Many of us have realized how big of an impact ourlandlordscan have on our emotional wellbeing. Not to mention our wallets! Someone who’s empathetic and responsible can make you feel like you’re always supported. On the flip side, some folks who rent out theirpropertyseem like they clawed their way through the Earth’s crust from the 4th Circle of Hell.The members of the r/AskReddit communityspilled the teaabout their most awful landlord encounters. We’ve collected their most candid stories to share with you, Pandas. Read on to see just how bad things can get.Bored Pandagot in touch with the team running the well-known and ironically namedr/LandlordLovesubreddit for their thoughts about spotting a good and bad landlord. One of the moderators walked us through some of the main landlord red and green flags.This post may includeaffiliate links.
Many of us have realized how big of an impact ourlandlordscan have on our emotional wellbeing. Not to mention our wallets! Someone who’s empathetic and responsible can make you feel like you’re always supported. On the flip side, some folks who rent out theirpropertyseem like they clawed their way through the Earth’s crust from the 4th Circle of Hell.
The members of the r/AskReddit communityspilled the teaabout their most awful landlord encounters. We’ve collected their most candid stories to share with you, Pandas. Read on to see just how bad things can get.
Bored Pandagot in touch with the team running the well-known and ironically namedr/LandlordLovesubreddit for their thoughts about spotting a good and bad landlord. One of the moderators walked us through some of the main landlord red and green flags.
This post may includeaffiliate links.
While deployed, my wife remained at our home in Texas. The A/C broke in the middle of summer. They told her that the temperature wasn’t hot enough to constitute a repair. When she showed them pictures of the thermostat reading over 100 degrees indoor they finally said that they would send a repairman but that I needed to be there because I was the primary name on the lease although she had power of attorney. I threatened to sue. A/C was eventually Jerry-rigged (the repair guy told her that he was paid to do the bare minimum fix) near the end of summer.Fast forward. I’m home, it’s getting hot again, and the A/C breaks again. Same story as before claiming it wasn’t hot enough. This dragged on for awhile and I finally had orders to move to a new duty station. Gave them 30 days notice and moved out. They tried to tell me that I couldn’t leave the home with a broken air conditioner and wouldn’t honor my military orders, I had to pay to fix the A/C, and wouldn’t get my deposit back. I once again threatened to sue and contacted the actual owner of the house. He was a cool dude living in New York and said he’d take care of it for me. He flew all the way to see me in Texas, fired the property managers, sued them himself, said I was actually the cleanest/most respectable tenet he’s had and eventually paid me double my deposit for my troubles. Nice guy.
One major red flag is that the property looks poorly kept. Specifically, if it looks like things have not been maintained or if the landlord appears to have done most of the repairs themselves rather than hiring a professional contractor.Some examples of this include painted-over electric sockets, trim, and light switches, as well as “jerry-rigged electrical or plumbing work.” According to the moderator, this is a very common problem.On top of that, you should look out for any bad online reviews about the landlord or property management company.
One major red flag is that the property looks poorly kept. Specifically, if it looks like things have not been maintained or if the landlord appears to have done most of the repairs themselves rather than hiring a professional contractor.
Some examples of this include painted-over electric sockets, trim, and light switches, as well as “jerry-rigged electrical or plumbing work.” According to the moderator, this is a very common problem.
On top of that, you should look out for any bad online reviews about the landlord or property management company.
The r/LandlordLove team member warned tenants to look out for “arbitrary rules and guidelines that restrict tenants’ freedom.” For example, it’s not a good sign if your landlord forbids you from having guests over past a certain time, displaying items in your windows, or cooking certain types of food that have a strong smell.Moreover, bad landlords tend to have “little to no tolerance for late payments.” Of course, tenants ought to pay rent and utilities as stipulated in the contract.However, there are times when you might run late due to circumstances outside your control. If you’re transparent about this but your landlord loses their temper, it’s not a good sign.
