We have all heard stories about lousy landlords, but what about terrible tenants? These landlords share the diabolical things their tenants have done before moving out. You’ll be glad you aren’t the owner of these homes! Content has been edited for clarity.
“He Never Had A Chance To Forgive And Forget”
“My friend, ‘John,’ was gradually declining as an inherited disease began robbing his physical abilities. He was able to walk fine if surfaces were smooth and steps were even, otherwise he stumbled excessively, even falling. John was a tough man, even serving in the military in his younger days. He was determined to live every day to its fullest until his disease took his life, as it had his father’s life and other relatives.
The apartment John rented seemed fine at first. However, sometimes he noticed he would catch his toe on one of the two steps up to his front door, and an uneven spot on the sidewalk. After John told me about falling several times, I visited his apartment, paying close attention to the walk and steps. It was obvious this concrete wasn’t very old. One spot had settled and cracked in the walk, creating a tripping hazard. The bottom step seemed even, but the last step was about an inch taller.
I helped John write a very straightforward letter to his landlord about these concerns. We simply asked that an appropriate patch would be applied to level the walk and something added to the lower step, bringing the two within similar height. Our first two letters were ignored. In the third letter, we asked the landlord to please read the attached state regulations regarding walkways and steps, particularly regarding a disability-approved rental. We also mentioned the landlord knowing about John’s disabilities, and the recommendation for this particular apartment. At this point, we didn’t say anything about ADA laws (Americans with Disabilities Act) as it was a completely new subject to us.
The landlord had someone come out to inspect the sidewalk and steps. One weekend while John and I were visiting his mother, a patch was applied to the sidewalk. My friend expected the step would be addressed shortly. A month passed without any correction to the step. Then the sidewalk showed signs of continued settling, forcing the patch to separate from the walk and break into multiple pieces.
My friend and I had known each other for many years, we first met just after he returned from the military. Watching his decline from a healthy, muscular man to his state of stumbling, poor balance, and broken speech was heartbreaking. I decide to pay a visit to the landlord myself. What I found was a professional appearing rental agency, where I introduced myself as a representative helping my friend solve everyday problems.
I inquired about the apartment being recommended for my friend with a known disability.
The landlord acknowledged the recommendation and replied, ‘What is wrong with the apartment? It has already been inspected for disabled occupants. Everything had passed except the walk and steps, but the maintenance crew already addressed the issue.’
The young lady assisting the landlord proudly produced a photo of a new walk and steps for me.
I asked the young lady, ‘Well, have you ever been to the apartment personally? There are several tripping hazards. Plus, the sidewalk is continuing to settle.’
The landlord and his assistant seemingly listened to my concerns about John’s apartment. The maintenance crew they sent to fix the sidewalk and stairs was prompt, and they once again patched the walk and then measured the steps. As John and I watched with interest from the apartment, the crew seemed to treat the entire job as a joke.
I wandered out just after the steps were measured and asked, ‘So, what is the plan to get the steps and sidewalk fixed?’
The guy who appeared in charge smirked, laughed, and said, ‘You don’t seem to be very disabled.’
I politely informed him, ‘I am representing my friend’s interests. Not that it is your business, anyways.’
John wasn’t as kind. He bolted out of his apartment, nearly falling over me and off the steps.
He told the maintenance crew exactly what was going on and how they were going to fix their sloppy job. Unfortunately, he had a rough time with communication once he was really mad.
To our utter amazement, all three maintenance guys began snickering and mocking my buddy’s speech.
I stopped them cold and said, ‘I am going to be filing a complete report regarding the treatment of my friend today.’
The maintenance guy in charge grinned and replied, ‘What exactly are you talking about?’
I rolled my eyes and responded, ‘The agency you work for will be the first to hear from me.’
His grin turned into a smirk and he snidely retorted, ‘Good luck. My uncle owns all of the apartments and the rental agency.’
I proceeded to ask the crew to leave to protect John’s interests. We called the rental agency the moment the door closed.
The agency offered many apologies and said, ‘The crew was out of line. The issue will be addressed as soon as possible.’
The weird part was how the rental agency said, ‘The situation had become complicated,’ yet refused to explain any further.
John and I allowed two weeks without any response or repairs before I decided to inquire further.
