One rule for renters is that you should not invest too much money into another person’s property. Even if you live in the rented home for a long time, any improvements you make are your landlord’s.

Well, unless you’re this guy.

In today’s story, a renter who installed their own kitchen renovation made an unorthodox decision when the unit was sold out from under him.

Let’s see how the story plays out.

My Landlord Learns The Importance of Keeping Your Word – and I Learn Not To Renovate a Rental Condo.

I became a renter for the first time in my mid 30’s, pretty late in life. Before that, I’d been on the other side of things.

I’m a landlord and developer, which I realize doesn’t endear me to most readers, but in my partial defence, I’ve built everything that I own, and with my own hands for the first few years.

I decided to treat myself by renting a condo downtown – a huge step up from my previous 1 bedroom that was chosen for its ROI rather than owner-occupancy appeal.

His new home was definitely fancier digs, but the kitchen did not reflect the price tag.

It was perfect – 2005ish building, floor to ceiling glass, high floor with 270 degree views, A/C, open layout, well priced.

The only problem?

Very worn out, shabby 2005ish kitchen and bathroom, and the reddest looking cherry wood flooring you could imagine. Horrible cheap honey coloured fake wood veneer cabinets, gloss black appliances. Brushed aluminum finish everywhere, lots of frosted glass on the light fixtures.

A simpler time.

The landlord was probably excited that he got a “handy” tenant. But he had no idea how many improvements he had planned.

The landlord seemed like he would be pretty hands-off, and my application pitch was that if he was okay with it, I would take care of maintenance myself and just e-transfer him rent every month and not bother him.

He loved the sound of that.

He said he had bought a house in the suburbs and wanted to keep this condo for rental income for about 10 years until he retired – there are pretty strong tenant rights where I live, so long as he didn’t sell there were no “no fault” eviction options.

We signed the tenancy agreement, paid the deposit and moved in.

He thought he’d get to stay there for years.

The last time I saw him was during the move-in inspection, after which he exclaimed “If you treat this place well, I promise you can stay here as long as you want!”

Big, firm, job-interview winning boomer handshake, and he was gone.

We loved the new place – a complete change from the “up and coming” part of town we had just left, 400 feet above the street.

The absolutely horrible kitchen, bathrooms and floors haunted me, but I had a plan and it was only a matter of time.

But he still hated the kitchen.

A few months later and it’s the summer of 2020 and COVID is in full swing, and my carpenter emails me – one of his clients is cancelling their project, and since they are ghosting him on his draw, he is taking down their display unit.

The drawings show an almost exact match to my unit in terms of dimensions.

The spec sheet is jaw-dropping: almost 20′ of Snaidero cabinets, gloss white with champagne bronze hardware, Sub Zero/Wolf appliance package, white marble counters and back splash, Kallista faucets… easily $100,000+ retail not including install. Oh, and 1200 square feet of herringbone light oak planks if I don’t mind pulling them up myself.

How much does he want? $10k cash.

That was a price he could not pass up.

One last step – email my landlord and ask if he doesn’t mind me doing a complete renovation on his condo.

Crucially, I conclude the offer with “I’ll undertake to return it to move-in condition before I leave.”

Not surprisingly, he accepts. “That’s okay, do whatever you want, we love having you as a tenant.”

He stored the old kitchen for eventual re-installation upon moving out.

Time to go to work.

I get the old kitchen out in about 2 days, hampered by my need to work quietly as I’m doing this without permits (not like they are doing inspections anyways, but still..). A side effect of this slow pace (and my wife’s current obsession with Marie Kondo) is that everything is removed intact, and carefully taped and labelled.

Taking out the old kitchen does indeed spark joy.

After just under 2 weeks, I had effectively a brand new, ultra high end condo for just under $12,000 out of pocket.

Plus, you know, all those storage fees.

At this point I’m sure everyone reading this is facepalming as they wonder why on earth I’m proud of renovating someone else’s condo at my cost – it did make sense at the time, as I was under the impression I’d be there for a good 10 years – plus the fact I was paying about $500/month under market at move-in, and more like $1500/month under market in the current condition.

With my 1 year lease, and the fact I had lots of free time, it didn’t seem like such a reckless move.

And who can say no to a $2000 kitchen faucet. Filling a glass of water feels like working the bolt on a well-oiled Holland & Holland rifle.

Worst case I could probably get most of it back by selling just the appliances if something unexpected happened.

He thought he had though of everything.

I had undertaken all this after evaluating all the possibilities and weighing the risk of putting time and money into a place I don’t own.

