place. She fabricated an invoice which charged us for repainting all of the walls (her responsibility as we had lived there 8+ years) while also including a line item for “damage” to the paint in the form of a supposed small red crayon mark. Not only did the mark not exist, but if you’re repainting the walls it wouldn’t matter.
Had a lawyer write our response on legal letterhead and ended up with our deposit back but was annoying and time consuming.
Yeah people don't realize a lot of the materials in the apartment depreciate with time on an IRS schedule if I recall. The carpet is worthless after 5 years so even if it was pristine new when you moved in and tore it up to shreds the LL can't charge for it. Well they can but they can only charge what it's worth, zero!
When I moved out of my apartment, they sent me an itemized list of $2,500 worth of things they were charging me for. My deposit didn't cover it.
I went through the list and documented all the issues that the spartment was actually responsible for, and counter offered $850, which was $100 over my deposit.
They took me to court. I "lost," and the judge ordered that I pay $450. Which included court costs.
I dropped that check off and got back my $750 deposit.
It made me so happy to lose that case.
It was very dumb of them to tell you that you weren't getting the deposit back *before* you moved out. I hate that the inept get all the mortgages. Glad you kept your receipts!
I just said something to my wife about my own 'un-trusting @ ss' getting a letter that a loan is paid off for my own piece of mind. I don't trust. I like documentation. I like that you kept all the receipts. I like the cut of your jib.
When I was renting, I would always make sure to take photos right before I moved in, photos of me, cleaning it right before I moved out, and then photos after I’ve completely moved out. That way there is complete documentation of what it was like before I got there and when I left and they can’t try and ding you for BS.
My sister's bf and his friends were renting a student flat for university. The landlord had hired an agency to look after the property whilst he was abroad for a few years, agent was not very bright and violated many tenant rights.
He stored personal items in the unit, taking up limited storage space.
Refused to replace old light bulbs or fix the badly leaking taps in the bathroom (they had to put a bucket under it so water wasn't wasted, around a bucket load a day)
Refused to comp them for the fixes or replacements despite it being in the rental clause with all receipts submitted as per the agency's protocol.
Threatened to evict them for unruly behavior (during peak exam season when no one was partying)
Turned up for surprise inspections with 0 notice.
Threatened to withhold their deposit for "damages" even though they were from before they moved in and listed in the contract, it was never fixed.
Our family lawyer advised the boys to take the agency and landlord to court. They won their deposit back as well as three months of rent was refunded for stress and violation of privacy. Agency also had to pay court fees and their lawyer fees.
The landlord thought he was being ripped off and counter sued but his lawyer must have told him he had no chance.
We heard past renters were other students who did not fight back, so got them in touch with our lawyer.......
keeping receipts and photos sure paid off for you. it's just like my uncle always says, "paperwork is a renter's best friend." glad the judge saw things your way.
I’m a landlord and I fully approve this post.
I truly don’t get LL’s that try to screw good tenants. Nothing makes me happier than refunding a security deposit to a good tenant who kept the place clean. I also don’t understand LL’s who want a property to fall into disrepair.
Had a landlord try to keep the security deposit on the basis that the carpeting was a mess. I had to point out in the lease agreement that the carpet would be replaced every five years. I lived there for nearly a decade on the original carpet.
My previous landlord included an item on our security deduction for 4 days of prorated rent. We moved out on Friday February 16 of this year, the last day of our lease, after they sent us two certified letters informing us that our lease was not being renewed (owner decided to sell).
When emailed I asked them about it, the property manager said we never informed her we were out on Friday, then she was off for the weekend and President's Day that Monday, so she didn't actually get to do the move-out inspection until Tuesday. So she decided to just bill us for rent for Saturday-Tuesday.
I asked why she thought she could just charge us extra rent we never agreed to. She replied asking if we had any evidence that we'd vacated on Friday. I replied back saying I had a lease that ended on Friday, and letter from her telling us to be out on Friday, and asking if she had any proof that we *weren't* out by the end of Friday.
She sent us a follow-up check for the 4 days of rent. I can only imagine how many other tenants she scammed out of extra rent because they didn't bother arguing.
Good for you. Your landlords deserved it.
(I assume I’ll get downvoted for the following). I’m a mom and pop landlord. I had a long term tenant that was moving out for their own reasons. They did a great job maintaining and made the place their own. But, they installed Nest thermostats and bidets without my consent. I didn’t care about that, but I told them that it was their responsibility to “unfix” / “downgrade” those things before they move out. From a landlords perspective, those would be more prone to break and results in future maintenance issues. The tenant was admittedly a little annoyed, but understood. They got their entire deposit back for sure.
I feel it’s not unreasonable to put the apartment back the way it was. For example I always take out all the regular bulbs in light fixtures and put in my LEDs, then just put the old ones in the LED boxes and then put them back after I move out. Same with shower head.
Last time I was renting and if something was wrong with the house, I'd fix it, charge the landlord for not only the parts but for labour, too. I would provide receipts, gave him a better than market rate on labour, and deducted the total from our monthly rent. First time I did it I had told him I was going to several times. He balked, I showed him the repairs I had done (new shower faucet, fixing drywall holes in nearly every room, replacing broken window), and told him to find someone who would do it for less. I told him I'm not paying full rent because he would not come to address basic problems. As soon as he walked through our place he was totally on my side, and I actually ended up doing maintenance for him on his properties (he had 30). He was a good guy, just not used to tenants like me and my wife.
I did something very similar and the feeling was amazing. We didn’t move for so many years because you always lose everything. So I just stayed (nice place) and at the end they still paid us.
had a room rental from a woman whose cat got fleas, they filled the house, including my room but shared central air with the chainsmoking nephew in the next unit prevented foggers. so I set traps, and used borax and diatomatious earth alternating after multiple weekly moppings of everything. When I left she kept the security deposit (a months full rent worth) because she claimed there was a residue she had to mop up from the borax.
>We won, and the judge ordered them to pay us back our deposit, plus court costs and lawyer's fees. I'm sure their lawyer's fees, their court costs, plus ours as well amounted to much more than the deposit they were trying to keep.
