Landlord-tenant relationships are delicate dances that can quickly sour at any moment.

When a dilapidated trailer continues to go downhill, a landlord decides he doesn’t want to invest in the repairs, effectively kicking out the current tenant.

When she refuses to vacate without a fight, he takes an unorthodox approach to get her to leave.

You’ll want to stick around for this one.

AITA for “moving in” with an unpaying tenant

I am a 38 year old landlord of a few single family rentals.

One of the rentals is an old, beaten up trailer from 1955 that I rented to a single mom and her daughter (around 14 now) a couple years ago.

I purchased the property for the land and was upfront about my intentions with the trailer right from the beginning.

He sets the scene for their rental agreement.

I put the bare minimum of work into this trailer, but it is an affordable place to live for now.

I charged her $600 a month and made sure she had working electric, water, hot water, heat, etc.

The roof was old and leaking and I have tarred over some leaks the past couple years a couple times.

I told her when it comes time for a major repair, it would not be cost effective to do it and I would be removing the trailer and placing a modular home there.

Eventually, the inevitable happened.

Fast forward to last month.

She informed me that there was a roof leak and needed more tar. Upon inspection, it is no longer feasible to keep repairing and it would need an entire new roof.

Well, it’s not cost effective to replace the new roof, so I told her she would need to find other housing.

The tenant wasn’t going to go down without a fight, but neither was the landlord.

She proceeding to play the “eviction ban” card and has refused to leave or pay (even the $600).

I had my lawyer send her the “non-habitable” letter and tell her to leave by September 15th.

She has not paid September rent and has not mowed the lawn since getting the letter or left.

The landlord decides to take drastic measures to force her to leave.

So yesterday I went over there, walked in and started “living”.

She called the police on me, and when they came, I showed them all the paperwork and told the officer, that she is right, I cannot legally evict her, but I am not evicting her.

She is living for free, and needs to pay for EXCLUSIVE use of the house. If she does not pay for exclusivity then she is my vagrant roommate.

The cops were on the landlord’s side, making the tenant even angrier.

The officer sided with me, and told her there is nothing he can do to make either of us leave. It is a civil matter unless something physical or threats of violence occurs.

She is absolutely pissed, says I’m a scumbag AH.

The landlord defends their decision.

Even though I have given her the most affordable housing in the area for almost 3 years now..lot rent in local mobile home parks is over $500 a month and you need to pay for the trailer and have neighbors. This is on its own acre plot.

I no doubt think I’m in the right here. Someone is living on my property and not paying anything, I have every right to use said property.

They ask for outside perspectives on the matter.

I’m curious as to what others think about this.

I know many landlords who would change the locks while she isn’t home and risk the charge. I didn’t do it that way.

I even told her if she kept paying $600 I would let her stay, but you are renting the land, not the house.

I can’t keep losing money to fix something for someone else to live.

AITA?

Rental agreements gone bad are never pretty.

Will Redditors side with the landlord or their tenant?

This redditor thinks there’s other, more reasonable action the landlord can take to get rid of the squatter.

For a place with so many problems, is he really giving her that good of a deal?

This redditor doesn’t think the legal system would side with this landlord’s unorthodox approach.

According to this commenter, this landlord is nowhere near the Good Samaritan he makes himself out to be.

The best match for stubbornness is often more stubbornness.

The roof may just cave in before either one of these people do.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check out what happened when a family gave their in-laws a free place to stay in exchange for babysitting, but things changed when they don’t hold up their end of the bargain.