Another day, another story about a terrible landlord…

And this one is pretty outrageous!

Read on and find out how these renters got the last laugh in this story from Reddit.

Landlord wants to sue us for hurricane damages.

“I lived briefly in Florida about a decade ago, which is where I met my partner.

It wasn’t long after we met that we moved in together due to my not-so-great living situation renting a room from a friend who was so addicted to opioids she could barely function and her enabler husband.

We found a nice little 2 bedroom house that was owned by an elderly couple that lived just a few blocks away.

Everything was ok, we did find cockroaches after we moved in which was quite shocking as I am extremely clean and had never had roaches before and when we told the landlords they told us they were not roaches, but palmetto bugs (fyi they are the same thing) and refused to have an exterminator come in.

That was just the beginning…

Bad sign #1.

Then a hurricane blew in. This was Florida after all. It was only a category 1 or category 2, I don’t really remember, but there was substantial damage to the roof and a lot of water had gotten in.

Being northerners we had no real idea how to prepare properly and the landlords just told us to lower the hurricane shutters, so that is all we did.

This was getting worse…

It wasn’t long after we had mold growing on our walls, especially in the laundry room. Reported it to the landlords and they told us to just wash it down with bleach water. So we did and it came right back so it was a constant cleaning process.

When we complained we were told, that was what life in Florida was like. They also came and took a look at the roof, from the yard and told us “You two are strapping young men, you can go up there and fix it, just let us know when you’re done.” Yeah…no.

Then another hurricane blew through, again only a category 1 or 2. But this time we had windows broken during the storm and since our roof was still not repaired or even tarped from the last storm our carpets and furniture were soaked.

Yikes…

Here comes the black mold again, but this time not only on our walls but on our carpets and furniture too. I spent the days outside with our dog and we were sleeping in my partner’s office.

Our landlords again told us to just clean it up with bleach water and that the damage was our fault since we didn’t prepare well and hadn’t fixed the roof ourselves.

So we called the city and had an inspector come by. He walked in and balked at what he found. Black mold all over the carpets and walls, the roach population had a little boom and he could tell, while looking at the roof that it was in need of repair prior to the storm. And it still hadn’t been tarped.

The best part is, when I was standing at our open door with the inspector just inside, the old man came walking up talking about how we better have repaired the roof and how they were gonna charge us for all repairs and carpet replacements and mold removal, yada yada yada.

This guy was in for a rude awakening.

The city worker came around the corner and asked him if he was the owner. He said yes and the inspector told him he was condemning the house because it was not habitable and that it was not our responsibility as tenants to make or pay for the repairs.

He also recommended that we should be released from the lease. Never seen an old man wobble away so fast.

Later that night his wife called raising high holy hell about how she was suing us for damages, how we were not getting any money back, blah blah blah. She also said she had removed the condemned/danger signage that was placed on the door because “it was embarrassing, people knew it was their property”.

This lady was fired up!

But she made a mistake, she wrote us strongly worded letters about how we were taking advantage of the elderly, how all the damages were our fault since we didn’t do any repairs, how she would not release us from the lease and how many lawsuits she was going to hit us with.

After contacting the inspector who saw our house, who took another trip to the house to replace the signage, we turned all of this in.

He laughed and sighed and said he knew exactly how to handle it since he saw this all the time after hurricanes and if they actually sued, he would testify in our favor since what they were doing was highly illegal.

He then told us he was going to pay them a little visit and make sure the letters got into the hands of the right people as well as how he had to replace the signs, another thing she admitted in the letters.

And then she changed her tune!

About a week later, we got a really pleasant call from the landlady saying we were such wonderful tenants and how she was refunding our security deposit and how she was graciously going to let us out of the lease and not pursue any charges or the rent for the last few months (which we had refused to pay since we could not live there) and if we needed help finding a new place to let her know and she would refer us to some of her friends who owned property too…lol, nope.

We did learn, because we were watching the situation, that the house had to be gutted and completely remodeled. We actually parked up the road with some take out and watched a crew haul out sheetrock and carpet.

They could have saved themselves thousands if they had just called a roofer and someone to clean up the mold instead of making us call the city and have the house condemned and then do whatever they did to make them change their minds on everything else.

Still wish I could have been there when they were confronted by inspectors the second time, the first was glorious.”

Reddit users spoke up.

This person had a lot to say.

Another individual spoke up.

This individual weighed in.

Another person spoke up.

It sounds like these people had no business being landlords…

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.