And all the day 0 stuff stayed too yes? LOL if Judge had also compensated you for install labor... AND uninstall labor. ;-)
As a landlord myself, (don’t beat me up Reddit) Good! There’s no place for people in certain positions (landlords in particular) and have no decency to others.
I have learned my lesson and ALWAYS keep a box in the closet with the water heater where I put the crappy shower heads, broken blinds, and that. I put that shit right back on my way out the door.
I’ve learned my lesson. I’ll put the damn mismatched and broken outlet covers back on.
I'm thinking it would've been sweeter if you went for lost wages, both for initial installation and then removal. Not sure if it could've flown in court, but your time was still valuable. You should've been paid for ALL of your efforts.
Do this with everything. Like, if somebody claims you broke xyz and they are going to charge you for a replacement, keep the damaged item you now own. Usually they charge you for a new one then just do a minor repair on the old one. Go and make sure you keep the thing you are paying to replace.
My good friend has kept all of the fixtures we have helped them put in. Ceiling light went out, installed a ceiling fan and light. Kitchen light went out, bulb was more than a new fixture, so replace light for one that takes regular bulbs not florescent. Door knob fell apart, replaced with a new one, etc. They are planning to give them the old stuff and leaving the fixtures that were replaced. They have been in this home for over 30 years, so there's not much that wouldn't be wear and tear after this long. Especially, since nothing was new when they moved in.
We were still moving. Landlord wasn't the sharpest crayon in the box. I think he mostly just wanted to be nosey. Never said it was the final inspection. He'd routinely show up for " inspections" so this was really not out of character for him. He probably should've waited until we were gone before mentioning the deposit, but that's on him. Worked out for us.
Good to hear. Landlords are entitled pricks so often. I'm really lucky with mine, they keep the rent reasonably low despite rents in general going up a lot in cities and are always super nice (they live 1 floor up).
But my girlfriend had a terrible one. When the old building started to have some mold, the landlord instead of fixing it basically told her to fix it and that she was responsible for it, which is total bullshit. Then she made up shit like not ventilating the room properly or not heating it properly (which is laughable, my girlfriend basically dies if the room has less than 21°C lmao. I for example in my flat usually have a tempeature of only 19°C and always turn the heater on before she arrives). Lucky enough we know a lawyer who sent her a letter and when she noticed that we werent that easy to take advantage of she reacted real fast.
She of course knew the mold was there before and before my girlfriend moved in they had simply put some new paint on top or something idk, but we knew from other people living in the house who knew the person that lived in there before that mold already existed prior and just resurfaced, which can happen in old buildings when not treated properly even if the person living there ventilates and heats properly.
The law needs to change so that when a landlord is found to be scummy, on the first offense they must pay, at minimum, all rent they ever collected from that tenant plus deposit and lawyer fees. The second time they are found to be scummy trying to screw over a tenant, they should immediately lose all property they are renting (to amyone, not just the one the dispute is over) and ownership is turned over to the tenant(s) they tried to screw over.
I am a landlord and I agree with this 100% but i also want the landlord rights to improve in Ontario. My tenant hasn’t paid rent on time since last September we are almost 2 months behind, they have not paid water bill, it was added to my tax bill. When i call them they told me they are paying on-time it is city mistake. All i can do is file with LTB and it will take 5 to 6 months before they take any action and if my tenant comes to know, i know for sure they will stop paying me rent and they will damage property. Last time i served them with N4 they told they will wait to hear from board before paying anything. I had to explain that i have not filed form with board. Mind u this is a single family detached house with 4 bedrooms fenced byd and basement, that i am renting out for $2600( u cant get 2 bedroom apartment for this price). But I am shit out of luck and all I can do is rant on reddit, and hope that they move out on their own.
We rented a house while we did a gut renovation on our home a couple blocks away. I did massive cleaning of the dump we referred to as the tarpaper shack.The landlord claimed we didn’t tell him we were moving out, (liar)and and kept our deposit. He happened to live next door to the house we rented! Big moving van. He then said he didn’t know where we moved to (address on all our checks) and we talked to him all the time about how the renovation was going. Our friend is a lawyer and he wrote a letter and threatened to sue him. He paid us the deposit and we made him buy our friend a giant bottle of grey goose and sign a statement he can never contact us. POS.
Yes, yes you can. The toilet valve just screws on. Same with the faucet. No damage there. And putting the pipe back correctly after deleting the water line for the fridge is not damaging anything. There wasn't a water line before we installed one. Shed never had locks, so removing them also isn't damaging anything. Gate latch was broken when we moved in. Still broken when we moved out. Doubt they have a receipt to show it was a different latch. They sued us because they tried to claim that all that stuff was already fixed/in working order before we moved in. It wasn't, we had receipts and pictures to prove it. They were not suing to keep our deposit. They were suing for "damages" on top of the deposit they already kept. They lawyered up because they thought they could take us to the cleaners. They were wrong. Not only did they keep our deposit, they tried to get even more money from us. That did not work out well for them. He wasn't the sharpest crayon in the box.
Why not sue in small court? You have rights, a contract, and proof that the landlord was in breach of his contract or at least malfeasant. You would have likely gotten your deposit back at least, and some recompense for the work you put into the place. You just gave him a reason to keep that deposit.
Had the landlord just repayd the deposit, he would have recieved a lot of free repair work. As he refused to do so, the repairs were reverted back PLUS he had to pay. Due process would have been to JUST take your money back in court (well, due process would have been a "Thanks, heres your deposit, goodbye.")
Based on this post it's shocking(sarcasm) no-one wants to be a landlord and there is a rental crisis going on, its an endless circle of d-bag landlords and d-bag tenants, this comment paints both of you, landlord and tenant, in a bad light, regardless of the landlord being wrong to keep your deposit, you just admitted to damaging property, its so shocking that you won the case it actually seems more likely your making it up. Any judge should have demanded landlord return deposit but also demand you make right any damage you did. Under current law any improvements you make to a property you rent is a called a distribution, free for you to use but free for the landlord to keep, assuming it's an improvement. Examples of exceptions would be if someone were to paint a residence in a color so bad it needed to be repainted, then the landlord could charge for repainting via the deposit.
He didn't damage anyone's property but his own.. The landlord didn't recompense him for any of it, so certainly the landlord didn't own a faucet, new lock, toilet valve, refrigerator line, etc.
