I don’t care whether you’re moving into an upscale condo or a shabby apartment, the process is NEVER fun.

In fact, it’s quite stressful and leaves a bad taste in a lot of people’s mouths.

The person who wrote this story on Reddit fell on hard times and had to do what they had to do…and on top of it, they had to deal with a real creep of a landlord.

Take a look at what happened!

How a simple apartment move-out turned into a total cluster ****.

“Had a great job, boss was fired, they scammed me, fell on hard times, nobody’s fault but my own. Had to rent an apartment for a very long, ugly year.

Got a huge, pretty new apartment for about $1,000, but had to meet income requirements, which sadly I did.

Right before move-in find out the garage and water aren’t included, and will cost extra, and that my 1-year lease is actually 5-months. Too late now, fine.

There was more…

Then find out I’m not allowed to use my own washer and dryer, but have to pay $100/month for theirs. $100 A MONTH??? Okay, fine, whatever. Turns out this was all to plan. This is how they get you.

From move-in on, things are bad. Roaches in the kitchen, everything falling apart, and despite being a very new building, the walls are paper thin. Turns out he’s a an unabashed new era slumlord.

He gets massive tax-credits for renting to low-income people, but there’s no requirement to actually rent to them (us) for cheap, just that we’re there.

Fifth month ends and I get my lease renewal. That $1,000 jumps to $1,450, which is WAY above market for this place, or ANY place in the area.

These folks were creeps.

I sign for another 6-months but start planning to move out. I start hearing from all the neighbors that I’ll “never get the deposit back,” and it makes sense, considering what scummy dirtbags these people are. I make friends with everyone in the office, keep my place clean and stay out of trouble.

Move-out time comes. Everything is left perfect and I not only take pictures, but a 10-minute room by room walkthrough on video. Literally nothing is out of place. No damage, no mess, nothing. Move-in ready.

Get the letter and my $500 deposit is gone PLUS I need to pay them another $275 for the damages… here we go.

I tell him I documented everything, there’s nothing to bill me for and demand a receipt. He sends over a hand-written, illegible invoice for a company with a name (that can’t be found on Google) and no contact information.

I was prepared for this.

They were prepared.

I launched a website about the apartment complex and pre-stocked it with about 50 articles detailing in 100% truthful ways how they are dishonest and unscrupulous. I used screengrabs from their website where it said you could use the cabana, even though you couldn’t.

That there was a media room for parties, but no sign up and no way to use it. I showed tenant reviews on websites dating back years even before I was there… and I kept negotiating.

First, he waived the $275 premium, but no way man, I wanted my $500 back, and I was just bitter enough to get it.

Meanwhile, because of my new job (SEO at the time) I was able to out-rank him in searches for his own apartment building. If you Googled it during your apartment search, you founnd my site about how evil it is at #1, not his official site at about #4.

We talked on the phone, and while he was still unaware of the site (rolling out a new article every day,) he set the final offer at keeping $300.

I told him I need all of it, and that was that. Anything less would be cause for “continued action,” and I knew he didn’t know what I was inferring by that.

He mailed the $200 check, but still didn’t know about my site… well, have to fix that.

Looks like they found out!

Called a former neighbor and told them the dish. She was a busybody, and sure enough, two days later I got a FURIOUS call, not from the manager, but from the owner.

This guy owns a dozen properties like this, each with 300-500 units, and now I’m wasting his time personally. This was getting tasty.

I explained what happened, but he already knew, and at this point 30-articles had run, some of which were picked up by other websites (which I may, or may not have been a contributing editor to at the time.).

I never lied, I never exaggerated, I just reported the honest truth. No legally actionable problems on the horizon.

He said, “look, I’ll give you the $300, just take this down!” I explained I couldn’t do that. They had the opportunity to do the right thing before the site went up, but to take it down now would be tantamount to extortion, and that would be illegal.

Over the next week (with another 7 articles dropping like clockwork) he tried ten different ways to goad me into extorting him, but I just wasn’t interested. No, he drew the line in the sand, I was just staying on my side of it, legally, if not morally.

Okay…

Ultimately, he decided that since I was “so good at web stuff,” he should hire me for $1,000 to do some promotion for him. I said, “Okay, but you know this is TOTALLY separate from my site and our disagreement.” And he agreed.

I met him at his office, we worked up a plan, I did about thirty minutes of work and he cut me a check for $1,000.

So what did I do with the website? Well I certainly didn’t take it down… What? We agreed that was separate!

But I didn’t add any new content and turned off the auto-renewal, so 10ish months later, it faded away.

Fair is fair, right?”

Now let’s see how Reddit users reacted.

This person had a lot to say.

This Reddit user was impressed.

Another person chimed in.

This person liked this story.

And this person had a lot to say.

This landlord was truly from the depths of HELL.

Terrible Boss Made Their Life Hell, So Their Friend Made Sure That His Life Went Down the Tubes.