The r/LandlordLove team member warned tenants to look out for “arbitrary rules and guidelines that restrict tenants’ freedom.” For example, it’s not a good sign if your landlord forbids you from having guests over past a certain time, displaying items in your windows, or cooking certain types of food that have a strong smell.
Moreover, bad landlords tend to have “little to no tolerance for late payments.” Of course, tenants ought to pay rent and utilities as stipulated in the contract.
However, there are times when you might run late due to circumstances outside your control. If you’re transparent about this but your landlord loses their temper, it’s not a good sign.
80 year old Landlady;came into my locked apartment uninvited the day I moved in and screamed at me for being naked in my own bathroom regularly took my laundry off the clothesline and dumped it on the ground so that she could use the line instead. It happened so often that I bought a clothesdryer so I wouldn’t have to use the line.* would come into the apartment when I wasn’t home and reorganise the furniture on multiple occasions* called me “Putana” (Greek for whore) every day I lived there*tried to kick my dying dog in the stitches in his face after he had an operation. Then tried to fight me. Then I called the police, and she called the female police officer a putana too.* pelted garbage at my boyfriend when he came to help me move out, until the police were called again
It’s not like there aren’t any decent landlords out there. There are plenty! But we most often tend to hear about the ones that cause problems.According to one of the moderators from r/LandlordLove, trustworthy landlords confirm all agreements in writing, demand below-average rent, and have a low turnover rate for tenants.Meanwhile, some other landlord green flags include a “proven track record with responding to maintenance requests,” as well as an easy method of submitting these.
It’s not like there aren’t any decent landlords out there. There are plenty! But we most often tend to hear about the ones that cause problems.
According to one of the moderators from r/LandlordLove, trustworthy landlords confirm all agreements in writing, demand below-average rent, and have a low turnover rate for tenants.
Meanwhile, some other landlord green flags include a “proven track record with responding to maintenance requests,” as well as an easy method of submitting these.
Before you sign your lease, make sure to read it in full. Take your time. Don’t rush. If yourlandlordpushes you to sign it ASAP, they might be hiding something and hoping you won’t notice it. If they’re resistant to making any common sense alterations to the contract, that’s also a red flag.Meanwhile, under no circumstances should you sign anything without first visiting the property in person. Sure, the market might be extremely competitive where you are, and you want to put in an offer ASAP. But you deserve to live in a clean, tidy, quality place, not an overpriced, unmaintained hole.
Before you sign your lease, make sure to read it in full. Take your time. Don’t rush. If yourlandlordpushes you to sign it ASAP, they might be hiding something and hoping you won’t notice it. If they’re resistant to making any common sense alterations to the contract, that’s also a red flag.
Meanwhile, under no circumstances should you sign anything without first visiting the property in person. Sure, the market might be extremely competitive where you are, and you want to put in an offer ASAP. But you deserve to live in a clean, tidy, quality place, not an overpriced, unmaintained hole.
I woke up to her kid running around my room, and her husband rooting around downstairs. They gave no notice and didn’t bother knocking.We had a bug problem since day one and she decided to do a ‘surprise’ inspection to prove it was our fault.
It was an apartment complex, but this one stands out still.They didn’t pay the power.Not, “they forgot to pay the power.” Not, “they were in financial trouble.” They just wanted to see if they could call the power company’s bluff.The power company killed and locked half the breakers in every building.I dunno if you’ve ever seen a riot take shape, but try cutting off the AC and refrigeration for a few dozen Alabamians in the middle of June in a heat wave.
I had a landlord that was taking my rent money then NOT paying his mortgage. He did that so long our place was foreclosed on and suddenly for sale. I figured this out on day when somebody hammered a ‘For Sale: Foreclosed’ sign in my front yard.
You and your landlord ought to be on the same page when it comes to the maintenance of the property. Ask them upfront about what would happen if there are problems with leaks or if one of the appliances breaks. One of the best things that a landlord can do is react quickly when there are serious maintenance-related issues.Good landlords care about their tenants’ quality of life, not just the property. It’s in their best interest to have reliable and trustworthy tenants who rent for long periods of time, instead of constantly looking for new people.Bad landlords, on the other hand, only care about making as much profit as they can, while minimizing the upkeep costs.