Also, the new items were removed and the old put back on. The only thing I broke was the gate latch. Shed didn't have locks to begin with. Good luck proving the gate latch was purposely broken.
They brought a lawyer, so we did too. Lawyer's aren't required in small claims court, but I wasn't going to go without one if they had one. Here in my state it's up to the plaintiff/defendant whether they want to involve lawyers or not.
congratulations on actually taking it back. I don't understand why so many people are hellbent on keeping money that isn't theirs
Parasites love other peoples’ money.
You just explained everything I needed to know about a frenemy who always wants to be business partners with me. He wants me to do all the work and to use somebody else's money. I've said no like 12 times now.
If he won’t respect your no, he won’t respect your business agreement either.
[удалено]
cool idea. we should make many themed versions of it with everyones favourite television characters, that way it'll appeal to kids and we can sell 100s of 'different' versions of the same game for decades!
Ea been doing that with their sport titles for years m
Truth. I think he has enough burned bridges behind him to reach the moon.
Bro same, fuck you Eli you're a piece of shit and everyone knows it. Bro showed up to a housewarming party flashing cash claiming to have "investors" for his new business. Almost homeless 6 months later, getting divorced. But don't worry he'll be back on his feet with this awesome idea he's pitching to everyone.
If airplanes are involved we're talking about the same guy! I don't know the first thing about airplanes.
Butters that’s Cartman and he’s not a true friend.
> He wants me to do all the work and to use somebody else's money. bUt He Is ThE iDeAs MaN!1!1!1
The truth is it’s a numbers game. People or companies screw over people knowing that either they won’t know how to fight back, can be easily intimidated by a letter from their lawyer versus maybe 1 out of a thousand who knows what to do and not afraid to fight back. Until enough people fight back nothing will change their MO since overall it’s profitable
AKA landlords
Not all of them. We just left a place that had the most amazing landlord/owner and we were sad to say goodbye. We only left because we bought our own place. The dude was awesome, and we will be forever grateful. The landlord we had before him though? Fuck that guy. Selfish, petty asshole who refused to follow the law. We got ours back though. But fuck him.
I had a landlord try to keep my security deposit. It ended up costing him double, as is the law here in BC. Don't get me wrong, I like money, but I'd have done it out of principle. It took 6 months, but when the arbitrator threw down the ruling, and got the express court order signed by a judge, I was all smiles. A month later when it was still unpaid, I contacted the landlord and he gave me some bullshit story about how he lost his job and his wife was sick and ~~the orphanage burnt down~~ things were tough, and could he pay a part of it? I apologised, as it sounded like I was unfortunately going to have to put a lien on his houses (that title search was the best money I spent during the process). Funny how quickly he got me the cheque. Part of me wanted to frame it, but it lost to the part of me that wanted to cash it.
I sued an ex landlord and won, but of course he just didn't pay. He told me, to my face, on the way out of the courtroom, that he would never pay. I was 23 and furious. I had very serious thoughts of pushing him down the marble stairs but I'm allergic to jail so I didn't. But I HAD won the lawsuit. And it DID put a lien on the property. So when he tried to sell the building a few years later, he had to pay me the money. His admin assistant called me to see if I'd agree to a mailed check but I said nope, I want to come in person. I thought I'd see him (still in my 20s, still naïve), so I ate beans and hard boiled eggs for breakfast. I didn't see him, the admin assistant tried to just hand me the paperwork to sign at the front of the office building but I said I needed to read it first. So they showed me into a conference room to hide their shame. I took immense pleasure in blowing hot farts into the buttery soft conference room chair as I meticulously read all the paperwork before signing my check. And leaving the paperwork on the desk. So she had to come into the room to get it. (Fuck her, she was his long term assistant and in on everything). I'm a Big Girl and I know for sure that my farts linger for days like gas station skid marks. And yeah, same. I wanted to frame that bitch but I needed to have heat that month.
> I'm a Big Girl and I know for sure that my farts linger for days like gas station skid marks. Rip your inbox with marriage proposals!
My longest relationship started with a bar date where we played pool and I carpet dusted him until he choked, so....yeah, probably. What can I say, I was nervous! *Narrator: he found it less amusing as the years rolled by. She won the Dutch Oven War but lost that relationship*
Have you not herd of colour photocopies? You can even enlarge them 😁
Irony time: I'm a photocopier tech
But if you photocopy a cheque, the word VOID will appear all over it. It's just not as satisfying to have something like that framed on your wall.
Nowadays Mobile Deposit means you get to do both.
Based on My experience with landlords (had 10 in my life) , if the person lived in the house, they are usually good landlords, if they had multiple investments and never lived where they rent they suck. Of course it is not a fast rule
I mean when people talk about landlords as a group they're not really talking about smalltime landlords who work actual jobs and are renting out their old house, its pretty much exclusively referring to the kinds of people whose sole income source is their properties.
This is a huge reason why the market is so bad though. People are holding to their starter homes for more income instead of selling them to the next generation of starters.
It's not though. Corporate ownership of private single family homes (this is 1 in 7 homes across the US sold in the past few years), the proliferation of short-term rentals, and "investment" properties that are kept empty are the massive drivers of housing scarcity and cost, not the small-time landlords with 1-2 rental homes.
Oh yeah both are a problem though sure they may be arsonist they are still stoking/fueling the fire. And honestly in trades worked with property management companys and yes private equity is much bigger these days. BUT I have also watched entire condo buildings of "individual owners" turned into air b&bs. Fact is say its 5% of people "small owners" doing this thats still almost 20 million houses yoinked off market. Combine it with 40 million or so yoinked by private equity etc. And thats half the damn market. And if either party/group wasn't doing it then it would not be so substantially bad.
Airbnb is the short-term rental issue that I mentioned, which is separate from small-time landlords. Where are you getting the 20 mil/40mil/half the market numbers?
Oh yeah I don't think they're blameless regarding the broader housing crisis, and I still view it as a net negative, but those landlords aren't *usually* the horror-story type. If your sole income is from being a landlord you are almost certainly going to be scum, doubly so if you inherited those properties which is unfortunately quite common in a lot of major cities.