The rental agency explained, ‘Due to your friend’s verbal threats of physical violence, the sidewalk and stairs will remain as is. If he wants any further repairs, he will need to get several estimates, have them approved by the agency, and have the costs deducted from his rent.’
Older and wiser, I now know better, we should have gone directly to the ADA for representation. Instead, we devised a plan to repair the problem. A mutual friend was a concrete worked, or ‘slung mud’ as he liked to say.
With his and several of his coworker’s help, a barbecue, a case of drinks, and a concrete donation from a local company, we tore out the existing walk and steps. A small-size bobcat loader and several strong backs put the mess onto a truck in short order. With the assistance of professional tools provided by the concrete company, we compacted the area appropriately, adding a significant amount of gravel fill.
By late afternoon, we were enjoying drinks and barbecue while admiring the new sidewalk and perfect steps, all lightly textured to prevent slips. The old concrete job hadn’t been adequate, most likely built by the joke of a maintenance crew who didn’t have a clue how to do the job correctly. I expected the issue to be done, solved, and appropriate for both my friend and the owner, who wasn’t going to pay full price for a professional job.
Incorrect didn’t even begin to describe my assumption. The reality? The owner believed he would ‘borrow my friend’s money and our labor interest-free.’
Without an actual written agreement stating how the financial end would work, the rental company only wanted to deduct about thirty bucks each month from John’s rent. Approximately five hundred bucks were invested to rebuild the defective concrete. The math showed John would need to rent for seventeen more months to regain the investment.
John and I asked for a quicker reimbursement, but the rental company never responded.
John had a twelve-month lease. He paid rent every month, he didn’t cause any trouble, enjoying his apartment and his neighbors. Near the end of his lease, he was informed the lease wouldn’t be renewed. We learned our lessons the hard way.
John passed away from the disease shortly after being forced to move. This is exactly why I chose to become his last voice and advocate.
The next Saturday before John’s old apartment was rented again, I simply showed up and destroyed the concrete we fixed. Was it petty? Of course. It wasn’t petty for John, though. His heart never had a chance to forgive and forget.”
Crummy Landlords And Court Battles
“Six years ago, my neighbor, ‘Dave,’ moved into the house next door. He moved in on a rent-to-own deal and had been paying the place off through hefty payments all year. Slowly but surely, he began to improve the property.
First, Dave built a two-car garage. Then, he renovated the kitchen with brand new everything and granite countertops. Dave put in a pool and put up new fences, and he ripped out the carpet and put in hardwood floors.
Dave spent nearly one hundred thousand bucks on improvements in this short time because he was renting to own. He knew in just two more years his home would be paid off.
About six months ago, the owner and landlord of Dave’s house arrived unannounced. The owner explained to Dave, ‘I am kicking you out. You broke our deal, and this house was supposed to be fully paid off in two years. You defaulted on our contract!’
For context, the ‘contract,’ was just a handshake deal.
The actual reason the owner was kicking Dave out was that the house had more than doubled in value in this crazy economy. The owner wasn’t going to lose out on doubling the money he was renting the house to Dave for. The court fight was on.
Because there was not a written contract, the owner won the court battle. Dave was given an eviction order and just ten days to move out of his home. Dave knew he needed to get revenge on the crummy landlord any way he knew how.
Dave began by destroying all of the new cabinets and granite he purchased and then left them in a pile. He drained the pool, removed the mechanical parts, and had a friend jackhammer holes in the bottom. Dave took a saw and cut strips of the hardwood floor out every three feet throughout the house.
Dave’s final revenge was to cut through the ridge beam of the garage so the stability of the roof would be red-tagged by the city. He even called a city inspector out to his home to ensure he did the right amount of damage to condemn the garage!
Dave only damaged the things he paid for in the house, and he ensured he had the receipts. He left the rest of the home in perfect condition.
The owner had now spent a major pile of money to repair all of the home damage, and the big payday he was hoping for vanished.
Hopefully, the owner learned his lesson.”
Bad News Barbara
“One of our tenants was a supposed friend of my wife. We let her in at a lower rate than we were initially asking. The friend, ‘Barbara,’ systematically kept pushing our rules and boundaries. The apartment wasn’t pet-friendly, but Barbara insisted on getting a cat. She parked her vehicle wherever she pleased. Plus, she never kept the apartment clean. She allowed shower water to get all over the floor in the bathroom.
