Moving out is usually a very exciting moment in most people’s lives, albeit a little stressful, it usually signifies the start of a new chapter like moving on for school, etc. However, the following AskReddit users were in for a rude awakening when they realized just how odd and unusual their new landlords were. Here’s a list of some of their stories.
Source available at the end.
When I was living in a rooming house, my landlord was this war vet. He had a plastic looking fake eye and was obsessed with watching the security cameras. Since this was a rooming house, it technically counted as a hotel. So, you didn’t have the same tenant rights that you would have living in an apartment. If you were late with your rent, he would change the lock for your room, take all of your stuff, toss it in garbage bags, and then just leave it out by the door. He had a taser gun and would love to threaten that he would tase people with it. He did several times. He would leave notes with misspellings all over the property for the most ridiculous reasons. Once, he got so pissed off at a guy who lived there that he refused his rent, packed up all of his stuff, and stole the remote control for his T.V.
dizzyelk
My friend had a strange landlady. She seemed like this perfect, totally respected older lady who was known in the community. She offered a reasonable rent. The place even came with a cat, and my friend loves them. She had been living in for about a week when things started to go south. The landlady kept letting herself into the house. My friend wasn’t too bothered at first because it was supposed to be a shared house, but she was the only occupant at the time. So, she didn’t really mind if the landlady crashed in one of the other rooms. However, she soon started coming home to her almost every night. She would be in the living room, unannounced, and steadily more drunk on gin. She became abusive, shouting random accusations at my friend while swearing and threatening her, but she never got up as she was always too drunk to stand. Soon after, my friend called me in tears to come and help her move out. She simply couldn’t take it anymore. I got there, and the landlady was in her chair shouting incoherently. She lost it completely when one of our mutual friend’s dad joined in to help, and we ended up running for it with the last of my friend’s stuff. It was a real fight to get the security deposit back as the lady claimed to not remember any of it.
wolfgirl2345
We rented an apartment above an older couple’s house. They seemed nice enough though we didn’t talk to them all that much. The woman loved to run her lawn sprinklers constantly and then would complain to us when the water bill was high. Whatever, it was a cheap apartment. So, we overlooked her behavior.
We were going out of town one weekend when a friend of mine called and said something was happening in his apartment, and he needed a place to stay for the weekend. I asked our landlords if it would be okay if he stayed at our place while we were gone, and they had no issues with it whatsoever. “Just make sure he doesn’t throw any parties or stomp up the stairs.” We had known this guy for a long time, and he was the quiet type. So, no worries.
We returned from our trip on Sunday, and we were greeted by a super pissed off landlord. He asked if we would come into their kitchen for “a talking to.” Uh-oh.
“We couldn’t get ahold of you!” (They never called either of our phones) “We almost called the police!” (Oh no, what did he do?) “There was a coloured boy walking around our backyard! We were terrified!” It took everything in me to keep my jaw from hitting the floor. It was clear we were living above raging racists and didn’t mention to them that our friend was Mexican/ethnic. We moved out shortly thereafter.
glitterismagic
When I was in college, I rented a room in a house with two other girls and a guy (He was the landlord). It was great fun at first. We all got along great and used to party together. Then one night, I was sitting on the couch watching TV with the landlord, and he asked me to do something sexual. If I didn’t do it then I wasn’t welcome to live there anymore. Being young and naive, I did it because I didn’t want to have to tell my parents that I needed to move out. (They were the ones paying my rent, and they had just spent a bunch of money moving me in there).
trettles
He was just a really strange guy who was very socially awkward and creeped all of the girls out in the building. He lived next door to the building I was renting a room in. (It was kind of a weird living situation with shared rooms, and bathrooms and a common room for everyone). We had to go to his room when rent was due. He’d sit at his table and position his debit machine so that you had to bend over and your chest would be right in his face.
He was very fond of tickling female tenants whenever he stopped by. We found him sleeping on our couch on several occasions, and a few times, he took a bath in one of the bathrooms. Once, I woke up to find him in my room. He claimed he was checking the window to see if it needed replacing.
ihopeyoulikeapples
I was in my early 20s and had just moved into a trailer on the outskirts of town with my then-boyfriend and 1-year-old. Less than a year later, my boyfriend dumped me. It was no big deal except for that now I was the only one footing all of the bills on a McDonald’s salary, and things were starting to get behind. The landlord shows up to talk about the rent, and I explain my situation to him. He suggests that we could just work it out in a “trade”
Obviously, I said no and he got really aggressive and mean. Thankfully, my baby woke up and he left. After that I made sure the doors were always locked when I was home. A few weeks later, I was coming out of the bathroom after a shower, and the landlord was standing in my living room! He let himself in to check on a leak (or so he claimed), and he immediately started trying to convince me to have sex with him. I told him he needed to leave, or I’d call the cop, so he did. I used whatever money I had to go buy new handles and locks for both doors and changed them out.
That weekend at 3 AM I hear banging and shouting outside my front door. The landlord says that if I don’t let him in right that second he’s going to break the door down and get what’s coming to him. I locked myself and my son in the bathroom and called my dad (who thankfully only lived a few minutes away). He showed up and punched the landlord. I packed all of my stuff up and moved onto my dad’s couch for a few months, while I looked for a new place.
