Imagine finding a rundown house for rent that needs a lot of work. I mean, a lot of work. You can’t even move in until some big repairs are done.

Would you jump at the chance to live there if you could live there rent free in exchange for doing the repairs, or would you rather live somewhere that isn’t such a fixer upper?

In this story, one woman is in this situation, and she happily accepts the offer to move in. She also gets to work doing the repairs.

Everything is great except for the fact that the landlord doesn’t respond to any of her calls or emails for a year. When he finally does respond, the real drama starts.

Let’s read all about it.

The crack shack landlord!

So my best friend had moved out of state with her family for several years. She was never really happy there as she is a small town country girl in a big city, so when her marriage dissolved she decided she needed a change.

She was homesick, but didn’t want to go back home. She wanted to live close enough that she could visit often, and she wanted to be in a similar setting to home.

While on a camping trip she fell in love with a small town that was about 5 hours from her childrens father and about 6 hours from her hometown.

Looking around the town she finds a small house that’s for rent and she decides to reach out to the owner about the details. It’s not a great house looks terrible hence why I call it the crack shack, but nothing that some hard work and a little bit of money couldn’t fix.

The landlord made her a deal.

The landlord tells her that the house is livable but it’s definitely a fixer upper. It’s been vacant for awhile and they just recently had a man that kept breaking in at night but assured her the cops were aware and the guy hadn’t been back in months.

However he had done a lot of damage.

He was willing to make a deal with her. If she was willing to pay for supplies he would reimburse her, and if she would do the work on the house, and pay all of the utilities, he wouldn’t charge her rent until the repairs were complete. he would also draw up legal documents that if she decided she wanted to buy he would sell it to her for 15,000 dollars, as in it’s current state it wasn’t worth more than that.

She thought it over a bit and insisted on having the legality of it all taken care of prior to move in day.

He agreed.

The repairs started right away.

Over the next few weeks paperwork starts flowing in she reads it,signs it, sends it back.

Before she can move in she needs to make a couple of minor repairs. A plumbing issue, a damaged ceiling, and 2 broken doors.

She does this sends him the receipts registered mail ,keeps a copy for herself.

Few days later she gets notification that he signed for the letter. A week goes by, then 2, and 3 nothing.

It was a long time before the landlord finally responded.

She tries to call him no answer, she emails, sends a letter, nothing.

A neighbor tells her the guy is having health issues and has been in the hospital so for sure that has to be the hold up so she moves in on schedule and continues repairing the house.

Fast forward a year. She has cleaned up the junked up yard, replaced all the doors and storm doors repaired several windows , plumbing, electrical, replaced the hot water tank, repaired the furnace, and the supplies have arrived to fix the roof.

When who finally appears in her email.

The landlord seemed to be okay with everything.

The landlord pops up explains he has been in and out of the hospital but he has received all of the receipts and photos of the work every thing looks good I’ll be in touch.

So she starts getting together a team of friends who all have experience in roof work.

The day before they are supposed to start another email comes.

But there was actually a really big problem. The landlord seems to have forgotten about their agreement.

After speaking to my attorney I have decided that you have been squatting in my house for 1 year with out having paid any rent. The amounts on your receipts are unreasonable I won’t be repaying you for the work you have done I will forgive the first 3 months of your time there this should more than compensate your for the work already done….. not even close to the cost of supplies. You have 15 days (which is the minimum notice allowable in her state) to pay the sum of $9,000 or move. If you refuse, legal action will be taken.

So she replies reminding him of the lease she signed and the agreement they made.

He responds with my lawyer has no record of a lease on file. When he sent your copy to you the post office returned it so technically it’s null and void if I say it is. Prove that we ever made this agreement.

So she dug thru her records sent him copies of every email he sent her laying out the terms. Thinking he’s older, he’s been having health issues maybe he just doesn’t remember.

He tries to make her a new offer.

He comes back with I don’t remember any of that (she also had saved voicemails that he had left on her phone including one where he says we received your signed lease you can’t start the repairs and move in when you’re ready don’t forget to send me all receipts related to home repairs)

She offers up a compromise of “I’ll eat up the full cost of repairs and pay all the utilities, I’ll pay a reduced price in rent to compensate me for my time and money put in.” She even made an offer that she would eat the cost of the repairs and start paying rent going forward but asked that he accept the work already done to compensate her for the repairs already made which even this was a deal where the landlord made out better as she had put more money into every thing at this point and she only made repairs according to a previously agreed upon list.

Well we can certainly try to work out a new deal but I’m still not paying these receipts, you’re going to start paying rent, if you want to buy the house it’s going to be 30,000 dollars (in this area even after the repairs he would be lucky to sell it for this)

She tells him she needs to think about his offer (she doesn’t).

Time to talk to a lawyer and think about what she really wants.

She calls me as I can be creative. I tell her first to talk to a lawyer, she did and while the lawyer thought with all of the correspondence she could probably win the case, she decided the house wasn’t worth it to her.

So she called the landlord back and tells him after careful consideration I’m going to have decline on this offer as I wouldn’t have agreed to it before moving in.

He then tries to negotiate another deal still a horrible one. Still didn’t include repayment of any sort for the work she put in to it. Says this is his final offer accept it or get out

This is where I came in to the story.

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Here’s the plan.

Since he was unwilling to pay for the repairs I sat down and made a list of every thing she had done to that house, and devised the following plan.

1 by 1 she and the team that was supposed to help fix the roof went thru the house and unfixed everything she had previously repaired.

The new doors were removed (the old ones were still stored in the garage) took down all the drywall she had put up but had not yet finished. Removed all pipes, fittings, fixtures, appliances, and every last shingle that was meant for the roof and made a few calls and sold every bit of it to a family friend who happened to be in need of some home repair of his own.

She moved out, but it still wasn’t over.

A month after she was gone she received another email from him insisting that she pay up or move out.

This is when she replied with I’m sorry our business concluded a month ago when I moved to the next town over. No need to pay me back for my hard work on your house as I have removed every thing that I paid for in order to recoup my cost. I left the house in precisely the same condition as I found it, minus the several dumpsters full of garbage I had to remove from the house and property before I could even begin the repairs. According to my calculations this fact alone should bring us even up.

That was a year ago, once in awhile she still gets the random email from him insisting she owes him money. She no longer replies.

It’s too bad the landlord is having health issues, but are they mental health issues? Why was he acting like he didn’t remember their deal, or did he really not remember their deal?

Let’s see what Reddit thought of this story.

This person has a theory.

Maybe the friend learned something from the experience.

This is a good point.

It is ironic.

I expected a completely different story. When I read that she wouldn’t have to pay rent until all the repairs were done, I expected the friend to drag out the repairs as long as possible or possibly do all of the repairs except for one thing that she would put off doing for years until she was finally ready to move out or buy the place.

The lesson here is to never pay for repairs for a house you don’t own.