Renter finds a dream apartment only to discover that the landlord is a nightmare: 'My dream home: a place where I can’t eat, exist, or turn on lights'

What happens when a landlord doesn't actually want anyone to live there? When does the idea of a tenant using the living space they are paying for become a problem?

A prospective tenant discovered that a promising apartment with fair rent and a good location came with some surprising strings attached, including limits on what they were able to cook and what guests they were able to have over.

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  • Landlord wanted a quiet tenant, just not one who actually lives there

    A row of townhouses like the one in the story
    via Ruslan Babich

  • Landlord wanted a quiet tenant, just not one who actually lives there

    I recently moved for work and found a decent apartment listing. Rent was fair, location was perfect, and the landlord seemed normal at first. We schedule a viewing, everything looks good. I tell him I'm interested. Then he starts explaining his conditions. He says he prefers someone "low impact."
    via GuryPetals
  • A landlord carefully holds his hands over a model house in symbolic nature
    via Getty Images For Unsplash+

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

  • Being a landlord who doesn't want people to live in the house sounds oxymoronic, and, well, it is. When you run a list of rules with your tenants that would put a college or boarding school dorm to shame, you really can't help but wonder why you even own a rental to begin with.

    And this will happen to you every so often in life, where you run into someone who just seems completely ill-suited to the profession or life they ended up in, and you just walk away shaking your head and asking yourself how the heck they ended up there.

    When it comes to landlords, though, the reality is simple: They didn't get into the game to give people affordable housing at a fair rate and with no restrictions. Typically, they would have read somewhere or been told by someone that property would be a good investment, and the prospect of money begins and ends the interest.

    Dollar signs already lighting up in their eyes like a Looney Tunes character, they buy a second property, but they already have one house to live in and can't really afford the mortgage on the second well enough to leave the second unoccupied. 

    That's where that one small catch comes into the picture: Tenants. Both a necessity and an evil to this hypothetical would-be landlord, tenants, and the extremely inconvenient lives they have the audacity to live while paying to be on the landlord's property, turn out to be quite the hassle as maintenance costs zoom past the $0 they accounted for. 

    And that's exactly what happened when this renter attended an apartment viewing that seemed like the ideal place. However, the idyllic dream life they were imagining in the apartment was quickly shattered when they realized why the nightmare landlord was having trouble finding a tenant.

  • I'm like... okay? I work most of the day anyway. Then he clarifies: No cooking with "strong smells" (he specifically listed onions, garlic, and fried food... so basically cooking). Showers should be "kept under 5 minutes" to manage water usage.
    via GuryPetals
  • No guests. At all. Not even just one friend dropping by. Laundry only once every two weeks. No working from home because it uses. too much electricity. Lights should be off by 10pm unless absolutely necessary.
    via GuryPetals
  • At this point I'm thinking he just wants an empty apartment that pays him rent. But it gets better. He says: I'm willing to be flexible on rent if you're not around much. Ideally someone who travels a lot.
    via GuryPetals
  • So I ask, half-joking, "So you basically want someone who pays rent but doesn't live here? He looks me de d in the eye and says: "Exactly. That's the perfect tenant." Ah yes, my dream home: a place where I can't eat, exist, or turn on lights... but can definitely pay. Told him I'll think aboutnit but never showed up again.
    via GuryPetals
  • Dustmopper This guy should own a gym instead Their perfect customers keep paying but never actually show up, and there are plenty of those
    via GuryPetals
  • Couldnotbehelpd When I was looking for an apartment back in college in peak Craigslist and no other options, there was a post from a woman who specifically wanted another female "roommate" who paid her rent but lived at her boyfriend's house.
    via GuryPetals
  • Specifically, she wanted help with the rent but the only thing you could do with this apartment was take your parents there a couple times to prove that you weren't living with your boyfriend. And she wanted something like 600 a month in 2009, too. No idea why you would keep paying her after that first time but I hope she found what she was looking for.
    via GuryPetals
  • Main-Yogurtcloset-82 None of those rules are legally enforceable. (Which I'm sure you know). But yeah you dodged a nightmare landlord for sure.
    via GuryPetals
  • changelingcd That's more restrictive than college dorm rules. What adult would agree to that nonsense?
    via GuryPetals

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