You and your landlord ought to be on the same page when it comes to the maintenance of the property. Ask them upfront about what would happen if there are problems with leaks or if one of the appliances breaks. One of the best things that a landlord can do is react quickly when there are serious maintenance-related issues.
Good landlords care about their tenants’ quality of life, not just the property. It’s in their best interest to have reliable and trustworthy tenants who rent for long periods of time, instead of constantly looking for new people.Bad landlords, on the other hand, only care about making as much profit as they can, while minimizing the upkeep costs.
My first apartment when I was 18 had a rat and roach problem. My landlord refused to fumigate or call an exterminator. Instead, he just showed up one day and started opening up the walls looking for the pests.I remember sleeping at night and I could hear the rats in the walls. I’d wake up in the morning and there would be drywall in the kitchen because the rats chewed through and got into the pantry.I refused to pay rent until he called an exterminator. After 6 weeks or so he told me to move out and just up and changed the locks, holding all my possessions hostage.Fortunately I took him to small claims court and won.
Came in two weeks before my lease ended (I was in the process of moving out) stole all of my cleaning supplies, couch, and half of my w**d.
Which of these stories caught your attention the most, dear Pandas? What’s the worst landlord you’ve ever had to deal with? How did you manage any disagreements with them? What, for you personally, are the signs of an awesome landlord? If you have a moment, tell us all about it in the comment section!
Seemed like the nicest couple in the world when we first rented the place, they even invited us to dinner and we had a great time. 3 months in we found out that they argue quite loudly and curse like truckers, not that big of a deal. Then my wife stepped on a piece of blue glass that was on our kitchen floor (we didn’t own any blue glasses). Sure as s*t I remembered that dinner, they had blue glasses on the table. I setup a camera in the living room and over the next week caught this guy in our apartment when we weren’t home. Son of a b**ch was going through our dressers and playing with my wife’s underwear, caught him red handed and gave him a nice beating and called the cops. He tried playing it off like he smelt smoke and wanted to investigate, then I played back the previous weeks video’s of him visiting on 3 separate occasions. They locked him up, we found a new place really fast and never looked back.
When I was a kid, our slumlord refused to fix anything that broke in our house or do any preventative maintenance. The house had already had an electrical fire from a leaky upstairs bathroom, but he refused to fix any further leaks.When I was about 13, a family of squirrels moved in to the space between the ceiling & roof in my room. I could hear them scratching and running all the time. They eventually scratched through the ceiling and left a few areas with small holes. I was always afraid they would drop into my room and attack.Then, my ceiling started leaking when it rained, first in just one area and then gradually across the entire beam that ran across the ceiling. We set up buckets and I would fall asleep to the music of raindrops hitting different containers. The sound of water hitting carpet would wake me up in a panic and I’d have to find another bucket to catch the new drips.One night while I was staying with a friend, the entire ceiling collapsed directly over my bed. All of the soaking wet sheetrock (?drywall?) Landed on my bed, desk, etc. And the entire family of squirrels was released into my room. They hid in my closet, under the bed, everywhere, and it took three days to get them all out.That bastard landlord took another week before sending someone in to “fix” it, and even then, it was only his son, who had zero experience/skill fixing anything.
When I was 20 and living in my first apartment in Philadelphia, my 80+ year-old landlord was walking up the stairs behind me, and cupped my as with his claw-like hand. I took his hand off my as and said “Don’t do that.” He didn’t even flinch. F U Mr. Hymowitz, you dirty bastard.
This landlord would randomly come in the apartment around 9 PM saying he came take out the trash. He gave the spare keys to his father and cleaning lady, both kept randomly coming inside without any notification.He also forgot to mention that the garage directly under my room was actually a workshop and he would work there in early morning / late night. The final straw was when he came in the apartment at 8 AM on saturday and brought his wife and small son in my absent roommate’s room for several hours.To this day i still wander if he was a sociopath or just complete a*****e.