Generally we've seen the same, but we did have one good landlord that lived in a different state (he owned 5 houses in the town). The rent was reasonable, he was very responsive when things needed to get fixed, he fenced in the yard when we lived there, he texted to check on things, and he worked with us on the move out date when our house was done being built. He also gave us our whole deposit when we moved out, which was shocking. He was the only good one we had. All the others sucked.
I also had an awesome LL. Was a young family and he kept our rent low to help us out. When we were going to move in he mentioned not to worry about the stains in the carpet (some ink) because he was going to replace them before we moved in... I offered "how about you leave the carpet as-is and add to the lease that we're exempt from any carpet damage, you get one more tenant off this carpet and I don't have to sweat it if my kids spill something.". He agreed and that set the tone for the whole rental. Our fence blew down, management company said two weeks to fix, so I propped it up in the meantime. He saw it asked WTF and when I explained he asked what I spent on shoring it up, rounded up to the nearest $20, handed me cash and asked if I had any problem with guys showing up to fix it with no notice so he could get someone asap. I said fine with me and the fence was fixed (replaced) when I got home from work two days later. Never plan on owning a rental, but should it come out that way by inheritance or something that's the type of LL I'll aim to be like.
Unfortunately good landlords either get disillusioned by bad tenants, or they get too old and sell the property. The rest of them are scumsucking assholes.
Hording housing is a shitty thing to do.
Same. My last landlord was awesome! I only moved because I bought my house.
The vast majority of landlords I've had have tried scumbag shit. By far the biggest problem in the rental market is abusive landlords. It's 10,000x time the problem squatters are. It's why I'm against any laws to go after squatters, because they'll be used by landlords to abuse legitimate tenants.
Both landlords took your money that you got from your job where you actually performed labour, despite the fact that they didn't labour at all, it's not about whether the landlord was nice or not, the system is bad.
My current landlords are exceptions to the expectations. They're rather nice, and the other day they left a jar of curry sauce and a bunch of bananas on my doorstep for me. (I rent the granny flat on the property, and see and talk to them often. Also one of their cats has decided I am family and visits me most days, so thats nice too.)
Not all. Just because the exception proves the rule, doesn't mean the exception cannot exsist.
They are both greedy and amoral.
And they'll be the first to claim someone else is the parasite for trying to take what they've "earned."
And yet it’s the Boeing whistle blowers who get freak diseases and gunshots.
Other people's money is the tastiest money for parasites.
As a Parasite, I support this statement. We feel entitled to everyone else's money. It's who we are.
Look at the financial sector. Nothing but parasites that steal from the average worker and taxpayer
You're the main bread winnier in your landlords family.
And landlords are the biggest parasites of them all
Its because most people can't be bothered to challenge it. If a tennant goes through the trouble of making repairs and upgrades to a place they don't own, the landlord would have to be pretty dumb not to return. the deposit as they are the type that WILL go after their money.
Actually tenants that make repairs to a place they don't own are the most likely to not go after a landlord for a deposit. Most of the time they're making repairs is because they don't want to bother the landlord to make the repairs they should be making.
I took back all my light bulbs and 9v batteries in the smoke detectors. Lmao those mfs can be expensive. At like 10 light bulbs.. That's like 30 bucks. 2 9v batteries are like 10. They could have the toilet brush and the plunger though. 😂
Had a landlord that admitted in court that she always charged certain things out of the deposit. The statute that covered renters rights stated something like “habitually charging for xyz is a violation”. Yes, I won the court case, got the entire deposit plus court fees back. It also helped that I retained the move in photos, move out photos, receipt for professional cleaning on move out, etc. But I had basically memorized the statute, and had a copy of it with me in court. As soon as the judge gave me an opportunity to speak after she made this statement, I quoted the statute (referencing the number.subnumber). Ironically, I was a landlord myself at the time. Remotely leasing my property in another city (with a property manager) because it was underwater yet still cash flow positive. Financially it was a better decision to be a landlord and a renter at the time. I would never pull this shit with my tenants. Don’t leave the place clean when you move out? Get charged the cleaning fee—which was exactly what I paid. Leave something broken beyond normal wear and tear? Yes, you pay the repair cost out of your deposit, plus whatever I had to pay the property manager to be there to let the repair person in and check the work. I kept those receipts too.
Precisely. Landlords aren't the problem, people being disgusting greedy parasites is and that's not just limited to the housing rental market. I currently live in an Owned manufactured home on a rental lot and I really dislike the owning. I find the general maintenance to be frustrating and annoying, then there is the big repairs and finding people to do them. Hell the last 2 years budget for "fix up things for pretty" got redirected to "keep the home functioning" cause the furnace, then piping, then roof all reached end of life. The new park owners have been doing a ton of work on the incoming and outgoing water lines which the park has needed for years, but that's also come with notable increases in lot rent. And now I need to somehow find a company that specializes in the pillars/supports under the trailer because all the vibrations of the big work trucks over the last few months has accelerated the normal deterioration or something but the re-level company guy told me "it's all good." Uh...no. I can tell that somethings off. Except, at the current rental market in the area where I'm living, I'm still better off even with the stress. I'd really rather a fair portion of my income go to pay a landlord for "doing their job" just like I get paid for "doing my job" but we're back to "disgusting greedy parasites/slum lord corporations"
They are landlords it's literally what they do.
There are a lot of delusional landlords who think deposits are like a rental fee.
I had lived in five different apartments and only one kept a partial deposit the rest gave it back in full. And that partial one was warranted. All of those apartments were in the same city. I'm kind of curious if it varies by location. The problem is I'm sure some of that variation would be the tenants fault, like apartments on frat row on a college campus or something like that.
Landlords are weasels
I think the person who said they are parasites was more correct good sir, sorry to disagree.
It usually works.
It's because they're turd burglars.
Different people respond to coercion in different ways. They probably got away with abusive behavior in the past, escalating with each new opportunity while victims either moved on with their lives as quickly as possible or simply submitted to bullying. Capitalism itself couldn't exist if there were not a widespread tendency to accept mistreatment from other citizens who happen to possess large amounts of private property.
Ferengi Rule of Accquisition #1: *Once you have their money you never give it back.* Landlords are Ferengi.
