Landlords, what are your tenant horror stories?

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[justlikethewizard]

the landlords that were up to replacing the heater, installing a cat door, letting her get a dog and making a fence for it - they're like the DREAM. AND they don't raise rent? God, what I wouldn't give.

[luvondarox]

I'm starting to wonder if these landlords punished by crap tenants turn into the grumpy cynical landlords after enough trauma.

[ashextraordinaire]

Over a decade ago, when the real estate market was sluggish, my mom decided to rent out her city condo after she inherited a house in the suburbs. A few months into the 12-month lease, Tenant was late on rent. Not a huge problem; my mom was still able to make the mortgage because the inherited house was free and clear (and because my mom is too nice). Then, for three entire months, my mom couldn't get a hold of Tenant. Texts went unread and phone calls went straight to voicemail. Tenant didn't answer the door. Then, suddenly, Tenant turned back up like nothing had happened. Turns out she'd gotten a DUI and a 90-day jail sentence because it wasn't her first offense. She was flippant about the charges and ANGRY that my mom had called her emergency contact about five days in to ask if she should report Tenant missing. My mom had been worried that something bad had happened, so at that point she was just relieved that Tenant was alive and well. She forgave the missing months' rent and said they'd just start clean, with no hard feelings. Tenant repaid her kindness by trashing the place, skipping out on the rest of the lease, moving out of state, and marrying some random dude so she could change her last name. I found her because at the time my job included tracking down debtors, but my mom didn't want to compound her problems by pursuing back rent or charges. (Like I said, my mom is too nice!) She decided she was done being a landlord, and the condo was on the market as soon as we could get the place cleaned up.

[asllife]

Having the mailman slip you the new tenant addresses is SUPER illegal, btw. Source: I used to work for USPS.

[stefanfr]

When I was around 14-15 my mom and I decided to move from our rural town into the big city, thinking that it'd be convenient to have everything closer to where we lived, plus more opportunities for my future. My mom kept our old home for a time after we moved and decided to rent it out to earn some extra money.
A family of four move into our old house - a couple of late-20's and their two children, one being a toddler. Things went alright at first, but over time I kept overhearing my mom venting about how the couple would either be late on paying their rent, or not pay at all. Eventually she decided to have them evicted when I was around 16, and the two of us went to the house to get it ready for new tenants.
The state of the place was horrifying: Trash bags everywhere, carpet in the bedrooms needed complete replacements due to stains of unknown origin (and of several different colors, mind you), and the stench was so bad that I had to out into the garden and get clean air into my lungs ever 30 minutes (also the grass had grown so much, we believed they rarely, if ever mowed it).
I was horrified to see my childhood home in the state it was in, and I honestly worried about the well-being of that couple's kids. It took my mom and I a whole week to get the place cleaned out and ready for sale again.

[DarkKnightofIT]

My Gpa had to clear out like 20 feet of underhouse sewer pipe because the previous renters stuffed paper towels and cloth towels down every drain on their last day.

No problems before that, they always paid him on time, never complained to him about anything, he was (and still is) a believer in preventative maintanence, and would do his best to work with tenants. Still have no idea why they did that, but I'm still upset with them for doing that, partly because I was one of the people called in to help, but mostly because my Gpa is a genuinely great person and they intentionally cost him for no reason.

[fawfulfan]

Not a landlord, but the last apartment I lived in before buying a house, the tenant downstairs was CONSTANTLY complaining about the noise from us just walking around normally. We weren't loud at all. They just complained every time there was a slight floorboard creak. The landlord had to send contractors into our apartment multiple times to rip up the floorboards and do work on them at their demand. Was extremely aggravating to us and, I presume, the landlord.

[IlmurOsp]

was not expecting to see gameplay footage of Gris in the background. beautiful game fr fr

[madamefluffy]

Yeah, no - someone who is off his meds threatening to burn someone's house down and swinging around a samurai sword beside someone's car is absolutely a danger to that someone (the OP for that story brushing the crazy dude off as just being theatrical is an idiot for thinking he's harmless just because the crazy dude didn't directly threaten them. It's that kind of mindset that ends up with someone getting seriously hurt).

[Nugire]

17:50

Addict: "Are you the drug dealer?"

- "No, i'm the drug counselor."

Addict: *hissing noises*

[Offutticus]

The mailman giving out the forwarding address is most likely doing something illegal. My wife is a retired rural mail carrier and says was rarely asked and referred them to the postmaster. There's no reason to ask, really. Any first class main goes through the system, gets a yellow sticker for the new address, and is then forwarded. This is all in the US so unsure what other mail services would do.

[crowleysgirl]

47:47 Dammit, Underspark, you got ice tea coming out my nose for that remark.😂

[codm]

Ohh god it’s usually the landlords being from hell

[Drake_Aedus]

Been watching every single hour long video. Something to listen to while at work.

