'Landlords maliciously complianced themselves': Upstairs roommates decide to buy the building and become terrible landlords, try to call tenant’s bluff but end up in trouble with the law

Author image for Isabella Penn
Isabella Penn
Sep 15, 2025 10:00 AM EDT

When it comes to landlords, most renters can tell you they fall somewhere on a wide and wild spectrum. On one end, you've got the overbearing micromanagers who show up unannounced, slap you with surprise fines, and treat rent like it's Monopoly money. On the other end, you've got the ghost landlords, the ones you've never laid eyes on despite living in their property for years. Personally, I prefer the latter. My landlord and I have only ever communicated via text, and honestly, that's the perfect arrangement. No awkward encounters, no hovering, no drama... just rent paid and life goes on.

But not everyone is so lucky. Some tenants get landlords who are equal parts clueless and power-hungry, a truly dangerous combo. Take, for example, this story of upstairs neighbors who decided to buy the building they lived in and crown themselves landlords. They had no idea that renting out apartments comes with actual legal responsibilities.

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  • FIRE
    via Brian Wangenheim For Unspash+

  • "Landlord Maliciously Complianced Themselves"

    This happened a few years ago, in my last apartment. My roommate and I were living in a basement place with upstairs neighbors,
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  • and the owner decided he wanted to sell. The upstairs neighbors ended up buying it, and became our new landlords.
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  • And they... were awful at it. I could fill a whole post with the amount of stuff they tried to get away with, but we're here to talk about one particular instance.
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  • But suffice to say, they had no idea that landlords had "responsibilities" and simply saw us tenants as a source of income that should be *ever growing* (hence our rent suddenly spiking, and why we left).
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  • But there was one time they maliciously complianced themselves. See, they had a habit of trying to push stuff on us that was blatantly illegal.
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  • Their first contract, for example, said among other things that they had the right to enter the apartment at any time they wanted and could go through our stuff if they wished because we were "living on their property."
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  • I pointed out that this was *highly* illegal, and they grew very upset, saying "Well, we'll see about that." This clause later suddenly became the real one before we signed.
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  • One day, however, our lone fire alarm stopped working. As dutiful tenants, we reached out and said "Hey, the fire alarm stopped working."
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  • Their response was a predictable sort of 'So what?" "We need to have a working fire alarm," we replied. "And it's the landlord's duty to provide working fire alarms."
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  • "No it's not. You want one, you get it." "The law says otherwise." And here's where they maliciously complianced themselves.
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  • Possibly because they were getting tired of being corrected, they got snooty with this one. We got a *very* sarcastic response.
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  • "Oh, it does*, does it? Well, we'll just see what the FIRE MARSHAL has to say about THAT!" Me and my roommate, upon recieving this message, burst out laughing.
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  • HAR
    via Getty Images For Unsplash+

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.


     

  • But they were serious. They thought they were going to contact the fire marshal, he was going to side with them, and then they could come down on us hard.
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  • I don't know what their expressions were when we said "Okay, yeah do that!" However ... The next morning there's *frantic* knocking at our door.
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  • There's the landlord and his family, looking very concerned, with a **bag** of brand- new fire alarms, one for each room and IIRC even two spares.
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  • He begs to be let in outside of the 24-hour notice, and says its an emergency: He has to put these alarms up RIGHT NOW.
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  • Trying not to laugh, we let them in, and they hurridly put one in every single room, apologizing profusely for the "delay" and telling us "if you need anything, don't hesitate to ask!"
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  • I don't know how that meeting with the fire marshal went, or if they got him or someone else at their office, but their attitude painted a pretty clear picture of the ultimate result.
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  • They complied maliciously, thinking they'd called our bluff. Whoops.
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Tags

landlord neighbors drama malicious compliance revenge tenant fire alarm entitled people karma renting property funny Renters law
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