Imagine breaking up with someone, but since you live together, you still see each other every day until your lease is up. Would you do your best to help your ex clean up the apartment so you’d get the full security deposit back, or, if you had the choice, would you clean nothing and not care about the security deposit?

In this story, one man is in this exact situation. His ex tries to threaten him, but he decides to misinterpret what she says and use her words against her.

Let’s read the whole story.

You should have better worded your threat because I saw it as an opportunity

Some years ago, I was 25M and broke up with my 24F gf. She had cheated on me after 7 years together and where we lived, we had a 1 month notice to leave our apartment.

In order not to pay two rents, I had to wait until the end of the notice before moving out.

In the end, she kept the apartment with a new roommate but we still had to pass the landlord’s inspection to get our security deposit back.

He didn’t really want to help his ex clean the apartment.

I moved out something like 5 days before the inspection date and living with someone you dumped for almost a month can be hard. She was either trying to convince me to stay with her, either trying to make my life miserable because I dumped her.

As you can guess, when I moved out I wasn’t thrilled to know that I’ll have to come back some days later to refill holes, repair some stuff and clean the apartment with her before the inspection. But hey, I’ll do it.

So, just before leaving, sitting in my car about to start the engine, she tells me “You’d better really help me for the cleanup. You either clean really good or I keep the security deposit!”

Maybe a bit of context was lost in translation because this discussion wasn’t in english: the way she worded it could mean either a threat or a choice. The tone and context sure enough clarified that it wasn’t supposed to be a choice.

Here’s some context about their feelings about cleaning and money.

Some things to know: I sure don’t love doing chores, but cleaning isn’t an issue for me.

For her, most of it isn’t either but in the 7 years we were together she never cleaned the toilets or the bathtub drain (siphon?) because it disgusted her, so I did it and she did other stuff to compensate.

Money-wise, I was a working IT engineer and she was a student. So the security deposit (~300-400€ each) may be huge for her but I didn’t care that much.

He knew which option he was going to take.

So I simply replied “OK”.

She looked at me a bit confused, not understanding my answer.

I said “OK, keep the deposit and do it all by yourself”.

I didn’t wait for an answer, drove off and when I arrived I messaged the landlord (with my ex in cc) telling them to send the full deposit to my ex and none to me and I never set foot in this apartment again.

She shouldn’t have said anything, but at least she got the whole security deposit!

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

I completely agree!

These are words to live by.

It was definitely a great deal!

He sounds too nice to consider ghosting her.

She may not have even gotten the security deposit back.

Thinking before you speak can be very important.

If you liked that post, check this one about a guy who got revenge on his condo by making his own Christmas light rules.