'When I moved out they billed me $1500 for breach of contract': Tenants share their landlord horror stories

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Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor
Feb 28, 2024 4:00 PM EST

Surviving a terrible landlord at one point in your adult life feels like securing a badge of honor. Sure, everyone has to deal with the usual landlord issues, whether that's an inexplicable rent increase or a refusal to fix an appliance, but there comes a time when your landlord goes too far and you need to stand up for yourself. 

These landlord horror stories were compiled from the following r/AskReddit thread, and it just goes to show that even if you're a good landlord, stories like this are bound to get around and will make people assume you're the worst kind of person. Some of these stories involve entire buildings getting shut down by power companies, fabricated excessive charges, and hiring unqualified workers to do jobs. A few of these scenarios, thankfully, resulted in more triumphant endings, as some tenants took their landlords to court and won. Keep scrolling below for the full anecdotes. When you're done, take a look at these top Karens from this past week.

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  • 01
    FOR RENT 682-785 SEIN
    via Erik Mclean
  • 02
    r/AskReddit Posted by u/chikeetaBonBon What's your "my landlord is/was a complete a hole" story?
    via u/chikeetaBonBon
  • 03
    anon_admin_1 · One apartment I rented had on the lease that they paid water and sewer. 3 months in the water was cut off because they did not pay it and they insisted that it was a mistake to put it on the lease and I needed to pay it. I ended up having to pay for the water and sewer but then when I moved out they billed me $1500 for breach of contract. Seems the clause in the contract stated "In the event of a breach of contract the renter will be liable for a $1500 breach of contract fee" When
    via u/chikeetaBonBon
  • 04
    [deleted] While deployed, my wife remained at our home in Texas. The A/C broke in the middle of summer. They told her that the temperature wasn't hot enough to constitute a repair. When she showed them pictures of the thermostat reading over 100 degrees indoor they finally said that they would send a repairman but that I needed to be there because I was the primary name on the lease although she had power of attorney. I threatened to sue. A/C was eventually Jerry-rigged (the repair guy told her
    via u/chikeetaBonBon
  • 05
    Fast forward. I'm home, it's getting hot again, and the A/C breaks again. Same story as before claiming it wasn't hot enough. This dragged on for awhile and I finally had orders to move to a new duty station. Gave them 30 days notice and moved out. They tried to tell me that I couldn't leave the home with a broken air conditioner and wouldn't honor my military orders, I had to pay to fix the A/C, and wouldn't get my deposit back. I once again threatened to sue and contacted the actual owner of t
    via u/chikeetaBonBon
  • 06
    CloudMage1. Land lord found out I was a renovation specialist. With a long background in historic renovation and water/fire/storm damage. Asked if I would do little odds and ends around the place to fix it up. Took it off the rent or paid for materials to do the work. I did a lot for her. Refinished the concrete floor in the laundry room, replace ALL door knobs with new style knobs. (They were the old slide in glass knobs, so each door took about 6 hours to complete. Because of wood filling, san
    via u/chikeetaBonBon
  • 07
    When I moved in the place sat for a year empty. It was in rough shape. When I moved out the place was awesome. So nice on fact it rented out for 300$ more a month then I had rented it for. It also rented out 4 days after I moved out. She did not have to do anything to move a new family in. list So few weeks go by and I'm starting to wonder where my deposit is. Clearly I should be getting that back. Nope. Got a letter in the mail say she was keeping it because of a bull of stuff. So I took her to
    via u/chikeetaBonBon
  • 08
    forman98. I never actually met him, but we nearly ended up taking him to court. We complained about a ton of broken things that he would never fix. When they did get fixed, it was by the unqualified worker that he hired from the Home Depot parking lot (no offense to those guys, but they didn't fix our roof correctly).
    via u/chikeetaBonBon
  • 09
    Being college kids, we go to the free legal council out university offered, hoping we had some options to get things fixed. The lawyer found out that the house we were renting had been foreclosed on 2 months prior and the bank owned it now. Extremely off, we decided to stop paying rent to this guy while we got our things in order (we never did get our two months rent back from when he didn't own the house). About 6 weeks later, he comes by the house furious that we hadn't paid rent in over a mon
    via u/chikeetaBonBon
  • 10
    We made a deal with the bank to pay them the same rent we had been paying in order to stay until graduation in May. We were also responsible for cleaning up the yard and they would get someone out there to fix a few big issues (roof and plumbing) since they were going to sell the house anyway. We held up our end and enjoyed our last few months of college without a landlord. 1.2k Share ...
    via u/chikeetaBonBon
  • 11
    AntiparticleCollider Last November I get a knock on the door of my "newly renovated" basement appartment from the fire department saying I'm living in an illegal apartment and will be evicted in 3 months if the landlord doesn't get the place up to code. Landlord kicks me and my girlfriend out in february for "just two weeks, but we'll say three just to be safe". I ask if i have to move out ny furniture, and he says "no, theyll just work around it." I then spent 7 weeks living illegally in my bud