[ZomBeeQueeen]

I lost an entire weekend watching the UK show *Nightmare Tenants and Slum Landlords* on YouTube and Prime. I was surprised to find myself sympathizing with the landlords. Most weren't large companies but rather incidental landlords who had inherited a single property to rent out. They were devastated both financially and emotionally by tenants who refused to pay, and they couldn't legally evict them for about a year at the least.

One was a woman who let a friend, single mom with children, move in to help her leave an abusive relationship (supposedly). After a few weeks, enough to establish tenancy, the woman changed the locks after letting the ex move in. The landlord was homeless for over a year while still paying mortgage .

Another was a man who rented below rate to help a family. Once they stopped paying it was almost 2 years of court fights and fees. When they left, they tore out the copper wiring, pipes, and hardwood floors.

[trumpetmom]

Story two sounds like a friend of my husband. A realtor who owns a lot of rental properties in Northern Colorado.

[genevievemeuniere]

Heyo I'd like to request a small little thing for the description, that you guys mark what games you show in the background!
A few of those looked really intriguing so far and it's a shame they are not mentioned.

[melissar]

The reason la dlords can't all be like the landlord in story 6 is precisely because of people like the subjects of all these stories.

[traceyg]

Really enjoyed this one. I like to read as well as listen and I LOVE the background you used in this, the other wizzing, zooming and spining makes me disoriented and when it is really bad I just give up, so keep up the gentler backgrounds and I will carry on logging in 😊 good job!

[WomanRoaring]

My gram passed away, we rented her house after renovating it. A few years later the original tenants decided to move and not tell me. The laws in our area say that you can't show up whenever you want so you can go 1 time a year unless you're doing repairs or there is an emergency. Well they never told me when something broke and there was never an emergency so I'd go once a year to check things out. It was fine for 5 years, year 6 they'd moved out, subleased the house and when I went other visit that year my mom (who was the actual owner but lived out of state) went with me. We were so mad. There were 15 people living in the house, it was just over 1000sqft so a small house with 1.5 baths, so not nearly enough for 15 people. In the year since I'd been there the original tenant built a bathroom and converted the garage into 2 bedrooms and built a little shack in the back (I say shack but it was actually pretty well built, but not up to code and not permitted). my mom blamed me, like I would have been able to prevent that, it was all done in less than a year and mostly interior so I wouldn't have seen it if I drove by and I did drive by on occasion but from the outside it looked normal and there weren't tons of cars so I didn't think it was that crowded, anyway. When we got into the house the dish washer was crooked and they said it didn't work. I asked why they didn't say anything, they said well we just wash the dishes by hand anyway. The hood over the stove didn't work either, I asked about that and they said we don't know. I was like, why didn't any of you tell me, I knew these people. I wasn't friends with them but I'd met them years before the original tenant lived in the house. They were friends of friends. I went on Facebook and looked up the tenant, he'd moved out of the country a few months before and didn't tell me. This caused a huge fight with my mom and I. They were paying the rent, they'd deposit it in the bank, the bank was 5 mins away so they never sent a check or anything and the bank doesn't tell you who's depositing cash, just that you have cash in your account so I didn't know they were living there. It wasn't a whole year either, just a few months and legally I had no right/reason to go in. The place was super dirty, not like trash all over but the walls were so dirty, looked like dirty hand prints all over.

My mom wanted to sell the house, that's why she was there visiting. She lost $100, 000 on the price due to the damage and undermined structures. She had to sell for so much less because she didn't have the money to fix it and no one would pay full market value. She blamed me. We couldn't even sue the renters since they were out of the country and haven't come back.

My cousin (my mom's age) inherited my great uncles house, he has me doing property management for him and so far things are better. The renters send videos on occasion of the inside (we both live out of state) and last year I was able to go visit in person and the house looked as nice as it did when we rented it. They actually fixed up the yard a bit, something we didn't do since money was tight after renovation the interior and replacing the roof. They've lived there 5 years and we've had 0 issues. There are 5 people in this slightly bigger house and they're good tenants. When the dishwasher broke the one tenant is a plumber, he fixed it and told me how much the part was and I said cool, we discussed his payment, which he was like, eh I don't want anything and I said, I'll still pay you because I would have had to pay someone else. And he deducted the amount we agreed upon from the next months rent. I feel lucky with them. They're grateful for the nice house, which is 2 mins from the wife's job and 10 mins from their son and his family and I'm grateful they care about the house and don't think, well it's not mine I don't care. But the renters of my grams house, I know it could have been worse but omg it was heartbreaking to see her house like that and the fight it caused with my mom. We still don't speak (partly because of this).