Imagine moving into a house that has broken windows. What would you do if the landlord promised to fix the windows, but months went by, and they were still broken? Would you fix them yourself, hire a lawyer, or let them stay broken until the landlord finally (if ever) got around to fixing them?

In this story, one couple is in this exact situation. They wait quite awhile for the landlord to fix the windows, but eventually, they decide they need to take more drastic measures. 

Without giving away all the details of the story, it’s safe to say that I’m sure the landlord regrets not fixing the windows right away. He certainly had a lot to lose in this situation, and he probably had no idea the consequences he would face. 

He definitely messed with the wrong tenants! It ends well for them but not for the landlord.

Let’s read all about it.

Landlord Refuses to Fix Broken Windows, Costs Him Thousands of Dollars and His Job

My girlfriend and I moved into a house that had several broken/cracked windows held together with tape.

The rest of the house was great and in perfect condition.

The landlord promised to fix them ASAP. He kept promising to fix them month after month, with no action being taken.

After 6 months I began recording his phone calls and had recorded him threatening to have us evicted if we got a lawyer – which is highly illegal in my state (landlord cannot retaliate against a tenant for getting a lawyer.)

They weren’t about to listen to his threats.

So, we got a lawyer and provided him with the recordings and pictures of the windows.

We also contacted the City code enforcement Dept and reported some minor code violations that we noticed throughout the house.

At this time, I worked for a medium-sized payroll and corporate compliance company who happened to do the payroll for the company that my landlord was the president of. Because of this, I could see exactly which laws he was breaking due to state and federal human resource and labor law regulations.

The landlord really messed up.

For example he did not have a company handbook, labor board posters displayed, and didn’t have various federal compliance reporting measures in place.

Being in the industry, I knew the minimum fines for the slew of violations his company had would be about $730k due to the length of time they had been operating without these requirements in place for his business.

So I reported his company to the appropriate regulatory committees knowing perfectly well that when this hit the fan, they would look to him for answers.

I didn’t hear anything regarding his company violations for some time while the legal negotiations continued between my lawyer and his.

The landlord eventually had to fix the windows.

In the mean time, the code department issued a $10k fine for the code violations including the windows and required him to fix the windows.

Now, anyone who knows windows knows you shouldn’t replace one window at a time, especially when you have numerous bay windows in the house. This required him to replace windows in the entire house which ended up costing ~$6k as there are lots of windows in the house.

The legal negotiations ended after the windows were replaced.

In my state, due to a clause listed in the lease, I was able to bill the landlord for my legal fees to fight him on this issue. Add $5k.

It worked out really badly for the landlord and his company.

We are now at $21k USD in costs incurred by the landlord for these windows.

A couple months go by and I notice he’s no longer on the company payroll (again I worked for the company that did his payroll and compliance for his company) – when I called his company to verify we shouldn’t be paying him, I was informed there were “organizational changes” due to fines brought against the company for a number of violations.

When all was said and done the landlord paid $21k out of pocket directly for the windows and it cost him his job and his company at least $730k in federal and state violations.

It didn’t cost me a dollar in the end. I couldn’t have been happier with the outcome.

If the landlord had just replaced the windows like he said he would, he’d still have his job!

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a tenant who decided to stop returning his neighbor’s misplaced laundry after two years.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

I’m curious too.

Here’s a joke about a different kind of windows.

This is a good point.

A landlord weighs in.

I don’t think I would move into a house with broken windows until after they had been fixed. That was the one mistake the couple in this story made. That should’ve been a huge red flag right there. There’s no excuse for not fixing broken windows.

I love that they ignored the landlord’s threats about going to a lawyer and immediately talked to a lawyer anyway. They certainly had the upper hand in this situation.

It was also kind of an interesting coincidence that OP was in a position at work where he had inside knowledge about what exactly the landlord was doing wrong and how much it would cost him. It probably would’ve been a good idea for him to look into this before signing a lease, but I guess, all’s well that ends well. This story certainly ended well for everyone except the landlord and the company the landlord used to work for.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a tenant who walked away from their lease after the landlord hassled them over renting month-to-month.