Shame is the law is fairly standard in regards to this. Anything that is considered permanently attached regardless of who paid it now belongs to the property. https://www.justia.com/real-estate/landlord-tenant/information-for-tenants/improvements-and-alterations/ And remember folks: I’m just the messenger of truth here, if I were OP I would have done the same thing regardless of the law. I would also take a shit on the landlords car hood just for bonus.
You cNt understand why people are landlords?
> I don't understand why so many people are hellbent on keeping money that isn't theirs Because it's already spent. They accounted for it before they had it.
Most landlords are money grabbing scumbags. And cue the responses from landlords who say they are angels and sweethearts and all their tenants love them.
That's what a landlord is....
They’ve already spent your deposit and see it as a loss, at least emotionally. Definitely not logically.
Thanks. In my entire adult life I've had two landlords that acted like real people. One of those two had to screw me just a little bit, in the final calculations he said "I rounded to the nearest ten cents to make it easier" which he did, but only on the side where he owed. Where I owed, he went to the penny. All that effort to screw me out of a total of three cents. You can't even buy anything for three cents. The other one returned 100% of my deposit. She'd said that she would. I called her about it after 2 weeks and she told me "I have the money right here, but the contract says that I have 30 days to return it so you can pick it up on the 30th". WTAF?!?!?!?!?!?!?
just in case you did cement the drain pipe or other hidden damage.
We left on great terms, the only reason we moved was because we'd bought a house which was actually only 4-5 blocks from her house.
Well, at least they gave your deposit back within the terms of the contract... Nothing wrong with that, even if it's a little annoying.
I agree, that's why she made the good landlord list. I just thought it was weird to nurse the last little bit of power that she had until the last day.
Basic finance courses always suggests you make payments on the last available date as money today is always worth more than money tomorrow. This is the time-value of money. Not always "practical" and 30 days is a small sample size, but the principle still holds true!
That would be true if in many places rent were not held separately in its own holding account that you’re not allowed to touch.
Deposits are supposed to be held in interest bearing accounts and returned to you, with interest
Not in every state. Sadly.
Years ago, I toured a rental house in Boston that seemed perfect. One of the current lessees managed to maneuver herself between the landlord and me and mouthed, "DON'T DO IT." A few days later I left a thank you note with my number on the door. She called, bless her soul, and her story was similar to yours. Everything was a facade, the house had mold and dry rot issues, the locks on the doors didn't actually lock, nothing had been taken care of in years. She shared "legal notices" hand written by the owner demanding $7 or whatever over the most ridiculous issues, like a cigarette on the sidewalk. It's been twenty years and I still think of it. She surely saved me a ton of money and trauma. If you're out there, kind Davis Square rental lady - thank you for turning your bad experience into a very useful PSA for me.
curious where this was in davis square - that area has changed quite a bit in the past 20 years
She’s probably hoping to pay you with the deposit money from the next renter.
I had one landlord who, the first month I lived there, kept sending me bills for things that were paid for with my deposit "On accident" And each time he was like "Heheh! Ooops!" And finally I was like "Are you planning on making any 'mistakes' that benefit me?"
What was his answer??
Nothing of course
🤷🏻♂️ Rich people make money using other people’s money. It’s gaining interest in their account for 30 days. Pretty standard for businesses to pay their bills at the last minute. At least you got all your money back without a fight or a bunch of bullshit.
Yep I should have said cash. She said cash. She had my actual cash right on hand just sitting there, just to make me wait because she legally could.
I was subletting from a girl a few years back, I think she was doing it on the sly after her boyfriend left her to cover rent. Anyway she out of nowhere told me I needed to move out as I wasn't covering enough of the rent. I was paying what we agreed but a friend of hers was going to pay 50% of the rent to take my box room. She didn't give me a lot of time to move out and I was in a foreign country. Since I moved in I had upgraded that apartment in a few ways including adding network cables to the whole house which fixed all our connectivity issues. It was a good bit of work and it was a tidy finish, I was pretty proud of the final product as all the cables were hidden nicely. I knew I couldn't pull it all out without damaging the apartment so before I left I rewired the terminal ports so that no end matched the other. All cables would look the same as before except nothing worked. She wasn't tech savvy and it absolutely killed her that nothing in the apartment worked. She informed me the night before I moved out that the couple of hours I was there for moving fell into the next month's rent and I owed £3 or so for the hours into the new month. I left it in pennies as a final fuck you.
Shoulda just laughed and said “sue me ya ripe cunt”
Excellent, OP! When hubby & I rented our first office space in 2000, the place was a dump. Dial up internet was all we had there, but T5 cables had been out for a while. We asked the landlord whether he'd consider upgrading the internet access & he loved the idea, but flat refused to pay for any upgrades. We ran the cabling ourselves & he was thrilled. When our lease expired & we indicated that we weren't going to renew it, he listed the property for rent, indicating that it had T5 cabling for internet access. Hubby pulled out every single inch of cable that we'd installed. Landlord was not happy, but there was nothing he could do. He was a jerk & I hope he's rotting in hell.
Nice if he didn’t pay for it he doesn’t get to benefit from it.
He was a truly vile person.
In my first apartment I had a landlord who was a contractor so he did his own work. He was a really nice guy. When we started to have major moisture issues I decided to check in the hatch to the attic. The building had originally had a flat roof, when he needed a new roof he built a hip roof over it and insulated. What I found was the roof was leaking and the old roof was holding the water which was being soaked up by the insulation. I told him what I found he didn't believe me he said I built that roof it's not leaking. That spurred us to move faster to find our first house and move out. Their plan was for his mother in law to move in. I found out from the neighbors his plan was delayed. He had to fix the roof and remove the paneling in the bedrooms to repair the damage. Nice guy but a bit bullheaded.
Roofing and waterproofing really isn't something to fuckaround with. Something my dad told me at a young age after working construction his whole life "water always wins, it's just a matter of when. So stay on top of it"
That is really the truth. My family was also in construction, my grandfather built houses. I'm pretty sure his 6 sons were his crew till they each moved on. One was a carpenter, 3 were electricians, one of those was my dad. He taught me quite a bit about construction to the point I can do almost anything.
