Imagine renting an apartment but deciding not to renew your lease. Would you let the landlord know you were moving out, or would you simply not sign another lease and assume it was implied that you were moving out?

In this story, one couple moves into an apartment. They’re really happy there for awhile, but eventually they grow to hate living there and decide to move out. Instead of letting the landlord know they’re moving, they simply don’t sign another lease.

Keep reading to find out why they decided to move and what happened the day before they moved out. It’s pretty satisfying!

Sign to continue lease

This starts when my (now) wife and I decided to move in together and rent a house. We were in our early twenties, it was our first time renting and we had fairly low income so our options were limited.

Luckily we found a place that was in a less desirable area but had recently had some basic renovations. We signed a lease and life went on.

Our first 12 months went by with a rental inspection from the agent every 3 months or so, never got any feedback and being new to renting figured everything was ok.

He eventually met the landlord.

We had a couple items that needed repairing in that time so I met the landlord and got his details for organising repairs.

He seemed like a decent bloke, probably early forties, reasonably handy and did some repairs himself.

The first year went by, the lease came to an end, they increased the price and we signed on for another 12 months.

The next inspection was different.

Then it happened…about 2 months later the agent came to inspect along with the landlord’s wife. The wife turned her nose up at absolutely everything and made a number of insulting comments about our furniture when she thought I couldn’t hear.

We got an inspection report after that gave us a huge list of items to rectify and 2 weeks to do it or they’d initiate proceedings to evict us.

Naturally after never hearing any feedback from any other inspections we were shocked.

The items were mostly minor nitpicks with the worst things being to move our cats outdoors, clean the oven and poison weeds on the path in the backyard.

There was one big problem.

We were fine copping it on the chin and doing what they asked… except for the cats.

Initially when signing the lease it said no pets but we requested and got acceptance for our indoor only cats. It was noted on the lease… but not on the copy I had. I was kicking myself for not having it in writing and knew I had no chance if they wanted to push the point.

So I called the landlord rather than talking through the agent. He explained that tenants in the other house they owned had been using it as a drug lab and the agents had never picked up on it. So when they found out his wife insisted on going along to our inspection, hence why we got a bad report.

I talked it out with him, and although he was very patronising towards me, he agreed we could keep the cats inside as long as we kept everything clean and the next reports went fine.

They no longer liked living there.

So we did as they asked and they increased the inspections from once every 3 months to once a month which is the minimum period they’re allowed.

We had a list of things to fix after every inspection. It made our life hell, we felt like intruders in our own home, we grew to hate living there and it put a strain on our relationship.

Luckily our unluckily depending on how you look at it my father passed away around that time, so I ended up with inheritance money from his super fund and the sale of his house.

My wife and I used the inheritance as a deposit to buy a house of our own, sorted out a loan agreement and found a place we liked.

The timing really was perfect.

Now this is where I finally got my chance to repay them for making us feel like indentured servants that only existed to vacuum carpets and scrub walls in our home.

By some miracle of luck I negotiated the settlement date for our new house to be one week before our lease was due to end.

This meant that we wouldn’t have to break contract and be stuck footing the bill while they found new tenants!

Better yet, they sent me a letter saying our lease was due to end and included a new lease agreement (with a large jump in rent). The letter said we had to either sign the new lease and send it back to them by a date that was 2 weeks before end of lease or consider the contract ended, move out by the end of the lease term and hand over the keys.

But there was one thing the letter didn’t mention.

It said nothing about telling them we didn’t want to renew the lease… so I didn’t.

I didn’t want them booking open inspections and intrude further on our lives to show the place to new tenants and decided they didn’t deserve extra notice.

The days ticked by, a couple weeks went passed and my wife and I were busy getting ready to move.

I didn’t get contacted by the agent again… until my phone rang one week after the new paperwork was due, literally the day before we were moving out. It was the agent of course.

The phone call put a smile on his face.

They greeted me nicely and said it was just a reminder that we needed to sign the new lease and get it back to them.

I told them, oh we aren’t signing it, we bought a house and we’re moving out tomorrow!

The other end of the line went dead silent for a good few seconds while my face got stuck in a grin.

The agent quietly asked why we hadn’t told them and I said the paperwork only said to let them know if we were extending the lease, nothing about moving out so I assumed they knew.

She said goodbye pretty quickly and the panic in her voice was glorious, she was screwed and knew it.

They moved out without any drama.

I wish I got to hear more of the fallout but my wife and I moved out, cleaned the house over the remaining week and I handed the keys over.

They never booked any open inspections in that final week so the house sat empty for a while waiting on new tenants and the landlords missed out on some rent payments.

We also checked the listings and saw they advertised it at a lower price than what they were going to gouge us for.

There was one final bit of revenge.

As a bonus – a couple days after the lease ended the agent called me and said our contact stated we had to have the carpets steam cleaned and they were going to take the cost from our bond.

I told her we’d had them steam cleaned and she said we didn’t, the carpets smelled like garbage!

After me telling her again that we had she demanded a copy of the receipt.

I emailed it through and never heard from them again…I didn’t mention that there was a cavity under the house and the couple bags of rubbish I chucked under there as we were moving out because the bins were full. I guess the floor wasn’t air tight.

After this, I bet the landlord’s agent made some modifications to the letter included with new leases so that it would clearly state to let them know whether or not they’re renewing the lease.

If you enjoyed this post, check out this story about a landlord who learned the hard way not to try to keep a security deposit he should have paid.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

Same. I’ve lived in multiple apartments and never had an inspection.

The agent made the wrong assumption.

This person thinks there’d only be one reason to have an inspection.

This person would’ve sent an email.

The inspection thing is pretty weird. I don’t think that’s normal at all. I’ve rented multiple apartments, and there was never an inspection, even when I renewed the lease and lived there multiple years. The only time the landlord would enter the apartment was if there was something that needed to be fixed.

It’s sad that his dad died, but the timing worked out perfectly so they could move out and buy a house.

They did the right thing by not telling the landlord they were moving out. Otherwise, it probably would’ve been very annoying with lots of potential renters coming in to look at the apartment while they’re trying to pack.