'I made sure the boiler was rendered useless': Tenant gets even with landlord following refusal to reimburse him for boiler repair; tenant renders boiler useless

Eleonora Bader

May 16, 2023 1:00 PM EDT

Tenant and landlord relationships can be strained, but when there is a third party involved, the simplest of predicaments can get ugly. OP was renting a house in Northern Europe, and his landlord was living abroad at the time, meaning that any mishaps were to be discussed with his landlord's lawyer, who was in charge of legalities. One day, OP's boiler broke, so OP contacted his landlord, but to his avail, there was no answer. After the temperature dropped to 7 degrees Celcius in his house, OP took matters into his own hands. He called up an engineer who came and diagnosed the problem (a worn-out motor), removed the broken part, installed the new part, and billed OP for parts and labor. OP let his landlord know what had happened via text, and his landlord directed him to his lawyer, knowing that it was only fair OP be reimbursed for all the trouble and the broken part.

The lawyer in question wasn't particularly helpful; moreover, he told OP that he had 'broken the terms of the tenancy agreement', and refused to reimburse OP. Shocked, OP told the lawyer that his landlord had also violated the agreement by not responding to an emergency repair in a reasonable amount of time. His lawyer basically told him, 'Well, tough luck', adding a final sting, 'I recommend you put this all down as a lesson learned and move on'.

OP did not want to 'move on', but he did, 8 months later, 'move out', taking the boiler part with him, rendering it completely useless. Scroll down to read about the battle that ensued. For more stories like this one, here is an employee who quit after a new hire got his promotion; the VP got involved, fired the new hire, and asked that the former employee be reinstated.