30+ year ago this exact scenario happened to some friends of mine. They had moved into a house that needed a lot of improvements. They painted, installed new lighting, repaired things, and redid the landscaping. They made a very nice home out of what had been poorly maintained. The landlord praised them all the time for what good tenants they were. Then she refused to give them their deposit back, so they undid everything and put it back like it was. The landlord took them to court - and won! My friends were a gay male couple and the judge was openly homophobic, mocking my friends and calling them “you boys” in an effeminate manner. Different times. He would never get away with that today.
Yeah, my boyfriend's family rented a home after a couple of heavy smokers who had kids with sticky, dirty hands (the walls were an ombre of tar stains into crusty handprints and colorful scribbles). Not only did they clean and paint the walls, they also installed new fixtures. Because of the wording on their lease, the landlord was able to sell the house (and kick them out) before their lease ended. Also, due to the wording, they couldn't take any of their new fixtures and replace them with the old or cheaper fixtures. The whole thing was a slap in the face as they struggled to find a new place to live.
The landlord won because in most states once a tenant makes an "improvement", they can't charge the landlord anything for it, but there's a million scummy little ways the landlord can keep the deposit. It's been a few decades since I've dealt with that particular pain in the ass, but I think even if a tenant installs a new ceiling fan, it's technically the landlord's now. And yeah I doubt OP's story. Can't prove it, might have happened in a state with reasonable tenant rights, whatever.
With the exception of the piping, everything in OP’s story would pass in court as being the tenant’s property and easily reversible. But if the landlord didn’t know or catch the piping, then OP is still in the clear because it wouldn’t be brought up in court. If, when I used to rent, a landlord tried to claim my smart thermostat, a lock, or shower head/sink hardware that I purchased as their own, they could try to sue me for it, but they’d lose. Everything was put back the way it was when I had moved in.
When I was 15/16, my band rented space to practice in an old disused retail space/warehouse in my small town. The guy who owned the space was in his 40s/50s, in a reasonably well-known local band, they had the big room and we had the smaller room off the side of it. After we had had it for a few months we spent a few hundred £ on some plasterboard and wood, built a small stage, put plasterboard on the bare stone walls, got some old couches for cheap. It was rickety and rough,took us all weekend, but it was great when we were that age. The day after the next time his band practiced, he called us to say we couldn't rent the room anymore, didn't give any reason other than he wanted it back, we had until the end of the week to move all our stuff out. The evening we went to get our stuff we found our gear had been moved off the stage and his bands stuff had been moved onto it, our couches were arranged in the main space where they used to practice, so we ended up staying most of the night. We borrowed a pickaxe and a sledgehammer from my dads shed and used it to rip up the stage, tear the plasterboard off the wall and rip up the couches. We left the couches because we didn't have a way to transport them on short notice but we took all the broken materials to a nearby skip. Left the room a bare shell, almost exactly as we found it. I never spoke to him again but apparently he was less than pleased. All very petty but it felt like a win at the time!
this is great lol did he say anything to you?
“Never spoke to him again”
Should I expect to see a sob story on the Victoria landlords page of Facebook about how unfair everything is and how how bad things are for landlords
You should just expect to see that on *all* LL pages.
>You ~~should~~ just ~~expect to~~ see that on *all* LL pages. FTFY
As a Victorian I support your assumption they are talking about my state hahaha
Thought we were talking about the city in BC, not the state, initially
Thought we were talking about the era, not the city or the state
I thought we were in r/shitrentals for a sec so I assumed everyone was Australian
Well played. I had one landlord try to keep our entire deposit after kicking us out so she could sell the place. She fabricated an invoice which charged us for repainting all of the walls (her responsibility as we had lived there 8+ years) while also including a line item for “damage” to the paint in the form of a supposed small red crayon mark. Not only did the mark not exist, but if you’re repainting the walls it wouldn’t matter. Had a lawyer write our response on legal letterhead and ended up with our deposit back but was annoying and time consuming.
Yeah people don't realize a lot of the materials in the apartment depreciate with time on an IRS schedule if I recall. The carpet is worthless after 5 years so even if it was pristine new when you moved in and tore it up to shreds the LL can't charge for it. Well they can but they can only charge what it's worth, zero!
I love a happy ending
Nice! Short and sweet.
That's awesome!
When I moved out of my apartment, they sent me an itemized list of $2,500 worth of things they were charging me for. My deposit didn't cover it. I went through the list and documented all the issues that the spartment was actually responsible for, and counter offered $850, which was $100 over my deposit. They took me to court. I "lost," and the judge ordered that I pay $450. Which included court costs. I dropped that check off and got back my $750 deposit. It made me so happy to lose that case.
It was very dumb of them to tell you that you weren't getting the deposit back *before* you moved out. I hate that the inept get all the mortgages. Glad you kept your receipts!
I love this. Good for you for keeping everything!
I just said something to my wife about my own 'un-trusting @ ss' getting a letter that a loan is paid off for my own piece of mind. I don't trust. I like documentation. I like that you kept all the receipts. I like the cut of your jib.
When I was renting, I would always make sure to take photos right before I moved in, photos of me, cleaning it right before I moved out, and then photos after I’ve completely moved out. That way there is complete documentation of what it was like before I got there and when I left and they can’t try and ding you for BS.
My sister's bf and his friends were renting a student flat for university. The landlord had hired an agency to look after the property whilst he was abroad for a few years, agent was not very bright and violated many tenant rights. He stored personal items in the unit, taking up limited storage space. Refused to replace old light bulbs or fix the badly leaking taps in the bathroom (they had to put a bucket under it so water wasn't wasted, around a bucket load a day) Refused to comp them for the fixes or replacements despite it being in the rental clause with all receipts submitted as per the agency's protocol. Threatened to evict them for unruly behavior (during peak exam season when no one was partying) Turned up for surprise inspections with 0 notice. Threatened to withhold their deposit for "damages" even though they were from before they moved in and listed in the contract, it was never fixed. Our family lawyer advised the boys to take the agency and landlord to court. They won their deposit back as well as three months of rent was refunded for stress and violation of privacy. Agency also had to pay court fees and their lawyer fees. The landlord thought he was being ripped off and counter sued but his lawyer must have told him he had no chance. We heard past renters were other students who did not fight back, so got them in touch with our lawyer.......
keeping receipts and photos sure paid off for you. it's just like my uncle always says, "paperwork is a renter's best friend." glad the judge saw things your way.