I lived in a few different apartments while I was in college and all my landlords where cool except one. I lived in the first floor of the building while he lived in the second floor.He has many “interesting” stories but there is one that stands out.One day, all of a sudden I found small black things that looked like burnt rice through the living room floor. At first I wasn’t sure what it was and swept it up with a broom. Not long after I found the same in a desk I had in the living room. At that point my roommate realized it was rodent droppings.We called the landlord to find an exterminator, and he just told us “I’ll be there in a moment”. About 15 minutes later he comes down with a small carton box full of fruits filled with rat poison to put around the apartment.I looked at him in disbelief and he just proceeded to let us know that his pet snake had died and decided to release the rodents he had to feed it as he had no longer use for them and was sure they would just go and live in the woods peacefully.Still in shock I asked him to leave and dealt with the issue myself.I did not accept his offer to renew the contract and left as soon as possible.
Basically every landlord I had in college would find excuses to take as much of your security deposit as possible. We’d make sure everything was spotless when we left, and they’d be like “oops, there were some crumbs in the oven. Better charge you each $20/hour for a cleaning service to come through for 5 hours”
We had a new management company take over the complex after we’d lived there for three years. They fired all the staff that had been there for years and replaced them with people that didn’t know what they were doing.When we first moved in, if something broke, the first company would come right over to fix it either the same day or the next and they’d call to confirm it was okay to enter the apartment. They’d leave a note to say what they were in the apartment for and exactly when.The new company wouldn’t fix anything in a timely manner. Our air conditioner broke during summer when the average temperature outside was 105F. Our lease specified we had to keep the apartment in a temperature range to prevent mold. It took 4 phone calls and threatening legal action. A week later, we came home to our door unlocked, all the lights on (even in the bedrooms) and an absolutely freezing apartment. So cold, in fact, the air conditioner froze and it burned out. It took another week to “order parts” to fix it. They left all the lights on and door unlocked again when they finally fixed it the second time.A month later, the bathtub broke. The hot water wouldn’t turn off. It was on full blast. They said it wasn’t urgent since the water was draining down the tub. They waited 3 days to come fix it. The hot water made our room super humid and it was loud. So we closed the door. They got mad because the door split from the moisture.One day, I stayed home from work because I was sick. I was taking a nap on the couch and when I woke up, there was a man standing in my doorway. I screamed, “Who the f**k are you? Get out!” He said, “umm…maintenance.” I called my husband and he was pissed. The guy was gone when I got back but he propped my front door open. He was no where to be found. I closed and locked the door. I called the leasing office and they acted like I was being unreasonable. They gave no notice they were entering the apartment and the guy was standing there watching me sleep. They said “We didn’t think it was necessary since he wouldn’t be actually entering the apartment. He’s just painting your front door.“The last straw was we were required to give 60 days notice if we were moving out but they waited to give us the new lease terms until 29 days before the current lease expired. When we got it, they raised the rent $500 per month. We didn’t renew the lease, gave them notice, and moved out. They decided to file for eviction instead.
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A*****e busted my main water line when he was mowing the lawn, put the blame on me since he had to mow the lawn (I didn’t own a lawnmower at the time, so I was paying him an extra 50 a month, it was part of the lease deal), I had to pay for the repairs and outrageous water bill I generated as I was unable to fix the leak.Things that have changed since then:-Got good at basic plumbing.-Got a better lawnmower and got good at fixing those.-Got a new landlord.-Got a well system.
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My landlord told my boyfriend (now my husband) that he would lower the rent for him when I moved out. Not the worst landlord ever but the audacity of that comment makes me so mad!
After five years of renting I discovered my place didn’t exist on paper. The city only knew it as a pigeon coop. No building permit, no renting permit, nothing… All the money I paid in these years went directly to the guy without the government knowing he was renting something out. Oh right… of course the fact that there is no way to get insurance for something that doesn’t exist. (He always reassured me insurance was totally fine)
Oh, do I have stories. I have two favorites from the same agency.One of their rental agents was showing our place (we weren’t renewing). We found her on our steps, panting, smoking a cigarette. She was unable to get up the flight of stairs to show our place, so the potential renters just…left. We received a phone call about creating an unsafe environment for their staff because we lived upstairs?Same agency, shortly after, did a “surprise inspection” while we were gone and took all my houseplants out of the house and smashed all the pots outside the front door. Never received a reason why. The lawn guys ended up cleaning up the pots.
