Reckless tenants cost landlord thousands in insurance claims, landlord retaliates by throwing their personal boxes in the trash: 'If you don't care about people's stuff, you can't expect them to care about yours'

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Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor
Jul 17, 2025 8:00 AM EDT

It's usually obvious who is in the wrong in a landlord-tenant dispute. While it's difficult to generalize all iterations of these conflicts, nine times out of ten, an absent landlord is flexing their false sense of authority and blatantly ignoring the rights of their tenants. 

Most of us have been in situations like this. Perhaps there is a roach problem or an incessant, seemingly irreparable leak in the ceiling. You try to get in touch with your landlord, but they gaslight you into thinking they are doing everything they can. In reality, you know they are doing next to nothing. You even consider calling the city to get involved, until you learn that dozens of unresolved complaints have been made about your building's management issues. Yes, this is something that I have experienced firsthand. In some ways, people who live in cities like New York joke about the importance of going through a tumultuous experience as a tenant in order to gain a thick skin. Personally, do I feel like I needed to undergo a year of torment in order to get stronger? No, but can I laugh about the experience now? Sometimes.

In this instance, we have a surprising situation in which the tenant was the person in the wrong. Check out the full story from the perspective of this generous author who rented out an apartment to a chaotic family!

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    Cheezburger Image 10530467584
    via Unsplash+ (Getty Images)

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • It just goes to show that anyone can exhibit unjust behavior in these conflicts, and not just landlords. This author ended up dealing with over $90,000 in insurance claims as a result of the property damage from this one family. Eventually, however, he managed to get his payback, and it was about as personal as it can get…

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    "Trash my property; I'll trash your memories"

    I had been renting a home to a family for about 8 years. I rented through an agency so I tried to be as hands-off as possible but I still helped out when I could. Any
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    major appliance break downs or issues were addressed as quickly as I could. I like to believe that what goes around comes around, good and bad alike.
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    They had some interesting problems though. At one point the stove broke and would only go on high. Not a big deal to fix, maybe $80 in parts. But they didn't tell me about it. Instead they decided to leave oil in a pan and walked away to fold laundry.
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    The grease caught fire and destroyed the microwave and left smoke damage. I was p ed but sh happens so I let it slide.
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    About 13 months ago they sent me a text saying "there was a fire. Its bad". The garage was totally destroyed. The fire investigator said a carette likely started the blaze since it was tossed into a pile of trash.
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    Tenants didnt even know the house was on fire because they removed the batteries from all the smoke detectors because they wouldnt stop beeping...
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    Obviously they had to leave since the house was uninhabitable. We didn't straight up evict them, they did it to themselves. My rental agency never did a final walk through and never collected their keys.
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    The house has been under restoration ever since. It's been about $90,000 in insurance claims and my premium has quadrupled. Now in an effort to make it presentable again, my family and I have been painting and replacing the needed items.
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    Turns out their teenage son let himself into the house at some point and kicked in some walls and carved his name into about 20 places in the house. There were many other things but im trying to keep this brief.
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    As for revenge... This weekend I was in the attic replacing bathroom vents. When I went into the attic I found 3 boxes stored away. One of them has a NES with a dozen games or so. The
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    others were labeled "Sons name memories". They contained baby blankets, stuffed animals and other trinkets. I took special joy in placing the boxes out for bulk trash to pick up and smiled as I watched them get crushed by the trash truck. If you don't care
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    about people's stuff, you can't expect them to care about yours. Notes: I'm working my way out of the rental game. Not worth the effort. I found about $7000 in damages that I won't recover without going to small claims
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    court but they were behind on nearly every bill so it'd be like getting blod from a stone. And if you're wondering why I didnt evict them sooner, it's because my rental agency insisted they were as good as I could expect.
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    CatlessBoyMom ⚫ If that's as good as you could get, you need a new agency. They are running the place like slum lords.
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    Also if they failed to do the walk through and get the keys, they might be responsible for the damages caused by the son after move out. Check with a lawyer.
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    FOR RENT 682-785
    via Erik Mclean

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

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    professorkrs Might have been some $$$ in the NES games
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    BSNCTR Trashed an NES? Could've given that away to a retirement home or orphan home
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    Important_Power_... yeah i think you were so angry to get revenge you didn't think about it first. the nintendo stuff would have brought in a few dollars, and holding the baby box... I
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    would have held onto it and let them know you have it and it will be returned upon payment for the damage the kid caused. You might have gotten something out of the for it.
    via useless_skin

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family drama landlord neighborhood tenant neighborhood-drama neighborhood-stories petty revenge entitled people karma family entitled people apartment
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