I had failed to consider one important detail – the wife.

She hadn’t seen how good the kitchen looked.

By the spring of 2023 the upgrades had, in my opinion, paid for themselves after nearly 36 months of use.

I hadn’t seen the landlord since I moved in and he hadn’t been in touch since approving my renovation except for the monthly confirmation he’d accepted my rent transfer – so naturally I began to get concerned when by the end of the first week of May, he hadn’t deposited my rent.

The landlord had contracted COVID (in 2023!) and sent his wife to collect the rent.

I get out my phone to cancel the transfer and go into my office to look for my chequebook. I come back to find her (still in her heels!!) standing in the middle of the living room spinning like a technicolour top.

She was absolutely blown away by the work the renter had done.

“Oh wow, this looks fabulous! I heard you were doing some renos but I never thought it would look like this! Is that a Sub ZERO fridge?” She opens the fridge. My fridge.

“I looove the floors.. and are these custom cabinets?”

She turns the kitchen faucet on and off probably 6 times.

It took days to air out the smell of perfume after she left.

This visit was the beginning of the end.

Several hours later my wife came home, and given the lingering smell in the apartment, I’d already briefed her on who had stopped by.

“I can tell by the smell she’s seeing dollar signs.”

Sure enough, 3 weeks later I get a call from a realtor who wants to schedule the photographer to take listing photos as the landlords are selling.

Uh-oh.

Even in the slow market the place sells in 3 weeks and yes, the new owners want to move in. They give me the required 3 month’s notice and pay the 1 month rent compensation.

I note that the listing has advertised “Exquisitely renovated with top of the line appliances, cabinets and built-ins. No expense spared.”

My first instinct was to at least contact the realtor and suggest he check with the landlord about what was included with the apartment, and what was being represented, but the description in the listing infuriated my wife to such an extent that we agreed to let them do their own due diligence.

They stopped playing nice.

I think you can all guess where this is going.

This time it only took 3 days to pull the “new” kitchen out and put the “old” kitchen back in. Same with the floors – turns out you can lay 1000 square feet of flooring in about 2 hours if it’s all pre-cut and labelled.

But, some of the T&G was a bit loose so I made sure to glue it down to the concrete nice and tight to make sure it doesn’t creak or pop.

It’s exceptionally cheap so it’s going to splinter and separate if it ever needs to come back up…

He even “generously” put in a new cheap faucet since the old cheap faucet was broken.

The old Home Depot Glacier Bay $49 kitchen faucet unfortunately started leaking when I put it back in, so I treated the new owners to a brand new replacement (now $60).

The new one leaked as well, but not much, and only when it was on.

I re-watched the move-in inspection video to refresh my memory and made sure everything was exactly as it was when I moved in, right down to a few small holes in the drywall – I had also forgotten that the old oven control board was fried which meant it kept shutting off every 10 minutes.

Of course the landlords, the new owners, and the realtor were all furious.

I don’t actually know what happened since I’ve ignored the dozens of phone calls from the landlord and the new owners, and just sent them a registered letter with my tenancy agreement, move-in inspection video on DVD and a copy of the email exchange with the landlord from 2020 where he allowed me to renovate the condo provided I put everything back the way it was when I moved in.

I did get a text from the realtor calling me petty and vindictive and that I’m lucky I’m not getting sued (implying that my landlord probably IS getting sued, and furthermore, one or all of them has looked into suing me and were advised against it.)

Furthermore, if the new owners don’t end up moving in, they may owe the tenants money!

The concierge recently told me that nobody has moved into the condo yet which presents another intoxicating possibility – because the new owners evicted us for their personal use, according to the tenancy law, if they fail to move in within 6 months they owe me a full year’s rent as compensation for a fraudulent eviction.

I still haven’t bought a place, I ended up unfortunately having to pay a fair bit more in rent to move upstairs in the same building, with a different layout but thankfully much nicer finishings.

I have an alert set for the building that tells me if a unit gets listed – I’m ready to make an offer if there is a fixer upper that comes up for sale – I even have a kitchen that might just fit.

In the comments, people are agog at his deviousness.

Can you imagine having to pay more on top of your ruined apartment? What a nightmare. The new owners had no idea what a mess they’d been getting into. And it wasn’t their fault.

When you get a tenant like they had, you don’t screw them over. Had they worked together, they may have been able to get a deal on the kitchen as well.

This person has also done work on their rented homes. Sometimes it does work out, but it takes agreements between landlords and tenants.

But this was seriously petty.

This renter was lucky he had everything in writing and video.

A real reminder to let the buyer beware.

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