The last thing HOAs seem to do on a daily basis is provide structure and order to a neighborhood. Instead, they are a magnet for that person from high school who would correct the teacher, interrupt people in the classroom, and snitch on everyone without proof or context. This was the kind of person who made more enemies than friends, and as it turns out, they haven't changed in the slightest years down the road. Instead, they have just become more obnoxious and they're an annoying parent now r…

Blink once, blink twice, and oops, a roommate situation has already gone south… That's how quickly it gets ugly. And wouldn't I know… I've been there and even lived through it to tell the tale. I used to live with a bunch of roommates, some of whom were decent, others annoying, but all hail that one person in particular who has etched themself into the deepest, darkest parts of my brain. She did not take the garbage out once in the 3, short but painful months we lived together. Her clothes were…

If there's one thing that can wreck a homeowner's day, it's bamboo. I had a coworker way back who bought a house where—unbeknownst to him—the previous owner had planted bamboo next to the house alongside their deck. From the day I got to know him until the day I left that job, he was constantly battling that blasted plant, having to crawl in and under their low-lying deck structure to keep it from spreading and out of the foundations of the house. The bamboo was his nemesis, the Joker to his Ba…

Landlords seem genetically engineered to find all the possible ways to get as much money out of their tenants as possible. The problem for them is they have to be just as careful about what they say because smart tenants can and most definitely will use their words against them when the time is right. Here we have a silly landlord who told their tenant they could park wherever they wanted and then later tried to keep their security deposit because he told them that their parking spot had damage…

Professional… What does acting in a professional manner actually entail? At a certain age, probably around our early twenties, we are expected to stop acting like children, step it up, and start acting in a manner befitting our age. But wait, who exactly decides whether my behavior is appropriate and should be celebrated or whether my behavior should be condemned? Yeah, that's what I thought, no one knows. Behaviors are attributed to cultures and social environments, therefore, a social outcast…

There are few people you can truly trust in this world… and none of them are real estate agents or landlords. Two groups of people who make a name and a living for themselves by carving the flesh off of the unsuspecting. They'll stop at nothing to ensure they always walk away on top and with some extra coin in their pocket. So, it's unsurprising that a real estate agent who also landlords their own properties might be a little unethical and uncaring when it comes to profit-seeking and the fatte…

Unless you move in together with your best friend, chances are you are going to roll the dice and live with a roommate or two. The dice will spin around a few times until it plops onto a number that makes you gasp in delight, or grumble in despair. This woman got unlucky and found herself being slowly but painfully driven out by her roommates who were planning to kick her out. Once she caught a whiff of that, she realized she had to comply with her lease, and the quicker the better. So she set…

Signing a lease for an apartment sight unseen is taking quite the risk. But this person, u/aalilyah, was living in Los Angeles, and couldn't get to New York to see the place before moving in. The OP then realized their new home wasn't as great as they'd hoped.

Most landlords only consider temporary solutions without thinking about long-term consequences. Personally, I know the agonizing frustration of having a never-ending roach problem all too well. My first New York apartment was in an old building and by day two after my move-in, roaches started to show up. We got an exterminator, who did the bare minimum and nothing changed. We tried to talk to the landlord about it, but they just sent the same exterminator guy back, who this time informed us tha…

For some odd reason, realtors and landlords seem to think that everyone is sitting around at home all the time. Because they like to think we're loafing around the house at all hours, it means that they can simply pop by at any moment, expecting us to be ready to greet them at the entryway. Newsflash: Tenants have lives and we are not waiting on your beck and call.

How would you feel if you knew your landlord was bringing a baby and a toddler to your place while she showed it to prospective tenants? I think most people would protest that, yet one landlord thinks she's actually perfectly fine bringing the kiddos along. As a parent, you love your kid more than anything else, and you think everything they do is cute and sweet and perfect. Even though you're head over heels in love with them, not everyone is as enamored with your little ones' antics. Parents…

One of the penultimate joys of renting a home is having random strangers traipsing through your house; it will happen on a near monthly basis during your tenancy—or on whatever duration for inspection is dictated in your agreement. Still, whenever this occurs, you'll feel like you've been transported into Shawshank Prison and are awaiting an inspection from a corrupt and hostile warden who may take issue unpredictably at any little thing. Sure, in most cases, the inspection isn't nearly so insi…

Moving to a new place is stressful enough as it is. There's no need for your landlady to add additional stressors onto you. Almost everyone has a landlord or landlady horror story to share. A lot of them might seem nice, but when it comes to a broken dishwasher or a noise complaint, suddenly they're nowhere to be found. Being ghosted by your own landlord is such a universal experience. It's like the phrase, “Hey, the hot water has been off for two days now” are a magical spell that will cause t…

It's important to be careful with your wording over text, especially if you're delivering an ultimatum to your ex. This woman was trying to threaten that if her ex didn't come to clean their apartment before he moved out, she would keep all of their security deposit. The trouble was that he had no interest in doing all of the work and was pleased to let her take the money. She did not anticipate that he might maliciously comply with her demands in a way that would make her have to clean the apa…

Getting even with a landlord is the kind of rare occurrence one can only dream of in this life. If I had the opportunity to get back at some of my landlords knowing with certainty that the odds were in my favor and that I wouldn't be negatively affected in any way, you bet I would enact my own form of petty revenge. For me, the most egregious case of prior shady landlords would be the manager of my first New York apartment. This dude refused to acknowledge our leaking problem and insisted the r…

We talk a lot on here about terrible, predatory landlords, and that's only a small part of the constantly ongoing discourse on the topic around the wider internet. And, to be fair, they're an easy group to hate... There's a lot to be said about a group of wealthy investors who bank land and real estate, which pushes up prices for everyone else, who are then forced to rent and service the mortgages of the very same places they were priced out of in the first place, all the while contending with…