No one would reads Reddit on a regular basis would accuse landlords of always being kind and on-the-ball.

I mean, being sneaky and greedy is kind of what they do.

Which is why everyone should delight in this amazing petty revenge that took place after a tenant couldn’t get reimbursed for a boiler he repaired out of his own pocket.

Check it out; you’re gonna love it!

Refuse to pay for boiler repair during winter? Okay then…

I used to rent a house.

The landlord lived abroad, so his Brother (nice guy) looked after maintenance and the landlord’s Lawyer (douchebag) looked after the contract/legal stuff.

I had the Brother’s phone number as he was my point of contact if anything needed fixing.

When the boiler broke, he tried to go through the proper channels.

One winter, the boiler broke. This is in Northern Europe, so this is considered to be an emergency repair.

I called the Brother multiple times, but it always went straight to voicemail.

It didn’t even ring.

I left a bunch of texts, and spent the first night shivering under all the bedding in the house as temperatures outside approached freezing.

But when he was freezing and hearing nothing, he just took care of it himself.

The next morning, I left more voicemails and texts, but by the afternoon, still no response.

By this point, the temperature inside the house was around 7 degrees Celsius.

I decided to take matters into my own hands, and ring around for an engineer to fix it.

They came that evening, diagnosed the problem (a worn out motor), removed the broken part, installed the new part, and billed me for parts and labour.

I texted the Brother to let him know what I had done.

A few days later, the Brother finally responded and apologised for being out of touch.

He had been on holiday.

I said no major harm done, but I need reimbursement for the repair.

He told me to call the Lawyer and gave me his number.

The lawyer refused to reimburse him since he didn’t follow “proper procedure.”

I called the Lawyer and explained everything.

He was like a brick wall. Totally unreasonable, unsympathetic to the situation, and accusatory to me, saying that I had broken the terms of the tenancy agreement.

I said that they had also violated the agreement by not responding to an emergency repair in a reasonable amount of time.

Under the circumstances, I felt I had no choice, and hope we can come to some sort of arrangement.

He said no.

I asked whether we could split the bill – I pay for the labour, and they pay for the part, which will remain in the boiler in their property indefinitely.

He said no, and at that point said I should “put this all down as a lesson learned and move on”, and hung up on me.

He hemmed and hawed.

I was not very happy, to say the least. The bill was pretty significant, and I had effectively repaired their boiler for them free of charge.

Not to mention the inconvenience and discomfort of being without heating in winter.

I was looking at the engineer’s bill wondering what I could do, then realised – the bill has my name, my phone number, my signature on it, and the part and its cost clearly listed.

And then the perfect petty revenge presented itself.

I waited 8 months until the tenancy agreement expired, then moved out (I was planning to anyway).

I called the same engineer and asked him to remove the motor from the boiler.

He questioned why, but I talked around it, paid him cash, and all was good.

It obviously cost me more money, but ended up being totally worth it.

When I moved out the next day, I made sure everything was spotless, and left the property like a perfect tenant.

The Brother came to inspect the property. He had a cursory look around to check nothing was obviously damaged, then bid me goodbye, and I gave him the keys.

Thankfully he didn’t check whether the boiler was working.

Why would he?

He knows I would have informed him immediately had it broken again.

Either way, the security deposit landed back in my account a few days later.

He knew he was going to be able to grin and serve the revenge soon…

A couple of months went by, and then I got a text from the Brother asking if the boiler had been working okay when I left.

I said yeah, why? No response.

And it was delicious.

Next day I got a phone call from the Lawyer.

He was furious.

Lawyer: Did you remove the motor from the boiler?!

Me: Yes. Why?

Lawyer: rants about damage to landlord’s property etc

Me: Sorry, bit busy right now. Please put all of this in writing to my email hangs up

Later that day I got a VERY long, ranty email threatening legal action. He obviously took some time to put it together, but honestly it reeked of intimidation tactics.

I waited a day or so, just to be annoying, then replied:

“Dear Lawyer,

Thank you for your email.

Please find attached a document that proves that the boiler motor in question is my own personal property.

I recommend you put this all down as a lesson learned and move on.

Sincerely,

OP”

I attached the engineer’s original bill and clicked send.

Never heard back.

To this day, I’m not 100% sure I was legally in the clear, but it was definitely worth the risk, knowing that they had to pay for it in the end.

There’s no way not to be happy for this guy.

I bet Reddit thinks it was time and money well-spent.

Doubtful.

Surely someone would have helped?

Probably not any simpler in the long run.

Everyone loves stories like this!

He could have been even meaner if he’d wanted.

He’s going to tell this story for the rest of his life.

And delight everyone who hears it, I’m sure.

Thought that was satisfying? Check out what this employee did when their manager refused to pay for their time while they were traveling for business.