Most people would agree that your landlord evicting you without reasonable cause right before Christmas is a jerk move.

After this couple’s previous landlord passed away, what once was handshake agreements turned into unexpected eviction notices.

Engaged, they put a plan for petty revenge into motion, but does it succeed?

Read on for the full story.

Former landlady kicked my family out during the holidays

Let me start off by saying that my former landlady is an AH of the highest order, as I’m sure many will agree when I relate the whole story. So here we go….

During 2022, my family and I were renting a mobile home that we had resided in for nearly 9 years by 2022. We got on well with the previous landlord.

He was the owner of the property, and a decent guy who always fixed things when they were broken, and if he wasn’t able to, we would and deduct the cost of the repairs from the rent.

He didn’t even make us sign a lease beyond the initial one back in 2013, we just verbally agreed to keep the rent the same, with the same arrangements for repairs and whatnot.

But things were about to change.

Fast forward to 2020, and I find out that the guy had passed away from COVID related complications, and since he was childless, his ex-wife had inherited the property.

Right off the mark, the lady was a pain, decrying the whole situation, stating that she really didn’t want to manage a property, but seeing as we had rented from her ex for so many years, she would give it a shot for a time and see how it worked out.

Husband and I listed all the issues that still needed addressing with the house.

They weren’t necessarily pressing issues, but they would become bigger problems in the future if they weren’t taken care of soon (cooling units needed replacing, the wiring was becoming faulty, etc; It’s an OLD house).

She assured us that she would be in touch soon to assess the issues and get started on the work that was needed.

The new ownership had a little surprise in store.

Little did we know that the landlady was making an active effort to sell the property without telling us.

Every conversation with her became stilted and short, and she kept talking about how she needed to conduct an “inspection” of the property.

Normally, a pending inspection by a landlord would not have bothered me, but she would make attempts to enter the home without giving us proper notice (in my state, it is a minimum of 48 hours’ notice to enter a tenant’s home, and it has to be made in writing).

The living conditions in their home were rapidly deteriorating.

Then one day, our water was shut off by the water company for no reason that we could determine.

I contacted the water company and was told that due to a water leak on the main water line to the house (we lived about 2/3 of a mile back from where our water meter was) and the wastage we had from it, they had shut off the water to prevent further wastage.

I then contacted the landlady to let her know, because a repair like this was well beyond mine or my husband’s capabilities.

We’d repaired smaller water leaks at the house itself, but this was a larger job that we didn’t have the ability to repair ourselves.

The landlady lulled them into a sense of security.

The landlady assured me that she would get someone out there to fix the problem, and the water company agreed to turn the water back on based on that assurance.

Weeks went by with a lot of back and forth from the landlady, always with some excuse as to why the water leak hadn’t been fixed.

Husband and I started looking for a new place to live that we could afford (we were in a tight situation financially) but were having no luck.

One day, the family got their biggest surprise yet.

Eventually, the situation came to a head when I was woken by one of my kids. In her hand was a notice of eviction from the landlady.

She had apparently just taped it on the front door and made no attempts to knock and speak with either myself or my husband.

I immediately contacted her, asking her why she was evicting us, and she tried to gaslight me.

The landlady had a plethora of excuses ready.

She kept saying that she made numerous attempts to come inspect the property, only to be blocked by me or my husband, and so she had sold the property.

She gave us three weeks to move out. This was the week before Christmas.

Once I told my husband, he began a search for another home. To my surprise, he found one, we got approval on our application, and we were moved in well before the landlady’s deadline.

Enraged, they hatched a plan.

Enter petty revenge.

I changed all the exterior locks to the house before we left and did not provide her with updated keys, in addition to taking with us parts to the circuit box that we had very recently replaced that she had not reimbursed us for.

I also left a note for the new owners, warning them about the water leak that hadn’t been fixed.

To my knowledge, no one lives there at the moment, and it’s been almost a year since the property was sold.

And there is not a thing that anyone could do, since we weren’t on a paper lease because she was too determined to offload the property and didn’t want to “fuss with signing a lease”.

Luckily this couple was able to find a home quickly. We’re left wondering how the landlady will react, if at all, to their petty revenge.

What does Reddit think?

This user cautions against standing on “verbal agreements” moving forward.

Many redditors were critical of their tactics, citing their actions may affect unintended parties.

While their actions may be satisfying, it doesn’t seem to quite pay off the way the renters hoped.

This user tries to understand the landlady’s motives.

Their efforts to stick it to the landlady didn’t quite go as hoped, but at least they got a little satisfaction out of it.

Sometimes the best revenge is just moving on.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.