'This is a typo!': New York landlord tries to strictly uphold the terms of lease, backfires

Brad Dickson • Managing Editor

Jul 31, 2023 9:00 AM EDT

When you make the decision to brutally and strictly enforce the rules of a written agreement—almost to the point of spite—you'd better make darn sure that you've thoroughly reviewed that agreement yourself. If you want a strict interpretation of something, you'll get it, and anything that wasn't intended to be in there in the first place is fair game. This is your game, don't fault your intended victim for playing it too.

Predatory practices from landlords are incredibly common in certain communities. It's almost as if they gather once a week at the local rotary club in order to discuss just how low they're going to set the bar for local landlord expectations. For example, take a look around any student rental properties in any university town or district, and you'll find plenty looking to take advantage of the limited housing and desperate students who don't know any better.

An error in the lease that they were strictly enforcing caused this landlord to lose out at their own game in this trending Reddit thread, which was posted to Reddit's r/MaliciousCompliance subreddit by the tenant, u/aalilyah, who was looking to get out of their lease. The landlord's strict enforcement of this document had them on the ropes when the tenant discovered the typo.

Read on for their story; it's sure to strike familiar chords for anyone who has rented from one of these landlord types.