Living near your landlord can be either a blessing or a curse.

There are good landlords out there, but there are more than a few who will take advantage of tenants if given the chance.

This person’s landlord tried to do just that, but he wasn’t having it – and ended up with quite the chunk of change for his trouble.

Check out the details!

I just wanted my deposit back.

So about 10 years ago, my wife (then girlfriend) and I decided to move in together.

She was sick of living in a dorm and my lease was up, and we had a family friend that was looking for someone to move into a little granny flat under their house.

I say “under” because they lived on a steep hill where the flat was below the house with an entrance on the back side.

So we had this incredible view out back, a pool (we’ll get to that insane thing), fire pit, etc., and the rent was in our price range, and the LL (let’s call her Mary) even dropped it $100 if we did some yard work, skimmed the pool, etc.

This sounds like a great setup! What a dream.

Oh, my parents own a couple rentals and have my whole life.

I’ve done maintenance for them and even attended a couple court cases as well with them.

This’ll come into play later.

Everything was great for a couple months.

Then, Mary and her wife started fighting, screaming matches, stomping above us, throwing things; I didn’t understand how people could be that mad at each other that often and still be together.

Oof. Hearing people’s private business when you live so close is so awkward.

I eventually sent them an email saying we were not comfortable with the fighting, and we wanted to make sure they were ok, etc.

They replied to that with, “You’re lucky you have a place this nice.”

That is not how I thought they would respond…

Mary began to scrutinize the yard and pool work I was doing, to the point she would insist I vacuum and skim the saltwater pool with no chemicals.

Saltwater pools need far less chlorine than regular ones, but they still need some!), wanted me to stop mowing and use a weed wacker and tired, really petty things.

The last straw was when a driver was shot in a gang shooting across the street.

We decided to cut our losses and get out of there.

Whoa! I don’t blame them!

[We] found a new apt and a roommate (one of my wife’s college friends) that was open a month later.

It was perfect for us, we were on month to month on this place, so we emailed Mary that we were moving out in 30 days, etc.

At that point, she went insane.

[She] tried to do daily inspections of the granny flat, would call and email daily with chores around the property she’d insist we do, and would pound on her floor (our ceiling) every time she heard so much as a whisper.

This woman seems petty. But what more can she do?

Daily inspections would require 24-hours notice (she never gave that).

Then she tried to bring potential renters over to see the flat (we flat out told her to go away when that happened) with no notice.

Finally, two weeks before move out, she had a pest control guy stop by when I was at work and my wife was in class.

Our cat was home alone, and we got the notice about spraying pesticide from her in a text about the same time the guy started.

OMG. I would be livid if my cats were in there!

So I rush home after work, stop by upstairs and ask for a copy of the pest control receipt.

I have massive [allergies] to most pesticides, so I need to know what was used.

She goes into her office and bring back a copy with every single chemical on the list checked off, every single one.

I immediately take the copy, run down, grab the cat and a handful of clothes, and drive to my parents’ house.

We stayed there four days, hoping everything would clear out in time for us to finish packing and cleaning.

The last couple days before move out, Mary was out of town, and we were able to get it completely finished a day early.

We’d even patched nail holes, painted, cleaned the carpet, my mom came and helped us get it ready for the next tenants.

It was immaculate, and we took photos and video of everything.

So smart. Hopefully, she won’t have anything to bite back on.

When Mary did the checkout with us, we said we weren’t comfortable being there without filming (legal to do), and she did a short walkthrough [before] stating it was fine but that her copier was broken and she’d have to email us the final copy.

Two days later, we got that copy, with $1,400 in damages claimed above our deposit, including a number of charges like, “my wife had to replace a screw in a cabinet, $1 for screw, $15 labor.”

WOW. But what about the landlord mom? Maybe she can help.

I was livid.

The place was spotless, my mother (a landlord who does all her own prep work in rentals) helped us, and we’d been very non-confrontational except for filming the walkthrough.

I had kept every email, text and letter from them, and started to put together a small claims case.

I figured she would already be doing the same.

Luckily, I knew my tenant rights and that she’d violated them a lot, including email chains where I’d point out 24-hour notice laws, etc. in emails, and she’d reply to them.

Love the organization!

Finally, I called the exterminator. The conversation went like this:

“Hi, you sprayed in my flat without my permission because my landlord ordered it with no notice to me, with my cat inside, and used every chemical on your receipt.”

“We most certainly did not. Here’s a copy of the work order, we only put out ant traps on the outside.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, thank you for your clarification.”

What?! Why would Mary lie about this??

Armed with that last little piece, I countersued, asking for a Bad Faith penalty as well as our deposit.

Bad Faith was 3x deposit, so I was asking for a total of 4x what we’d given Mary on move in.

The big day came in court, I showed up early, had everything in order and ready, and she swaggers in huffed up and clearly ready to put me in my place.

We sit outside the courtroom for about 20 minutes until a courtroom worker asks the waiting room if anyone would be willing to go to mediation instead since they were booked solid.

We both say yes and go into a mediation room with an arbitrator whose job was just to keep us civil and answer any legal questions they could while staying neutral.

This tenant is extremely reasonable. I would’ve waited for my time with the judge.

Mary lays out her case, it takes about 4 minutes.

The arbitrator looked very neutral still.

Then I present my case, bringing up each violation, each lie, and end it with the work order from the exterminator, both copies.

At this point the arbitrator looks visibly upset, and I can tell they’re just trying to stay neutral.

Mary then asks them, “why is he asking for 4x the deposit?”

The arbitrator then explains the Bad Faith penalty then looks at me, “Would you be OK dropping the penalty for your deposit back?”

“Sure.”

They looked over at Mary, “I can’t tell you what to do. But what I can say is, if you decide to go back into that courtroom in front of a judge, it’s not likely to go in your favor.” (I swear they really said this. I know they’re not supposed to but they did!)

I got my deposit back.

Wow. This tenant deserved more than their deposit!

What does Reddit think?

Most users thought this tenant had passed up an easy win.

Redditors were pretty unanimous on this.

And people seemed to be bothered by the ending.

Shoulda, woulda, coulda – every reader seemed to be in agreement.

After all this tenant went through, why not take your win?!

He definitely deserved to win.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a customer who insists that their credit card works, and finds out that isn’t the case.