The shower water issue turned into Barbara’s bathroom floor beginning to peel up. It was mostly cosmetic, but she proceeded to have an attorney send us a letter requiring us to fix the ‘hazardous,’ conditions in the apartment. If we didn’t fix the floor, Barbara was going to sue and file a claim with the city.
The floor was not hazardous, but I still wanted to take care of anything under my legal responsibility. I went to the city myself, contacted the building and health inspector, and explained the situation to them. Both the building and health inspector said the floor was not hazardous, but it was simply cosmetically damaged from copious amounts of water. I sent a copy of their report to Barbara’s attorney and they dropped the claim.
About two months later, Barbara stopped paying rent.
I asked her, ‘Why are you not paying rent anymore?’
Barbara responded, ‘I decided to move out, which means I don’t have to pay anymore.’
She didn’t know exactly when she was going to move out, either. I went to court to start eviction proceedings, but Barbara never showed up in court. She was given an extension, but also ignored it. The county wound up serving her papers to get her in court, which she once again ignored.
One day, Barbara finally showed up to court with her attorney and claimed I never served her the papers personally. The court confirmed the county served her the papers and her daughter signed for them.
Barbara argued, ‘But my daughter is only sixteen years old! How does her signature matter?’
The judge argued, ‘Any family member’s signature will work, it doesn’t matter how old they are.’
I showed the judge pictures of the damaged bathroom floors, along with the paperwork the inspectors completed. Afterward, the judge ordered Barbara to pay the two months’ rent back in full and to vacate the property in thirty days.
Baraba left on day twenty-nine, and she never paid the rent back.
After she finally left the apartment, I went upstairs to check out the condition she had left it in. When I walked upstairs, I noticed it was a complete disaster. The cat had scratched every part of the house it could reach. Her daughter used a permanent marker to write on all of the walls. The bathroom floor was worse than ever.
I ended up trying to sue Barbara for everything. She never showed up to court, and I got a default judgment. However, we had no idea where Barbara went. I never got my money, and I had to eat the repair costs and lost rent.”
“She Took The Furniture And Remote Batteries”
“A couple of years ago, my daughter was living in New York City. She was sharing an apartment with two other girls. One of the girls was a bit younger than my daughter and the other tenant, so her mother often advocated for her.
As a mother, I understood where she was coming from. I did my best to smooth out some of the silly things the mother and daughter were worried about.
One day, the mother asked me, ‘Well, how will we manage the toilet paper?’
I was dumbfounded. Yes, the mother was worried about the toilet paper. I bought a two-month supply as my way of saying ‘welcome,’ and I recommended the other girls contribute to the supply after mine ran out.
After the toilet paper debacle, everything seemed to be smoothed over.
However, the recent illness outbreak hit only months after the girls moved into their apartment. The helicopter mom’s daughter demanded she come back home to Florida. It was understandable, as everyone was nervous when the outbreak hit. The roommate kept paying rent too, so there weren’t any issues there.
After the roommate went back to Florida for a bit, her mother decided she did not want her daughter to come back to New York City at all. The mother thought it was too dangerous, and she didn’t want her daughter living there any longer.
One day, the mother came by the apartment when my daughter and the other roommate were not home. She took all of her daughter’s furniture out of the room, hijacked two rolls of toilet paper, and took the batteries out of the remote controls.
The mother also left a note on the bedroom door simply stating, ‘We left.’
My daughter was at a loss for words. Weirdly enough, the landlord was not in the country at the time.
The landlord asked my daughter, ‘Can you take a picture so I can see the room?’
My daughter took the picture and sent a report to the landlord. We did not report the remote batteries as missing, I just bought some new ones. It was too weird. The batteries in the remotes weren’t even new, so the mother stole old drained batteries.
My daughter did not stay in the apartment for too long after this. The roof leaked one time too many and water damaged all of the apartments. The ceiling ended up caving in!
To this day, I don’t understand why the mother behaved so erratically.”
“She Completely Trashed The Entire Home”
“When my husband and I moved out of Texas, we gave the house to one of our sons. He decided to move to another town, and he rented the house to the friend of another son. Shortly after moving in, the friend and his wife had a baby. Eventually, the husband got in trouble and ended up going to jail.
The wife continued to live in the house, but she stopped paying rent. Our son felt sorry for her, so he didn’t force her to leave. This went on for seven months. He wasn’t making the wife pay rent, but he still had to pay taxes on the home.