    via u/chikeetaBonBon
  • 12
    When I got back, the entire place was filthy. There was thick drywall dust on every surface, paintcans, tools, and garbage in every nook, and paint splattered on the floor, windows, and all of my furniture including the matress. Some of my wooden furniture had scratches in it, and the shoe rack and shower curtain were destroyed. I argued with him for days. He gave me $150 for cleaning and damages, then upped rent by $100/month because the "apartment is so much better now" 551 Share
    via u/chikeetaBonBon
  • 13
    Sj410 I lived in a few different apartments while I was in college and all my landlords where cool except one. I lived in the first floor of the building while he lived in the second floor. He has many "interesting" stories but there is one that stands out. One day, all of a sudden I found small black things that looked like burnt rice through the living room floor. At first I wasn't sure what it was and swept it up with a broom. Not long after I found the same in a desk I had in the living room
    via u/chikeetaBonBon
  • 14
    We called the landlord to find an exterminator, and he just told us "I'll be there in a moment". About 15 minutes later he comes down with a small carton box full of fruits filled with rat poison to put around the apartment. I looked at him in disbelief and he just proceeded to let us know that his pet snake had died and decided to release the rodents he had to feed it as he had no longer use for them and was sure they would just go and live in the woods peacefully.
    via u/chikeetaBonBon
  • 15
    Still in shock I asked him to leave and dealt with the issue myself. I did not accept his offer to renew the contract and left as soon as possible. Edit: posion = |= venom. Translation fail. 498 Share
    via u/chikeetaBonBon
  • 16
    [deleted] bought my house from my landlord this year (a tall, skinny house in a historic district that's kind of a hip German town), after renting it for a few years. It was constantly a struggle to get the landlord to do anything. All maintenance was done through a contractor, who they apparently were really bad at paying because he eventually just stopped working and showing up.
    via u/chikeetaBonBon
  • 17
    We even had the gutters break and rain water start leaking through the wall and causing huge stains/mold to one of the rooms. They never fixed it. The basement is unfinished and filled with dirt along with all of the old from past tenants (there's an old Gateway computer monitor down there, along with old tables and rolls of carpet padding and old water heaters. Also found out the dryer has no vent out of the house). There was a tacked on kitchen (to make it a multifamily, which it was until I b
    via u/chikeetaBonBon
  • 18
    They also got into a petty email argument with me because we replaced a door that had been broken, and when they had someone (in hindsight, I don't know who, you'll see why below) try and come by the house, they couldn't get in because the locks had changed. Even though I had tried to contact them multiple times about fixing the door and about the locks changing. They just did not care about this house or ever really even take care of it. When my fiancé and I bought the house (we do love it, and
    via u/chikeetaBonBon
  • 19
    Which worked out in our favor, because he didn't want to deal with a realtor and he didn't know the value of the neighborhood had gone way up, so he offered us the house at almost $150,000 less than other houses in the neighborhood/what the house and land are technically worth. So there was never one particular thing that was very bad, but just for three years they were absent, annoying, low key and miserable to deal with. and that adds up. But in the end, I came out on top with the price that I
    via u/chikeetaBonBon
  • 20
    TenthSpeedWriter. It was an apartment complex, but this one stands out still. They didn't pay the power. Not, "they forgot to pay the power." Not, "they were in financial trouble." They just wanted to see if they could call the power company's bluff. The power company killed and locked half the breakers in every building. I dunno if you've ever seen a riot take shape, but try cutting off the AC and refrigeration for a few dozen Alabamians in the middle of June in a heat wave. 490 Share
    via u/chikeetaBonBon
  • 21
    MadLintElf 7 yr. ago Seemed like the nicest couple in the world when we first rented the place, they even invited us to dinner and we had a great time. 3 months in we found out that they argue quite loudly and curse like truckers, not that big of a deal. Then my wife stepped on a piece of blue glass that was on our kitchen floor (we didn't own any blue glasses).
    via u/chikeetaBonBon
  • 22
    I remembered that dinner, Sure as they had blue glasses on the table. I setup a camera in the living room and over the next week caught this guy in our apartment when we weren't home. Son of a was going through our dressers and playing with my wife's underwear, caught him red handed and gave him a nice beating and called the cops.
    via u/chikeetaBonBon
  • 23
    He tried playing it off like he smelt smoke and wanted to investigate, then I played back the previous weeks video's of him visiting on 3 separate occasions. They locked him up, we found a new place really fast and never looked back. ↑ 404 ↓ Share
    via u/chikeetaBonBon
  • 24
    Wally Plumstead. Havent had a landlord in 21+ years and I hope I never have another one again. This is going to be a long post so please bear with me here. When i was 12 we moved into our new apartment. It was a 2 family apartment house. We rented out the upstairs apartment and our landlord lived below us in the first floor apartment with his wife. We lived here for 15 years. The guy was a total
