People never learn.

Time and time again, we hear a story about someone doing an illegal thing, and instead of being quiet, they go and be a jerk to another person.

Well, guess what? This person talks, and in just a snap, they can destroy your secret life, just like in this story.

Read the full story below and find out how satisfying the ending is.

Don’t want to return my rental deposit? Guess I’ll have your eBay and rental business shut down

This happened almost 4 years ago.

I was renting out a basement in a married couple’s home (they were living there, too).

I always paid my rent on time, and barely interacted with them.

OP was moving out.

Then, it was time for me to move out, so I gave them plenty notice in accordance with the lease.

In my last week, I reminded them to pay me back the deposit I had paid before moving in (1 month’s rent).

I was naive enough to pay the deposit in cash, and not get a receipt for it.

This was definitely my fault, but hey, I was in college, and it was the first time I was renting a place from someone.

The landlord had many excuses.

They refused to refund back my deposit, and made some stories about how I had damaged the carpet, broke some lease rules, etc.

None of this was true, and I even had pictures of the whole basement.

I didn’t want to bother with legal recourse since it would be really hard proving a cash transaction with no paper trail, so I cut my losses, and let it go.

So, OP thought of a plan to get back.

Until I had some ideas.

The husband was running an eBay store from his garage.  That was his full-time gig.

The entire garage was filled with items, boxes, shipping material, etc.

It was a very successful business, to say the least.

He found out that they’re not allowed to run a business.

I looked up the HOA for that community, and contacted the head.

I asked him if running a business from one’s home in that community was in the violation of the agreement.

HOA mentioned that it was.

I told him everything about this husband’s business, and gave him the information I had.

He said he would contact the homeowners and “look into it.”

He also discovered their violation of the zoning ordinance.

That wasn’t it.

There’s a law in my city that, according to the zoning ordinance, “No more than one family, plus two renters may live in one house.”

Guess what? It was a pretty big house, and there were four other renters living in the same house.

I obviously let HOA know about this, but also called into the code compliance hotline, and gave them a tip.

Both said they would “look into it.”

Shortly after, his landlord’s eBay business was shut down and they received a violation notice.

Fast forward to earlier this year.

I had almost forgotten about this whole ordeal until something reminded me, and I tried to look up this guy’s eBay store and it had disappeared.

I tried to find him by his name and couldn’t find any clones or other accounts/sites.

After letting my curiosity get the best of me, I got in touch with head of HOA (after many emails and followups).

I got an official confirmation that soon after my tip-off, HOA sent him a “cease and desist” letter to stop running home-based business immediately.

The landlord also a received violation in failure to abide by the zoning ordinance.

Let’s see how other Reddit users reacted to this story.

Here’s a good point from this user.

Everyone should take note of this.

Everything we need to hear is right here!

This might have pissed them off even more.

Here’s some life advice you need to remember.

Sometimes, karma needs a little push from us to happen.

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