Finally, he told the wife she had to either pay rent or move out. The woman got angry, and she put huge holes in the walls, broke the glass top stove, and stole the dishwasher. She completely trashed the entire house.
However, when she left, she couldn’t take everything with her and had to leave some things. My son either sold them or threw them in the trash. The woman threatened to call the police over my son trashing her belongings, and my son simply laughed. If he told the police what she had done to the house, she would be in the same place as her husband.”
“They Were The Scummiest Tenants Ever”
“I once had an evil tenant I had to evict. They took all of the batteries out of the smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. They also took all of the lightbulbs.
Worst of all, the tenants turn the power off to the gas furnace. They turned the thermostat off completely. The tenants even flipped the breaker off for the furnace and called the gas company to have the gas shut off.
They did this in January when the temperature was expected to hit zero degrees. Luckily, the gas company called me and I went over to the house as soon as I could. The temperature inside of the house was about forty degrees when I arrived.
A couple of years later, a different tenant moved out of the house owing rent. When I went over to the house, I found out the bathtub drain was clogged. I tried plunging it, and I even tried Drain-O. I didn’t have any luck, so I also tried using a Shop-Vac.
I found out the tenant had dropped coins in the bathtub drain. The tub drained slowly after I got out what I could. Later, I tried the Shop-Vac again. I had to use needle-nose pliers to pull out a makeup sponge from the drain.
These two groups of tenants were the scummiest I ever had.”
The Doggy Disaster
“I previously had a tenant who had some financial problems. I let her pay rent in partial payments to help her catch up. Also, I had not raised the rent in nearly six years. The house needed some minor repairs, but the tenant refused to let the contractors fix them. I believed it was because I knew she was violating the lease. The tenant had more people living in the home than allowed.
It came the time when I wanted to sell the house and move on. I offered the tenant one month of free rent in exchange for showing the property to a realtor and fixing the repairs. The tenant flat-out refused my offer.
I had no other choice but to terminate the tenant’s lease so I could make repairs and sell the home. Aside from the damages left behind, the tenant had her dog poop in the master bedroom after she moved everything out.
I had never been happier to be done being a landlord.”
“The First Tenants Were A Disaster”
“A couple of years ago, a good friend of mine decided to rent out her late mother’s home. The intention was to make enough cash to maintain the mortgage and keep the house in the family. I didn’t see anything wrong with my friend’s idea, so I decided to help her out.
Unfortunately, the first tenants in the house were a disaster. A couple of people were renting, and they went months without paying their rent. When my friend eventually started taking steps to evict them, the tenants decided to retaliate.
The tenants put wet cement down the pipes and in the toilets before they left. Then, they stole all of the cabinet doors and light fixtures before leaving.
The whole situation left my friend devastated, and with less cash than she started with. I never knew how crummy people could be until my friend became a landlord.”
“I Never Understood Why The Tenants Were So Petty”
“A while back, I purchased a beach home to move into it at a later date.
The tenants previously lived in the home for about ten years. When I decided I wanted to move in, I gave the tenants six months’ notice. I figured this would be enough time for them to pack the belongings into the home.
I was adamant about wanting my family to spend the holidays in the beach house, so I notified the tenants I wanted to move into the home back in June.
The tenants did not end up moving out until right before December 24th. Before moving out, they dug up all of the plants and some small trees in the yard. They also took all of the lightbulbs out of the light fixtures.
It was hard to find a place selling lightbulbs in the middle of the holiday season in my small town. I never understood why the tenants were so petty.”
“He Found Twenty-Three People In The Home”
“One time, my neighbor rented out one of their three-bedroom houses. The tenants seemed to be nice, and they were a middle-aged couple. The couple told my friend they did not have any children or dependents who would be living with them. Their story seemed believable and the tenants seemed nice enough, so my friend allowed them to move in.
A month later, my friend stopped by their home one evening to see if they were happy, or if they needed anything. To his surprise, he discovered twenty-three people living throughout the house. The tenants also painted every wall, floor, and ceiling in each room pink. One room was the exception, which the tenants painted bright chartreuse.
My friend asked the tenants to leave, and they did. Before the tenants left, they broke nearly all of the drywall and took all of the copper pipes they could reach.
They were some of the pettiest people I had ever met.”
