Lousy Landlord Problems
Apartment living. What’s not to like? For starters, apartments have great amenities, require minimal maintenance, and are typically less expensive than home ownership. The riskiest aspect of signing an apartment lease?
The landlord.
Some landlords are totally lousy. They disrespect your privacy, offer sketchy contracts, and fail to perform proper apartment maintenance. The worst, right? Well, nobody knows more about sketchy landlords than our good friend, “Amy.”
Amy lived in an apartment with her husband “Mark” and his uncle, “Arthur.” Arthur was older, sick, and needed help around the apartment. Plus, the couple needed to save money after the 2008 recession. Financially, it only made sense for Amy and Mark to move in with Arthur.
From the first day the couple settled into the apartment, they began experiencing problems. Amy found hazardous black mold lurking underneath the dishwasher, and Mark discovered unsafe living conditions in the bathroom. It was inhumane for Arthur to be living in such conditions given he was already ill, so Amy and Mark decided to confront their shady landlord, “Robert.”
Robert was the total definition of a “slumlord.” He didn’t care about his tenants, and it showed. Robert cut costs wherever he could to pocket more money for himself. Typical landlord!
Since Robert had no interest in fixing Arthur’s apartment, Amy and Mark decided to take matters into their own hands. However, when Arthur passed away, Robert attempted to wrongfully evict Amy and Mark. No way, Robert!
Amy and Mark refused to be evicted from their home. After a little digging, the couple discovered shocking details about their lying landlord Robert that ensured he would be in hot water. When Amy and Mark enacted their revenge against Robert and his crummy co-conspirators, they will have wished they had never messed with the wrong tenants. Getting even has never been so sweet!
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Alarming Apartment Conditions
In 2008, Amy and Mark moved in with Mark’s uncle, Arthur. Arthur, an older man, had recently been diagnosed with liver cirrhosis and needed help around his apartment. Amy and Mark had been struggling with the aftermath of the recession, and moving in with Arthur helped the couple recover financially. If Amy and Mark could help Arthur around the apartment while saving money on rent, moving in with him seemed like a no-brainer. Plus, Arthur’s self-entitled sister and family refused to help him, so Amy and Mark knew stepping in would be the right thing to do.
When Amy and her husband moved into Arthur’s apartment, they settled into two bedrooms while Arthur set himself up in the living room. What seemed like a successful move-in day quickly turned sour as Amy and Mark took a closer look inside the apartment.
As Amy looked around the kitchen, she noticed an unsettling smell coming from the dishwasher. When she looked underneath the dishwasher, she noticed a major leak, causing some kind of strong-smelling fungus to grow on the floor.
After testing the fungus, Amy and Mark discovered it was black mold. Yikes! Amy was allergic to black mold, and it was unsafe for Arthur to live with the mold since he was already sick.
The second day after Amy and Mark moved in with Arthur, the couple found several unsafe living conditions in the master bathroom. The shower had loose tiles, and they looked as if they could fall at any moment. Additionally, the showerhead was leaking, indicating there was a problem with the pipes in the apartment. Worst of all? On the third day, Amy found a nest of brown recluse spiders in the living room.
Eek! Spiders would have been the last straw for me!
After discovering the mountain of issues in the apartment, Amy and Mark confronted Arthur’s shady landlord, Robert. After speaking with Robert, the couple found out he wasn’t the only person exhibiting crooked behavior. In fact, the issue hit closer to home than Amy and Mark had ever imagined.
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Family Ties
When Amy and Mark spoke to the landlord, they found out Robert and Arthur’s awful sister and aunt were close acquaintances. The couple also learned how Arthur had attempted to contact Robert multiple times to fix the issues in the apartment, but Robert refused to take care of them. By law, Robert was responsible for correcting issues in tenants’ apartments. However, the scummy landlord truly didn’t care about his tenant’s health or well-being.
I hope I never have a landlord like Robert!
Amy and Mark wanted to take legal action against Robert immediately. Robert couldn’t get away with treating tenants so poorly! Regardless of how much the couple pressed Arthur to take action against his landlord, Arthur talked them out of a lawsuit multiple times.
If I were in Arthur’s shoes, I wouldn’t be playing as nicely!
Two years after Amy and Mark moved into the apartment, Mark’s uncle Arthur passed away. While Robert was nice enough so long as Arthur was alive, his attitude toward Amy and Mark changed when Arthur passed.
Suddenly, the slumlord’s attitude turned nasty, aggressive, and downright rude. Robert even attempted to strong-arm evict Amy and Mark only days after Arthur passed away. When the couple stopped by Robert’s office to drop off their rent check, Robert attempted to physically fight Mark.
Seriously, Robert? What’s your problem, man?
Robert pointed at Mark and yelled, “You two need to move out or ELSE! You won’t like the repercussions if you choose to stay!”
