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Imagine being a landlord. Would it bother you if your tenants contacted you late at night about an issue that wasn’t an emergency, or would you think it’s perfectly fine for them to send you a text about a problem at any time of day or night?

In this story, one woman sends her landlord a text at midnight, and it bothered him. Now, she’s annoyed that her text bothered him, and he’s also annoyed at his reaction to being annoyed by her text.

Basically, it’s a lot of drama over when it is and is not okay to send a text to your landlord.

Let’s read all about it.

AITA for making a sarcastic comment to my landlord after he told me to respect his time?

Our apartment’s dryers have sucked for a while.

On this particular night, I had to run both dryers twice because my clothes were still damp after the first cycle.

The tenant who was washing before me also had to run a second drying cycle, so I had to wait an extra hour before I could even use the machines.

What should have been a normal laundry night turned into about five hours, and I didn’t finish until midnight.

She wanted to make sure the landlord knew about the issue.

At 11:30 p.m. I sent my landlord a text letting him know the dryers were still having issues.

I wasn’t expecting him to respond that night or come fix them immediately. I was just letting him know the problem was still happening and that it wasn’t just me.

The next morning he replied saying the appliance repair guy had been out of town, he was trying to find someone else, and if he couldn’t, he’d replace the dryers.

Great!

But that wasn’t the end of the landlord’s message.

But then he added:

“Also please if there’s any issues and it’s not an emergency please message me during normal hours. I respect your guys’ time and space please do the same for me. Midnight is a little late.”

That honestly rubbed me the wrong way because the only reason I was texting that late was because I’d just spent five hours dealing with his broken dryers.

It felt like he was asking me to respect his time without acknowledging that I’d just lost my entire evening because of a maintenance issue.

I don’t think the landlord understood what she meant.

So I replied:

“Midnight is also a little late to be finishing up laundry lol. But I’ll keep that in mind for the future. :)”

He replied with just a “?” and apparently took my response as disrespectful. He’s been annoyed about it ever since.

I know my reply had some sarcasm. I wasn’t trying to be cruel or pick a fight. I was frustrated because his message felt tone-deaf given the situation.

AITA?

For me, I’d want to send the message right away so I wouldn’t forget. I understand the landlord’s request, but honestly, he doesn’t have to respond back right away if it’s not an emergency. I also think the landlord didn’t understand what she meant, which is probably why he responded back with “?”. Miscommunication can lead to a lot of drama.

Let’s see if Reddit agrees.

This person thinks she messed up, but so did her landlord.

One person would’ve sent the text right away too.

This person thinks she was disrespectful.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this postabout a man who installs a fence after his neighbors cut a property line rope and move a canoe.

But another person thinks the landlord was confused by her comment.

I don’t think she was wrong to send a text at midnight while she was doing laundry. I probably would’ve done the same thing. Otherwise, I would’ve been likely to forget about the issue until the next time I was doing laundry.

I think the way she responded back to the landlord’s request not to contact him so late at night was the problem. She needed to add some context instead of sending a sarcastic remark he didn’t understand. She could’ve explained that she understands but this one time she thought it was necessary to contact him while she was thinking about it so she wouldn’t forget, especially since the dryers have been working probably for months.

Communicating clearly is better than resorting to sarcasm.