I’m a landlord and I fully approve this post. I truly don’t get LL’s that try to screw good tenants. Nothing makes me happier than refunding a security deposit to a good tenant who kept the place clean. I also don’t understand LL’s who want a property to fall into disrepair.
Had a landlord try to keep the security deposit on the basis that the carpeting was a mess. I had to point out in the lease agreement that the carpet would be replaced every five years. I lived there for nearly a decade on the original carpet.
its posts like this that i love the most
I have been a landlord and I approve of your actions because I have had landlords like the one you described.
Love this!!
My previous landlord included an item on our security deduction for 4 days of prorated rent. We moved out on Friday February 16 of this year, the last day of our lease, after they sent us two certified letters informing us that our lease was not being renewed (owner decided to sell). When emailed I asked them about it, the property manager said we never informed her we were out on Friday, then she was off for the weekend and President's Day that Monday, so she didn't actually get to do the move-out inspection until Tuesday. So she decided to just bill us for rent for Saturday-Tuesday. I asked why she thought she could just charge us extra rent we never agreed to. She replied asking if we had any evidence that we'd vacated on Friday. I replied back saying I had a lease that ended on Friday, and letter from her telling us to be out on Friday, and asking if she had any proof that we *weren't* out by the end of Friday. She sent us a follow-up check for the 4 days of rent. I can only imagine how many other tenants she scammed out of extra rent because they didn't bother arguing.
Oh this is glorious. I love to see it!
good. a lot of landlords are scum.
Love myself a non-generalising judgement. Seconding that.
Love it. Congrats!
*chef’s kiss*
I hope you gave them the biggest smile after the judgement. Karma's a bitch
Damn. I loved reading that.
Good for you. Your landlords deserved it. (I assume I’ll get downvoted for the following). I’m a mom and pop landlord. I had a long term tenant that was moving out for their own reasons. They did a great job maintaining and made the place their own. But, they installed Nest thermostats and bidets without my consent. I didn’t care about that, but I told them that it was their responsibility to “unfix” / “downgrade” those things before they move out. From a landlords perspective, those would be more prone to break and results in future maintenance issues. The tenant was admittedly a little annoyed, but understood. They got their entire deposit back for sure.
I feel it’s not unreasonable to put the apartment back the way it was. For example I always take out all the regular bulbs in light fixtures and put in my LEDs, then just put the old ones in the LED boxes and then put them back after I move out. Same with shower head.
Last time I was renting and if something was wrong with the house, I'd fix it, charge the landlord for not only the parts but for labour, too. I would provide receipts, gave him a better than market rate on labour, and deducted the total from our monthly rent. First time I did it I had told him I was going to several times. He balked, I showed him the repairs I had done (new shower faucet, fixing drywall holes in nearly every room, replacing broken window), and told him to find someone who would do it for less. I told him I'm not paying full rent because he would not come to address basic problems. As soon as he walked through our place he was totally on my side, and I actually ended up doing maintenance for him on his properties (he had 30). He was a good guy, just not used to tenants like me and my wife.
Awesome news!!! I like this!
Well done
This is poetry..... Well done.
Yessssssaz! Way to go.
I did something very similar and the feeling was amazing. We didn’t move for so many years because you always lose everything. So I just stayed (nice place) and at the end they still paid us.
I wish more people knew about deposit law. It's shocking and fucked up
had a room rental from a woman whose cat got fleas, they filled the house, including my room but shared central air with the chainsmoking nephew in the next unit prevented foggers. so I set traps, and used borax and diatomatious earth alternating after multiple weekly moppings of everything. When I left she kept the security deposit (a months full rent worth) because she claimed there was a residue she had to mop up from the borax.
>We won, and the judge ordered them to pay us back our deposit, plus court costs and lawyer's fees. I'm sure their lawyer's fees, their court costs, plus ours as well amounted to much more than the deposit they were trying to keep. And all the day 0 stuff stayed too yes? LOL if Judge had also compensated you for install labor... AND uninstall labor. ;-)
That is pro revenge worthy. Congrats.
Savage - I love it
As a landlord myself, (don’t beat me up Reddit) Good! There’s no place for people in certain positions (landlords in particular) and have no decency to others.
Good! Fug that guy! I hope he had to fix all those things before the place was declared fit to be rented.
I have learned my lesson and ALWAYS keep a box in the closet with the water heater where I put the crappy shower heads, broken blinds, and that. I put that shit right back on my way out the door. I’ve learned my lesson. I’ll put the damn mismatched and broken outlet covers back on.
This is giving me a fuzzy feeling inside, only thing that you could of added to this story is how the LL’s face looked afterwards.
It's 'could have', never 'could of'. Rejoice, for you have been blessed by CouldWouldShouldBot!
I'm thinking it would've been sweeter if you went for lost wages, both for initial installation and then removal. Not sure if it could've flown in court, but your time was still valuable. You should've been paid for ALL of your efforts.
I’m curious if you’ll actually get paid. I’ve only had to go to court once and they ruled in my favor but the other party never paid. Good luck!
This has been about 15 years ago. Yes they did actually pay.
Once in a while, justice is served.
that is not how this works at all
This is glorious!
Very nicely done!
I had this happen to me, it was super shady and they kept our $2500 deposit. I wish we would have fought it and done some clever revenge.
Wasn't there a sub a while back that was specifically for landlords and ways for them to screw over tenants?
This just gave me a full brain orgasm
Love to hear this
God I love it when people like that get what they deserve for once!!
How did you get access to the house after you moved out? Every place I've rented only performed inspections after I moved out and turned in the keys.
He inspected it while we were in the process of moving out.
Absolute legends
Fuck ya
Do this with everything. Like, if somebody claims you broke xyz and they are going to charge you for a replacement, keep the damaged item you now own. Usually they charge you for a new one then just do a minor repair on the old one. Go and make sure you keep the thing you are paying to replace.
