Some landlords think the rules apply to everyone except them.

So, what would you do if your landlord refused to fix a broken fire alarm and insisted it wasn’t their job?

Would you let it go and figure it out on your own? Or would you push back and let him know whose responsibility it is?

In the following story, one tenant finds herself in this very situation and gets the last laugh.

Here’s how it all went down.

Landlord Maliciously Complianced Themselves

My roommate and I were living in a basement apartment with upstairs neighbors when the owner decided to sell.

The upstairs neighbors ended up buying it and becoming our new landlords. And they were awful at it.

I could fill a whole post with the amount of stuff they tried to get away with, but we’re here to talk about one particular instance. But suffice to say, they had no idea that landlords had “responsibilities” and simply saw us tenants as a source of income that should be ever-growing.

The landlords were hard to get along with from the start.

But there was one time they maliciously complianced themselves. See, they had a habit of trying to push stuff on us that was blatantly illegal.

Their first contract, for example, said, among other things, that they had the right to enter the apartment at any time and could go through our stuff if they wished because we were “living on their property.”

I pointed out that this was highly illegal, and they grew very upset, saying, “Well, we’ll see about that.”

This clause later suddenly became the real one before we signed.

The landlord tried telling her that they were responsible for buying a new fire alarm.

One day, however, our lone fire alarm stopped working. As dutiful tenants, we reached out and said, “Hey, the fire alarm stopped working.”

Their response was a predictable sort of ‘So what?’

“We need to have a working fire alarm,” we replied. “And it’s the landlord’s duty to provide working fire alarms.”

Landlord: “No, it’s not. You want one, you get it.”

Me: “The law says otherwise.”

Not getting anywhere with the tenants, the landlord threatened to call the Fire Marshall.

Possibly because they were getting tired of being corrected, they got snooty with this one. We got a very sarcastic response. “Oh, it does, does it? Well, we’ll just see what the FIRE MARSHAL has to say about THAT!”

My roommate and I, upon receiving this message, burst out laughing.

But they were serious. They thought they were going to contact the fire marshal, he was going to side with them, and then they could come down on us hard.

I don’t know what their expressions were when we said, “Okay, yeah, do that!”

The next day, his entire tone had changed.

However … The next morning, there’s frantic knocking at our door.

There’s the landlord and his family, looking very concerned, with a bag of brand-new fire alarms, one for each room, and, IIRC, even two spares.

He begs to be let in outside of the 24-hour notice and says it’s an emergency: He has to put these alarms up RIGHT NOW.

Now he was happy to provide them with any help they needed.

Trying not to laugh, we let them in, and they hurriedly put one in every single room, apologizing profusely for the “delay” and telling us, “If you need anything, don’t hesitate to ask!”

I don’t know how that meeting with the fire marshal went, or if they got him or someone else at their office, but their attitude painted a pretty clear picture of the ultimate result.

They complied maliciously, thinking they’d called our bluff. Whoops.

Yikes! These landlords should probably spend some time researching the laws.

Let’s see how the folks over at Reddit feel about what happened.

This person has dealt with something similar.

Here’s a reader who’s familiar with the laws after working in nightclubs.

According to this comment, the fire marshal can fine you hundreds of dollars per day.

This person makes fire marshals sound scary.

They sure changed their tune fast.

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.