Imagine living in Florida without air conditioning. That sounds awful, right?

The man in this story was in that exact situation due to his awful landlords. Leaving the windows open for a breeze made the situation even worse.

Keep reading to see how he gets revenge on his horrible landlords when he moves out.

1985 revenge on landlords

Things were a lot different when there weren’t cameras everywhere, before caller ID and when business transactions could easily be conducted by phone.

In 1984, I stopped some bad habits. Soon after, I transformed from a slouch to working (literally) 105 hours/week.

I sobered up but still thought that my problem was money. I can’t describe how unwell the mind is when you’re newly clean – there’s no intoxicants but it’s not like you’re suddenly emotionally balanced.

The apartment seemed great!

To save money, I rented a standalone garage remodel from what were called ‘Yuppies’ at the time. I viewed the place while they were literally in the unit transforming it and it was exactly what I needed: small, inexpensive, all the basics, none of the frills.

We hit it off immediately and I was so gleeful at my lucky find as they walked me through and said, “And we’ll be adding this, and that will go here and this will go there” and it seemed super legit since they were covered in paint and actively transforming the place.

I sign the one page rental agreement, give them cash and in a week, i moved in.

This is awful!

Only, they didn’t continue the remodel once they had a fish on the hook.

This was in Florida in the summer and they neither added an AC unit or screens on the windows.

If you’ve never had palmetto bugs flying at your face because you keep your window open at night, that’s a good thing for you. They’re giant flying roaches from the 9th circle of hell. It’s also fun when they crawl over you in your sleep.

They also never installed a lock on the front door.

They kept making excuses.

There were many other things but these 2 (no screens and no lock) made living in the place worse than just sleeping in the woods. It was an oven and the light attracted bugs.

Did I mention that Florida is also filled with mosquitoes?

So I’d go to a coin phone and call them. “Oh we’re coming over Friday after work to get that taken care of!”

Again and again, they never showed and weeks went by until it became clear they had no intention of spending another cent.

Moving out meant revenge time.

I was ignorant and had no understanding of tenant rights. I also had a GF who wanted me to move in with her and so i did.

I also did this and keep in mind this is 1985.

1. I think it’s a federal offense to tamper with the US mail so I in no way called the post office to have their mail forwarded to an address in Australia.

But that’s not all!

2. I called the power and water company, identifying as the husband of the couple and had both services turned off for 2 months as I was going to be traveling abroad.

I, the owner, have a deadbeat brother who in the past has moved into my place while I’m gone so please make a note in my file that I have to come in, in-person to have service restored.

3. Left the windows in the unit open, the door wide open and food and sugar spread throughout the place to attract critters (raccoons, ants, roaches, etc.). Florida is a swamp, afterall.

OP was proud that he didn’t do anything more extreme.

That’s it. All I could think of doing was inconveniencing them and forcing them to go out of their way to address the inconvenience.

When I was on the wrong side of things, just 6 months prior, what they’d done would’ve resulted some of my past associates and I rolling up and dispensing a violent punishment so I was proud of myself for taking the higher road.

Is this petty revenge?

You don’t want to get on this guy’s bad side, but the landlords were horrible. I understand why he wanted revenge.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

This person thinks the landlords deserved the revenge.

Another person shares their revenge idea.

Here’s another revenge idea.

Another person is amazed that he put up with no AC.

He definitely found the revenge satisfying!

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