DaileDoe
I had a ceiling leak that grew and grew. Eventually, it ended up all over the living room and made the room unusable. Our landlord put an industrial fan in there to dry it out, but it took FOREVER to actually fix the problem. I can’t remember how long, but my roommate and I were confined to our rooms and unable to use the majority of the place. We thought that we should get some forgiveness on our rent for this. He didn’t think so. So, we stopped paying and moved out. He threatened to take “legal action” if we didn’t pay the back rent, but knowing the guy, we knew he was full of lies. I had one of my lawyer friends reach out to him on our behalf, and he totally stopped all contact.
anschburman
I had a landlord that would come to my door and complain to me about my sister. She was living in the same building. I’m not sure what the landlord thought I would do about my sister and her complaints were pretty BS too. They were things like my sister made a huge mess in the hallway, but she didn’t even live in that part and obviously didn’t create it.
DaughterEarth
I had a landlord that collected WW2 Nazi paraphernalia with hopes of one day opening his own museum. I’d come home to mannequins in uniform, random guns, and giant hanging flags (so he could get the wrinkles out).
ryansomething52
The landlord lived next door in a series of seven townhouses. He was the only guy in town who was so easily willing to rent to younger tenants. This soon became apparent when he revealed himself to be an eel-spec creep with a thing for younger girls.
He made multiple passes at my roommate’s girlfriend. He decided to throw a party and pay for all of the booze for all of the people in the townhouses as a way to creep on the younger women. (The guy was in his early 50’s). He started to talk to the girls about how his ex had left brand new clothes at his house when she left, and they were welcome to come and try them on and take any that they liked. He became really insistent to the point where they agreed to at least look at some of the clothes. When they went in his house, he had “accidentally” left a box of Magnum condoms on the kitchen counter.
They had a look at the clothes, proceeded to leave, but found the door locked, so they bailed out a window. The guy gave off some really creepy vibes.
phailanx
My best friend and I rented a duplex 2 years ago at $1200 a month. It was a two bedroom and two bathroom place. Pretty decent for two 20-year-olds. It needed a few things and some simple fixing up here and there, but we both were kind of handy men. We fixed the sink, re-did the back and front lawn, and resealed the driveway (My best friend worked at Lowe’s at the time, so we got the stuff for pretty cheap). Anyway, our landlord comes over 3 months into the lease and says, “I have new potential tenants for this spot. I got to charge you $400 more a month or evict you boys.” We both got the hell out. The duplex is vacant and gone to absolute trash. We couldn’t believe the audacity.
EatinBeav
My old landlord was an ex war veteran who asked me weird questions when I first moved in. “You aren’t planning on keeping a hostage here, right?” or “You plan to keep any legal firearms in the house, right?”
Tazinbar
I found a cheap apartment that was missing a refrigerator. Apparently, it had just broke. The landlord said that she would provided me with one for $50 a month. (So, basically $600 a year for a fridge?!) Instead, I went and got one from a scratch and dent store that ended up buying it back from me when I moved out for the same price because they hated my landlord so much.
lazyfrenchman
She really shouldn’t have rented out these rooms in the first place. In theory, we were three roommates who shared a bathroom and a kitchen.
In practice, this kitchen was also shared by the landlady, who would pace through our hallway and kitchen as if she owned the place. I mean, she did but still. She used our freezer, so there was less space for us to store things. There were shrimp residue all over the floor after every visit she made. She would never clean up after herself.
On one occasion, her massive dog ate my roommate’s dinner. Nothing against the dog, it was a sweet dog. However, she did not keep an eye on it.
You know those vacuum cleaners where you just plug a tube into the wall. Apparently, if there are two tubes connected in two different places at the same time, neither functions. Guess who’s landlady liked to leave the tube in whenever I went to vacuum the place. Oh, and she encouraged me to vacuum often.
At this point, I had a job that required me to get up early in the morning. My landlady, whose kitchen was above my bedroom, decided that 2 AM was the perfect time for her and two of her guests to cook lamb chops in a pan and forget completely about it. The lamb chops caught on fire, and they tried to save them by dropping the entire pan on the floor (right above my sleeping head).
She also insisted I pay in cash and slipped me an eviction note underneath my door. This was the one time she didn’t find it necessary to invade our privacy.
Apparently, she’s notorious for something in the area and is not very well-liked, despite her cheerful demeanor.
Mwuuh
I got home at 2 AM, made a peanut butter sandwich, and heard a noise. I looked out across the lounge room to the study and saw my landlord sitting at the computer, which was turned off and the study was dark. She also used to clean the toilet every single time I used it.
HotChickenHero
A few years ago, I lived in a shared flat with three friends. Our landlady often came around unannounced which is illegal. Landlords need to give you at least a 24 hour written notice if they are planning on visiting the property. In any case, she had a letting agent working for her, so she shouldn’t need to come around at all.
Anyway, she was obsessed with fire safety and regulations. On our first weekend in the flat, she came to talk to us about fire safety procedures. She told us that if there was ever a fire to just dial 999 on our mobile phones, and if we didn’t have a phone, then just shout out the window.