One apartment I rented had on the lease that they paid water and sewer. 3 months in the water was cut off because they did not pay it and they insisted that it was a mistake to put it on the lease and I needed to pay it. I ended up having to pay for the water and sewer but then when I moved out they billed me $1500 for breach of contract.Seems the clause in the contract stated “In the event of a breach of contract the renter will be liable for a $1500 breach of contract fee” When I pointed out they were the ones in breach of contract they replied “The clause has nothing to do with who breached the contract, it only states that you are responsible for the breach of contract fee.”
Me:(My first week after moving in) “There is water dripping from the light bulb over the kitchen…” Landlord: “Its Probably just the AC again. I’ll be over next week. call me if you smell anything burning.”
A few friends and I rented a s****y apartment in downtown Iowa City from a company that owns most of the rental properties in the city whether it be through the company we rented from, or one of their sister companies. We failed to read any reviews on the company until after we found out how crooked they are. Come to find out, they’re in a lawsuit almost every year, and are so big that they can push their customers around and get what they want because who else are people going to rent from? They don’t have competition. Oh and their office is open from 10am-4pm four days a week.Despite having turned in accurate damage reports prior to moving in, they still charged us for said damages. We were charged over $200 to replace six functioning batteries in the fire alarms. Another $150 or so went to replacing the hollow core front door with a hairline crack between the deadbolt and the door latch (taught us to look at the frickin' doors before moving in somewhere). They replaced all four sets of blinds in the bedrooms. Blinds they charged us $60 each to replace. Blinds we could have gotten at Walmart for under $20 a piece.Our biggest gripe with this company was how they worded their lease agreement. When you read it at first (all of us tenants AND our parents read it), they make it sound like you are paying for 12 months on a year lease (makes sense, right?), but you are actually going to end up paying 13 months of rent (don’t ask me to explain because I still don’t understand it). We ended up telling them to keep our deposit to cover the rogue 13th month, we sent them a check for the remaining balance for the damages, etc. and washed our hands of the entire thing.TL;DR Four friends rented an apartment in a college town from a company that owns most of the rental properties in the city. They didn’t take us to dinner first, and they used sandpaper.
We had a huge storm blow through, tons of rain, tornado warnings, the whole 9 yards. It turns out that the storm drain was clogged in our parking lot so we had about 10 inches of standing water in our parking lot. Nobody could drive their cars in or out of the lot. We called out landlord who berated us about not telling them earlier. The same landlord also took several days to fix our heat in the middle of winter. And also accused us of mold growth in a closet the day after we moved in.
Moving internationally, I took a red eye flight. I was exhausted, edgy from a very turbulent flight and going through customs, and carrying all my worldly possessions in two of those giant duffel bags. I had paid my first and last months' rent two weeks before, and my landlord assured me the apartment would be ready. He knew exactly when I was arriving.It wasn’t. He wouldn’t even let me crash there while they finished working. I had to go hang out at the local public library for 10 hours while he got his s**t together. I also managed to lose my cell phone that day, and had to take a cab to the mall to get a new one.That was on April Fool’s Day 2014. I’m not terribly superstitious, but I’m unlikely to try any international moves on April Fool’s Day again any time soon.
Having to pay for basic boiler repairs for my tenants to keep warm during a cold and windy winter. So unfair!
My apartment manager just told the three apartments upstairs that we have to find a place to stay for one to three nights while the stairs are being repaired. He’s not offering a hotel and just keeps saying he has no empty units to put us in.
Landlord called my roommate asking for the “Black Lives Matter” signs displayed in my room be taken down. They’re on the second floor, facing the street for all to see.
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