All the while, Robert never followed the strict state laws regarding eviction. Plus, Robert recruited a slew of other people to begin harassing Amy and Mark. The offenders? Robert’s code enforcement officer wife “Becky,” plus Mark’s terrible aunt “Kathy,” and another uncle “Charles.”
I cannot believe Robert tried to turn Mark’s own family against him!
If Robert wanted to get Mark’s family involved, the couple knew the perfect way to get revenge against the crummy landlord.
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“You Are Nothing But Trouble”
The next day, Mark spoke to his aunt Kathy.
Kathy exclaimed, “I don’t know why you and Amy don’t go live in a tent! You need to move out, it doesn’t matter where you go! Let the landlord give the apartment to another senior who needs it.”
“We don’t have anywhere to go,” Mark replied, “Plus, Robert MUST go through eviction laws. If he doesn’t he could get in serious trouble. I wouldn’t be opposed to getting Robert in trouble, either.”
Kathy cried, “You are nothing but trouble, don’t you get it? You have been a problem since the day you were born! Get out of the apartment and stop being a problem for everyone!”
Trouble? Get real, Kathy! Mark was a retired sheriff’s officer and the furthest thing from being trouble!
After speaking with Kathy, Mark became extremely suspicious of his aunt’s behavior. Being a retired sheriff’s officer, he noticed shady behavior from a mile away. When Mark told Amy about his aunt’s strange demeanor, the couple began their investigation against slumlord Robert and his corrupt wife, Becky. Amy and Mark knew something sketchy had to be going on behind the scenes.
The first order of business in taking down Robert? Amy and Mark placed all of their rent into escrow. They included photo evidence of repairs in the apartment that had been neglected for years.
Don’t mess with Amy and Mark, they have the receipts!
Next, Amy sent a notification of cease for harassment to landlord Robert and entitled aunt Kathy. You’ve been served, folks!
Finally, Amy and Mark searched through public property tax records to find any incriminating evidence against Robert. After days of research, the couple finally found alarming evidence against Robert that would be fatal to his career as a landlord.
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Broken Laws And Incriminating Evidence
After digging in property tax records, Amy and Mark found out Robert’s apartments weren’t registered as rental properties in the state. This meant Robert had been paying far less in property taxes than he should have been. What a find!
According to the property tax records, Robert didn’t own the apartments.
Wait, if he didn’t own the property, then who did?
As it turned out, the apartments were deeded to Robert’s mother. After researching to find out more about Robert’s mother, Amy found out she had been living in a retirement home for five years before Arthur moved into the apartment.
Robert wasn’t taking care of the apartments because he could pin the issues on his mother while he collected a check. Shady, much?
In addition, Mark found out that Robert’s wife Becky had been inspecting and signing off on her and the slumlord’s properties. Robert and Becky were well aware of the dangerous living conditions in the apartment, but they stealthily pushed the issues aside. This was against state code enforcement conduct laws and could land Robert and Becky into a pile of trouble.
Amy and Mark also came across another disgusting tactic of Robert’s– he only rented his apartments out to seniors with life-threatening health issues. How terrible!
The couple’s most striking discovery, next to tax evasion, was how the Apartment Owner’s Association had a strict, “no renting policy,” which meant families had to live in the apartment. Technically, they couldn’t be rented.
With a heaping stack of evidence, Amy and Mark began to knock down the slumlord’s dominoes one by one. We love a good revenge plan!
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Amy And Mark’s Revenge
Since Mark worked as a sheriff’s officer, the first thing he and Amy did was file a complaint with the local police department about Robert’s corrupt code-enforcing wife, Becky. Mark’s background as a stellar sheriff helped push the police department to open an investigation immediately.
Upon investigation, the police department discovered Becky had not only perjured inspections on her family’s properties but on Mark’s family’s property, too. Due to this, code enforcer Becky’s job fired her, stripped Becky of her state enforcement officer’s license and convicted her of multiple crimes.
If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime, Becky!
After Amy and Mark sent the property tax fraud evidence to the state’s property tax division, the state began investigating slumlord Robert. The state found Robert committed property tax fraud on not only the apartments but also a property he rented to his son. Plus, the state caught Robert committing business tax fraud and income tax fraud. Oof, Robert! Too bad!
Best of all, Robert’s tax fraud affected Mark’s aunt Kathy because she and he were business partners. The state found out Kathy’s husband Charles was tied into the scheme, too.
Charles worked as a mailman for the neighborhood Robert’s apartments were in. He wound up losing his comfy job and pension after the state discovered he assisted Robert in tax fraud by stealing money orders.
Robert, Becky, Kathy, and Kathy’s husband were convicted of multiple crimes. Each had to sell their properties and a majority of their belongings, serve time and pay significant fines for the crimes they committed.
Because Robert thought he could evict Amy and Mark, both and his co-conspirators went down for multiple crimes, both felonies and misdemeanors.
So, what is the moral of the story?
Never mess with fed-up tenants.
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