30 Tenants Spill The Tea About Their Landlords From Hell

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.

My first landlord was the slum lord of a college town in Michigan. He literally owns almost all the cheap rentable properties in the town.

It was the first place my roommate and I had ever lived in away from our parents. The landlord took advantage of our naivety in major ways.

Not only was our place a dump that should have been condemned, but we were paying way more for it than we should have been. Comparing prices to the rest of the units in the building, ours was the worst in condition. We paid over 100 bucks more than any of the other units.

Then to make matters worse, the landlord had his maintenance crew go through our belongings to steal the receipts for our previous 6 months of rent.

We found out when he tried suing us for those six months, and discovered that the folder with the receipts (which we kept hidden at the very bottom of the kitchen junk drawer) was completely missing.

He called my parents and told them he'd drop the lawsuit if they paid him half the amount we owed in one lump sum. He was doing us suuuuch a favor by not evicting us and offering us a way out that wouldn't leave us with a lawsuit on our records.

He almost succeeded with his plan, right up until we found the third or fourth months receipt in the glove compartment of my roommate's car. It clearly stated that we had no overdue rent at that time... And the landlord had signed it himself.

Unfortunately, he had still successfully stolen the three most recent months receipts in the folder and we were forced to pay that again. He did not evict us, so we still had to finish out our lease.

My roommate and I literally starved ourselves just to be able to pay the rent.

I really hope that guy gets a*s cancer. Who knows how many people he pulled that s**t on.

I was renting a studio apartment with seperate kitchen in a decent building in an "up and coming" neighborhood. Rent was $500/month, rent stabilizes. Dot Com happened, population grew, a wine bar opened close by... my neighbor, who also had a studio, same size but imo not as good layout, passed away. They refinished his floors, painted, and rented his place out for $1300/month. Then I started getting letters from the owner, whom I had never met. Accusing me of mistreating the apartment, living in filth, causing roaches and mold, threatening to evict me. Ok my apartment was not filthy, you'll just have to trust me on that one. I responded to each of the letters, refuting the claims, offering to speak by phone and got no response other than yet more threatening letters. I finally offered to move out at the end of the month if they gave me my deposit back, which they did. I moved across the country, which I had been planning to do anyway. I get so angry when I think about that person.

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.

I have two, because I live in a city dense with students so every landlord is a "slumlord". First was an Indian family who had a little rental business and some large apartment houses. It was my first year living on my own, and in my youthful idiotic nature I did not notice some clear warning signs. After I moved into my ground floor studio it became immediately apparent the place was a dumpy sh**hole. I had every type of pest, minus bed bugs, that you could imagine. Two species of roaches, house centipedes, mice, spiders, flies, and squirrels. I lived next to a nightclub that was loud, gross, and full of drunk baboons who did coke and shot each other 12 feet from my window. I toughed it all out for a year with minimal b**ching to my landlord. Even when they broke into my apartment, or told me "no, that open hole in the foundation that lets the squirrels in can't be patched", I steadfastly survived it all. I did let them know how uncomfortable and pissed I was about the living situation but they gave a "meh" response. Until move-out day happened. The lease did not specify a required date to provide move-out notice, and they relayed zero info of when I was to let them know I would not be renewing. So, I only gave a 35-day notice after I secured another apartment. They got back to me saying, basically, that was too late and they re-signed the lease in my name and bumped the rent up by $150. Sucks to suck! I threatened to sue. They immediately backed down, tail between their legs, whimpering about how they "were just a small family business, why was I mean?" Thieving bastards still yanked most of my security deposit. I left mouse carcasses behind for them. Second landlord story! This was more recent when my SO and I were looking for a place together. We found a first floor one bedroom that my gut said "no" about but we had been looking for close to 3 months and just wanted the search to be over. We sign the lease, get the keys, start moving my boxes of s**t to be moved in. Surprise, motherf**ker! You got roaches" The German kind, because f**k you. These landlords were also family, a husband and wife with a son who acted as the liaison because the parents were not native English speakers. Yeah they could speak and understand English but not as well as their adult son. We called the son about the infestation. "Oh yeah haha, this is a city so there are roaches" he said cheerfully. I b**ched him out. Because this was not a roach or two, but thousands. Everywhere. The molding on the ceiling was caked with roach filth. You don't notice it during the walkthrough when the lights are on and people stomping about but upon our inspection it was evident that the roaches had been there for a long time. It was a couple who were there for 2 years before us and they had been living in this filth. What occurred was 6 days of bs. At one point, the wife called me at 9:30pm, hysterical, because "why was I doing?" "why was I such an awful person?" For breaking the lease and moving out of their roach motel. Lots of screaming involved. I essentially told them to get f**ked for knowingly letting us move into their sh**hole. We broke the lease and the landlords came over to collect the keys. Over the 6 days my boyfriend and I were there, we did not clean up a single roach after we killed them out. Hundreds of roach bodies on the floors. The husband took a look-see, shrugged, and said "It's not that bad." What disgusts me most of all is in both situations, the landlords had children. I asked both sets of landlords, "how would you feel about your daughter living in these conditions?" to which they could not answer. I despise slumlords. Most operate without a license and all their properties are gross biohazards.

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"

Last November I get a knock on the door of my "newly renovated" basement appartment from the fire department saying I'm living in an illegal apartment and will be evicted in 3 months if the landlord doesn't get the place up to code. Landlord kicks me and my girlfriend out in february for "just two weeks, but we'll say three just to be safe". I ask if i have to move out ny furniture, and he says "no, theyll just work around it."

I then spent 7 weeks living illegally in my buddy's basement 30 mins away, paying rent, and commuting to work. Finally, in April, landlord gives me the ok to move back in, saying the place looks great.

When I got back, the entire place was filthy. There was thick drywall dust on every surface, paintcans, tools, and garbage in every nook, and paint splattered on the floor, windows, and all of my furniture including the matress. Some of my wooden furniture had scratches in it, and the shoe rack and shower curtain were destroyed.

I argued with him for days. He gave me $150 for cleaning and damages, then upped rent by $100/month because the "apartment is so much better now"

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.

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.

I used to help people with housing problems (in the UK, worked for the CAB - kind of unqualified but highly sorted free basic legal advice).

Once saw a woman who rented a flat over a shop. Landlord ran the shop. Shop didn't have a bathroom so he said she had to let him use the bathroom in the flat. Then he started saying she had to let random customers and complete strangers use the bathroom...

And once saw someone with a "tenancy agreement" on a scrap of paper. It only said three things, and two were unenforceable and unlawful. It didn't give the address, or the rent. It said the tenant has to leave at any time they were asked with no notice. I can't remember the rest of the details. Something really pointless, and something about paying for damages??

I took a photocopy of it, and we were all just staring at it in the office. The tenant said we were weird for being so excited by it (not in a nasty way, she was amused).

Tenants have basic rights. Agreements can add to them, but not take away from them. So you can't do that ! But it's not like you want to fight to stay with a landlord like that.