    via u/chikeetaBonBon
  • 25
    He thought nothing of invading our privacy and freezing us every winter and refusing to make repairs or improvements on our apartment. When we first moved in, we had the habit of leaving our front door unlocked (but only during the daytime and only when we were home). Our landlord took advantage of this and would barge in without notice. Without knocking or ringing the doorbell. We'd be sitting in our living room watching tv, doing whatever when we would hear our front door being pushed open, so
    via u/chikeetaBonBon
  • 26
    and the next thing we knew our landlord was standing there in our living room with us. We got tired of this REALLY FAST. So we learned to keep our door locked at all times from then on. Even so, he would still try to barge in. He'd try to open the door normally. When it didnt open, he'd then press his body against the door and try to force it open or break it down. He'd try this for a minute or two before finally giving in and knocking. He did this for many, many years. Many is the time I'd be s
    via u/chikeetaBonBon
  • 27
    Even though we both had mail slots in our front doors, the mailman would deliver our mail in one bunch into a lone mailbox nailed up on the wall outside our front doors. If any of my family ever got to the mail first, we would separate our mail from theirs, leaving their mail in the mailbox. But if he or his wife got the mail first, they'd grab the whole thing. Take it into their apartment and wouldnt give us our mail until much later in the day or the next day or a couple days later.
    via u/chikeetaBonBon
  • 28
    I once subscribed to TV Guide. Normally it came in the mail on thursday or friday. One week Thursday came and no tv guide. Friday, no tv guide. Saturday morning. No tv guide. Thinking it was lost in the mails, i went to the local grocery store on saturday morning to buy that weeks tv guide. Next day, Sunday night, my landlord slipped my missing tv guide into our front door mail slot. He had it all that time.
    via u/chikeetaBonBon
  • 29
    He used to open our phone bill. We knew this because he was calling us up every other day. We changed our number only to have him call again. And we never gave him our new number. So we had our number changed again. Only to have him call again later on after our new phone bill came in the mail. We changed our phone number again and finally he stopped calling. I guess he got the message.
    via u/chikeetaBonBon
  • 30
    One time 2 of my Uncles and a cousin came for a visit. One of my uncles went inside my apartment while i talked with my other uncle and cousin down the block from my place, alongside their parked car. They were facing my apartment while my back was to it. According to them they witnessed my landlord come out of his apartment. Suspiciously look around, up and down the block (remember, my back was to the apartment). Then tried to peek inside the little window in my front door. The only thing he co
    via u/chikeetaBonBon
  • 31
    The worst part of living here were the winters. He froze us every winter. He gave us very little or no heat. Being a very old building, our apartment didnt have a separate thermostat of our own so that we could adjust the heat for ourselves. Our landlord controlled how much heat we got and when. The housing law stated that a landlord must turn on the heat in october and must not turn it off completely until April. No matter how cold it got, he wouldnt turn our heat on until the last week of octo
    via u/chikeetaBonBon
  • 32
    When he did turn on the heat, it wasn't long before he turned it off again. About 15 minutes at the least. An hour and a half at the most. And after he turned it off, it would be a long while before he would turn it on again. And it wouldnt be long before the cold crept back into our apartment. When he did turn it on, that would be cause for celebration. I'd throw up my hands and exclaim, "hallelujah! He's giving us heat!" That joy would be short lived because it wasnt long before he turned off
    via u/chikeetaBonBon
  • 33
    I became so accustomed to freezing while indoors that it never failed to take me by surprise that whenever i went visiting during the wintertime over someone elses, a friends or a relatives, house or apartment, no matter what day i was visiting or what time of the day it was, it was ALWAYS warm where they lived. It was so freezing in our apartment that i was used to going to bed fully clothed, complete with long johns. Many is the time i would use the kitchen stove to try to heat up the apartmen
    via u/chikeetaBonBon
  • 34
    Oh, you can be sure he kept his apartment nice and toasty warm all day, every day during the winter. How do I know? Because at the bottom of our stairs, behind our front door was a very small radiator. This particular radiator wasnt connected to our other radiators in our apartment upstairs. Rather it was connected through the wall to his radiators in his apartment. And it was this little radiator that was on most or all of the time at the same time while our radiators were off. That bottom part
    via u/chikeetaBonBon
  • 35
    One cold winter evening i was returning home from a friends (warm) apartment. I was walking home from the bus stop. As i reached the front of my apartment house, i turned my head and saw my landlord through his living room window. He was adjusting the thermostat on his wall and had his shirt sleeves rolled up as if he were in the tropics. I thought to myself, "Yeah, but I'll bet my apartment is like a freezer". I enter my front door and that little radiator behind the door was going full blast.
    via u/chikeetaBonBon

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