This was bad enough because we were supposed to be grown adults, but it got worse, she was coming round every Sunday to check the fire alarm and fill out a little log book. We complained to the letting agent (She was breaking the law, after all), and we assured them that we would do the alarm testing and log book completion if it meant that she would stop coming round all the goddamn time. We did this for a little while, but we would often forget, so she would phone us just to hear the alarm being tested for herself. This was a constant source of frustration, but it was also a good anecdote to tell at parties.
Around about this time, I was working nightshift, and I got a text from my girlfriend one night around 10pm to say that there was a fire engine outside my flat. This wasn’t unusual. The whole block was mostly shared student accommodation, and they were often tripping alarms and whatnot. I laughed it off until I received a panicked call from my flatmate.
“Hey, you at work? Umm… we just had a fire”.
It turned out that a rogue pizza box had been left out on the hob and caught light when someone had switched the oven on and not realized that the hob switch was also on. The box caught on fire quickly and badly damaged half of our kitchen. We couldn’t believe the irony, especially after all the complaining that we did about our fire-obsessed landlord. At least the fire alarm worked though.
R1otous
I had to return to my apartment, after I had the electricity switched off, to reclean the place in order to get my bond back. The landlord claimed it was necessary because there were cobwebs on the outsides of the windows. By the time I came back, people had traipsed through the place, giving me more to do on the inside (with no power).
filthyoldsoomka
I had a landlord that admitted when we moved out that what they really wanted was a nice quiet old lady who didn’t do much. We lived upstairs and had friends. We were never loud, but the stairs used to squeak. When our friends would leave anytime after 10pm, they took it personally. They would randomly turn off the heat and hot water as revenge.
grege1978
My previous landlords weren’t insane to me personally. They were actually very nice people, but they had some sort of personal drama. Even though they rented out a park full of units (like twelve of them), they were ALWAYS broke. They were always hunting for money by the time rent came around. It got to the point where they would ask some of my neighbors for their rent early. They also got vindictive as hell with each other because the wife was running around claiming that her husband was a homosexual and that we should only give her the rent money and not him. He did the same, never claiming anything about her, but by saying that the rent was only “paid” if it went to him. It was so odd.
Mistah-Jay
In college, a friend and I both broke up with our respective boyfriends in a short period of time, so we decided to move in together. It was a college town, so housing for the upcoming school year was scarce, but we found a decent place and signed a lease to start in about 6 weeks. The day came to move in. We signed all of the papers, got our keys, and discovered that the unit we saw was not the unit we had been assigned. Our place turned out to be incredibly humid with evidence of water damage and a terrible smell in the carpets. We spent hours cleaning and shampooing the carpets, but it was all to no avail. The place was disgusting, and we learned from the neighbors that the previous tenants had moved out because of mold.
We refused to move in and got the run around from the landlords for a few days (extending how long we had to live with our exes, which nobody was happy about). They agreed to talk to us after we threatened legal action and wrote up a report documenting with pictures all of the parts of the city code that were being violated. Their solution was to offer us (at no discount) a very expensive apartment in one of their other properties about 30 minutes away. Naturally, we refused. They ended up refunding all of our money and breaking the lease, leaving us with 4 days to find a new place that allowed dogs and had an immediate vacancy. This was in a college town with one week before classes could start. To make things more difficult, this company owned about half of the affordable housing in the city. We did finding a new place by some miracle, and everything ended up fine in the end, but it was one hell of a ride.
bogberry_pi
I dodged a landlord bullet once. I went to a home open for a rental property. The house was really nice, and I was especially enthusiastic about the two large sheds in the backyard. I asked the landlord for a rental application and mentioned my excitement about having all that shed space for woodwork and drinking beer and whatnot. He glared at me and said, “You stay away from the sheds, and never look in there cause they’re mine.” He also mentioned how he would be there every weekend to mow the lawn, and make sure we didn’t ruin his garden. Never did apply for that place.
bornwithatail
When I was younger, I rented a really divey place with some friends from an old butt-rocker who roadied for Deep Purple at one point. He would regularly call me up drunk in the middle of the night and engage us in really long conversations trying to raise the rent. “Next month, man… I’m just really broke.” We would blow him off, and he would forget it the next day.
He also would just randomly stop by to hang out and smoke with us and was just full of great life advice like, “You need to get some curtains for the windows. The ladies love curtains. I mean you will get girls with those sheets hanging up, but not the good ones.” He would also let himself in at points and mess around with our music equipment, which was odd, but he did a great job of tuning the drum set one morning at about 8 am. It was funny because all of us got up one by one to tell each other to stop playing the drums so early- only to find him just chilling in the music room. He was an unusual guy, but we never really made a big deal out of it because we were young and the rent was cheap.
Booji-Boy
My aunt’s landlord was horrible. When he would go out of town, he would turn off the air conditioning in FLORIDA. In the summer, he would do it to “save money.” Nobody was ever allowed to go inside the house. So, we always had to meet her outside. Whenever we came to pick her up and the landlord was there, he would give us dirty looks.
loneliestoreo
Posts are edited for clarity.