'I countersued': Tenant turns to revenge after failing to wrest his deposit back from a terrible landlord

Advertisement
  • 01
    Posted by u/cloudubious I just wanted my deposit back. So about 10 years ago, my wife (then girlfriend) and I decided to move in together. She was sick of living in a dorm and my lease was up, and we had a family friend that was looking for someone to move into a little granny flat under their house. I say under because they lived on a steep hill where the flat was below the house with an entrance on the back side, so we had this incredible view out back, a pool (we'll get to that insane thing),
  • 02
    Oh, my parents own a couple rentals and have my whole life, I've done maintenance for them and even attended a couple court cases as well with them, this'll come into play later. Everything was great for a couple months. Then Mary and her wife started fighting. Screaming matches, stomping above us, throwing things, I didn't understand how people could be that mad at each other that often and still be together.
  • 03
    I eventually sent them an email saying we were not comfortable with the fighting and we wanted to make sure they were ok, etc. They replied to that with, "you're lucky you have a place this nice." Mary began to scrutinize the yard and poolwork I was doing, to the point she would insist I vacuum and skim the saltwater pool with no chemicals (salt water pools need far less chlorine than regular ones, but they still need some!), wanted me to stop mowing and use a weedwacker only because the mower w
  • 04
    At that point, she went insane. Tried to do daily inspections of the granny flat, would call and email daily with chores around the property she'd insist we do, and would pound on her floor (our ceiling) every time she heard so much as a whisper. Daily inspections would require 24 hours notice (she never gave that). Then she tried to bring potential renters over to see the flat (we flat out told her to go away when that happened) with no notice. Finally, 2 weeks before move out, she had a pest c
  • 05
    So I rush home after work, stop by upstairs and ask for a copy of the pest control receipt. I have massive allrrgirs to most pesticides, so I need to know what was used. She goes into her office and bring back a copy with every single chemical on the list checked off, every single one. I immediately take the copy, run down, grab the cat and a handful of clothes, and drive to my parents' house. We stayed there 4 days, hoping everything would clear out in time for us to finish packing and cleaning
  • 06
    The last couple days before moveout, Mary was out of town, and we were able to get it completely finished a day early. We'd even patched nail holes, painted, cleaned the carpet, my mom came and helped us get it ready for the next tenants. It was immaculate, and we took photos and video of everything. When Mary did the checkout with us, we said we weren't confortable being there without filming (legal to do), and she did a short walkthrough efire stating it was fine but that her copier was broken
  • 07
    Two days later, we got that copy, with $1400 in damages claimed above our deposit, including a number of charges like, "my wife had to replace a screw in a cabinet, $1 for screw, $15 labor." I was livid. The place was spotless, my mother (a landlord who does all her own prep work in rentals) helped us, and we'd been very nonconfrontational except for filming the walkthrough. I had kept every email, text and letter from them, and started to put together a small claims case. I figured she would al
  • 08
    Finally, I called the exterminator. The conversation went like this: "Hi, you sprayed in my flat without my permission because my landlord ordered it with no notice to me, with my cat inside, and used every chemical on your receipt." "We most certainly did not. Here's a copy of the work order, we only put out ant traps on the outside." "Oh, I'm sorry, thank you for your clarification."
  • 09
    Armed with that last little piece, I countersued, asking for a Bad Faith penalty as well as our deposit. Bad Faith was 3x deposit, so I was asking for a total of 4x what we'd given Mary on move in. The big day came in court, I showed up early, had everything in order and ready, and she swaggers in huffed up and clearly ready to put me in my place. We sit outside the courtroom for about 20 min, until a courtroom worker asks the waiting room if anyone would be willing to go to mediation instead si
  • 10
    Mary lays out her case, it takes about 4 min. The arbitrator looked very neutral still. Then I present my case, bringing up each violation, each lie, and end it with the work order from the exterminator, both copies. At this point the arbitrator looks visibly upset and I can tell they're just trying to stay neutral. Mary then asks them, "why is he asking for 4x the deposit?" The arbitrator then explains the bad faith penalty, then looks at me, "would you be ok dropping the penalty for your depos
  • 11
    They looked over at Mary, "I can't tell you what to do. But what I can say is, if you decide to go back into that courtroom in front of a judge, it's not likely to go in your favor." (I swear they really said this, I know they're not supposed to but they did!) I got my deposit back.
  • 12
    hamburger666666 Wish I had had this kinda knowledge when I was in college, I got screwed out of so many deposits. Why'd you drop the penalty though? Take her to the cleaners. 2.1k Reply Share cloudubious OP She was still a family friend. Though she burned that bridge later in the year with other bs. 1.3k Reply Share
  • 13
    VictorSanslec I wish you'd said no to the arbitrator Reply Share 410 AKernelPanic Seriously, this is not a revenge, let alone a ProRevenge. OP just got the minimum he was owed. 419 Reply Share ●●●
  • 14
    [deleted] By not enforcing the bad faith penalty, you're giving them less punishment for their horrible behavior and therefore making it more likely that they will try this again in the future. I really wish you had gone forward with it. 4 333 ↓ Reply Share
  • 15
    BertsCat And then you got revenge? 199 Reply Share Siphyre I'm still waiting on the revenge too. OP got nothing out of this and the lady wasn't hurt in any way. Yeah, she didn't get extra, but she didn't take any damages either. 103 Reply Share ...

Tags

Scroll Down For The Next Article