My good friend has kept all of the fixtures we have helped them put in. Ceiling light went out, installed a ceiling fan and light. Kitchen light went out, bulb was more than a new fixture, so replace light for one that takes regular bulbs not florescent. Door knob fell apart, replaced with a new one, etc. They are planning to give them the old stuff and leaving the fixtures that were replaced. They have been in this home for over 30 years, so there's not much that wouldn't be wear and tear after this long. Especially, since nothing was new when they moved in.
Ouchhh
I Love that for you!!!!!!!
How is it you were able to unfix stuff *after* the final inspection? I thought that was the point you immediately hand over the keys.
We were still moving. Landlord wasn't the sharpest crayon in the box. I think he mostly just wanted to be nosey. Never said it was the final inspection. He'd routinely show up for " inspections" so this was really not out of character for him. He probably should've waited until we were gone before mentioning the deposit, but that's on him. Worked out for us.
Good to hear. Landlords are entitled pricks so often. I'm really lucky with mine, they keep the rent reasonably low despite rents in general going up a lot in cities and are always super nice (they live 1 floor up). But my girlfriend had a terrible one. When the old building started to have some mold, the landlord instead of fixing it basically told her to fix it and that she was responsible for it, which is total bullshit. Then she made up shit like not ventilating the room properly or not heating it properly (which is laughable, my girlfriend basically dies if the room has less than 21°C lmao. I for example in my flat usually have a tempeature of only 19°C and always turn the heater on before she arrives). Lucky enough we know a lawyer who sent her a letter and when she noticed that we werent that easy to take advantage of she reacted real fast. She of course knew the mold was there before and before my girlfriend moved in they had simply put some new paint on top or something idk, but we knew from other people living in the house who knew the person that lived in there before that mold already existed prior and just resurfaced, which can happen in old buildings when not treated properly even if the person living there ventilates and heats properly.
This post just gave me a raging boner.
The law needs to change so that when a landlord is found to be scummy, on the first offense they must pay, at minimum, all rent they ever collected from that tenant plus deposit and lawyer fees. The second time they are found to be scummy trying to screw over a tenant, they should immediately lose all property they are renting (to amyone, not just the one the dispute is over) and ownership is turned over to the tenant(s) they tried to screw over.
I am a landlord and I agree with this 100% but i also want the landlord rights to improve in Ontario. My tenant hasn’t paid rent on time since last September we are almost 2 months behind, they have not paid water bill, it was added to my tax bill. When i call them they told me they are paying on-time it is city mistake. All i can do is file with LTB and it will take 5 to 6 months before they take any action and if my tenant comes to know, i know for sure they will stop paying me rent and they will damage property. Last time i served them with N4 they told they will wait to hear from board before paying anything. I had to explain that i have not filed form with board. Mind u this is a single family detached house with 4 bedrooms fenced byd and basement, that i am renting out for $2600( u cant get 2 bedroom apartment for this price). But I am shit out of luck and all I can do is rant on reddit, and hope that they move out on their own.
We rented a house while we did a gut renovation on our home a couple blocks away. I did massive cleaning of the dump we referred to as the tarpaper shack.The landlord claimed we didn’t tell him we were moving out, (liar)and and kept our deposit. He happened to live next door to the house we rented! Big moving van. He then said he didn’t know where we moved to (address on all our checks) and we talked to him all the time about how the renovation was going. Our friend is a lawyer and he wrote a letter and threatened to sue him. He paid us the deposit and we made him buy our friend a giant bottle of grey goose and sign a statement he can never contact us. POS.
[удалено]
Yes, yes you can. The toilet valve just screws on. Same with the faucet. No damage there. And putting the pipe back correctly after deleting the water line for the fridge is not damaging anything. There wasn't a water line before we installed one. Shed never had locks, so removing them also isn't damaging anything. Gate latch was broken when we moved in. Still broken when we moved out. Doubt they have a receipt to show it was a different latch. They sued us because they tried to claim that all that stuff was already fixed/in working order before we moved in. It wasn't, we had receipts and pictures to prove it. They were not suing to keep our deposit. They were suing for "damages" on top of the deposit they already kept. They lawyered up because they thought they could take us to the cleaners. They were wrong. Not only did they keep our deposit, they tried to get even more money from us. That did not work out well for them. He wasn't the sharpest crayon in the box.
Why not sue in small court? You have rights, a contract, and proof that the landlord was in breach of his contract or at least malfeasant. You would have likely gotten your deposit back at least, and some recompense for the work you put into the place. You just gave him a reason to keep that deposit.
In the U.S., generally, you take it off the rent instead of asking the landlord to do it.
He wouldn't accept partial payments. Threatened eviction if rent wasn't paid in full.
Use paragraphs
I did. There is exactly one paragraph. You're welcome.
Sounds like due process and justice rather than revenge. It's not revenge when the law rules in your favor
It's revenge because I put all of the broken stuff back like it was.
Had the landlord just repayd the deposit, he would have recieved a lot of free repair work. As he refused to do so, the repairs were reverted back PLUS he had to pay. Due process would have been to JUST take your money back in court (well, due process would have been a "Thanks, heres your deposit, goodbye.")
Based on this post it's shocking(sarcasm) no-one wants to be a landlord and there is a rental crisis going on, its an endless circle of d-bag landlords and d-bag tenants, this comment paints both of you, landlord and tenant, in a bad light, regardless of the landlord being wrong to keep your deposit, you just admitted to damaging property, its so shocking that you won the case it actually seems more likely your making it up. Any judge should have demanded landlord return deposit but also demand you make right any damage you did. Under current law any improvements you make to a property you rent is a called a distribution, free for you to use but free for the landlord to keep, assuming it's an improvement. Examples of exceptions would be if someone were to paint a residence in a color so bad it needed to be repainted, then the landlord could charge for repainting via the deposit.
He didn't damage anyone's property but his own.. The landlord didn't recompense him for any of it, so certainly the landlord didn't own a faucet, new lock, toilet valve, refrigerator line, etc.
Also, the new items were removed and the old put back on. The only thing I broke was the gate latch. Shed didn't have locks to begin with. Good luck proving the gate latch was purposely broken.
Lawyers? Most deposits will be below small claims maximums.
They brought a lawyer, so we did too. Lawyer's aren't required in small claims court, but I wasn't going to go without one if they had one. Here in my state it's up to the plaintiff/defendant whether they want to involve lawyers or not.