There's a fragile balance of power when renters hand over a check to their landlord every month. Landlords need that money to come in and tenants need to live somewhere, so there's a predictable symbiosis in their relationship. Usually landlords are the ones with the bad rep, thwarting their power over a renter's desperation, but sometimes, landlords turn on other landlords when they get out-landlorded in public.

This choosing beggar finally got what she asked for. As a student, u/Zelmung got some real-world experience at their law school's student program. The OP shares that the service offered people free legal advice, while the student volunteers helped guide their clients through the process. That is a win-win — people in need can find resources, and students can gain insight into the logistics of a case. But as the OP found out, you can't pick your clients. They need help, and they come to the law…

In case you haven't learned this already, it's your landlord's world and you are unfortunately living in it. Yes, in this day and age, it seems like landlords are becoming even more unnecessarily powerful than they should be and are capitalizing on that power as much as they can. This collection of top landlord stories from Reddit's r/LandlordLove subreddit only brings back haunting memories of my first New York apartment, the unstoppable ceiling leakage, and the unsolvable roach infestation. B…

Having your landlord contact you to let you know they're moving into your spare room in a few days sounds like a great premise for a sitcom… but it would be a nightmare to live out in real life. But let's be honest, living with your landlord is never an ideal situation, especially when they go ahead and invite themselves into your living arrangement when you've signed a lease and made a legal agreement that the place is yours to live in for the duration of the agreement. Obviously, there are pr…

We've all heard plenty of stories about shady landlords, but what about when the tables are turned? It's hard to remember that there are some landlords out there that are just regular people and that there are some tenants out there who are to blame for ridiculous living situations. Sure, sometimes it's the landlord who ignores a tenant's pleas to fix a serious roach infestation or to solve a roof leakage issue (yes, these are all things that happened to yours truly). However, every so often, t…

It's not often you'll find people rooting for landlords; there's not exactly anything about a group of people who have a reputation for milking their tenants for cash, increasing rent for improvements and repairs that they never actually completed, and taking deposits with little-to-no justification, that inspires people to root for them. It's worth recognizing, though, that this generalization doesn't remotely cover every landlord out there. There are plenty of landlords out there who are rent…

This landlord turned a sweet deal into a living nightmare.

When you make the decision to brutally and strictly enforce the rules of a written agreement—almost to the point of spite—you'd better make darn sure that you've thoroughly reviewed that agreement yourself. If you want a strict interpretation of something, you'll get it, and anything that wasn't intended to be in there in the first place is fair game. This is your game, don't fault your intended victim for playing it too. Predatory practices from landlords are incredibly common in certain commu…

Getting robbed is a traumatizing experience. Not only was the privacy of your home violated, but there's also a sense of trust in humanity that gets extinguished. In this case, a tenant who had had it with their living situation was on the verge of moving out when her landlord did the unthinkable.

Landlords may be known for their shady practices, but a full-on role-reversal situation is not what we're accustomed to… Before we get into this new drama, let's all take a moment to acknowledge that landlords simply should not be able to get away with most of their ridiculous antics. Whether it's raising the rent well above market value and refusing to negotiate or whether it's refusing to acknowledge your fifth email this month about the roach problem and the need for a major roof repair, we…

It's unacceptable for landlords, or anyone really, to behave dishonestly in order to extort others from their hard earn cash. Unfortunately, the tenancy and leasing process leaves a lot of grey areas where landlords can do exactly that. Seriously, who thought it was a good idea for there to be a part of the tenancy process where the landlord gets to hold onto a sizable chunk of the tenant’s change and then gets to decide whether or not they want to keep it at the end of the tenancy? That’s like…

They say having a bad roommate builds character.

Insisting on adherence to process when it does nothing but create an inconvenient obstacle is a tactic that the power-hungry love to wield like a fork at Sunday dinner—and I'm not saying they only use it once a week, but rather that they do so with ravenous vigor. It's silly, really, that someone should make such a big deal out of nothing—but trust anyone who is desperate to justify their existence in this world to do so. When this couple moved from their apartment complex, they received a foll…

Landlords are the worst. Those monopolizers that took over entire neighborhoods to exploit us poor folks keep taking two-week vacations instead of fixing the dang toilet seat like we asked them to a month ago. Obviously for most landlords, renters and their well-being is an afterthought. It doesn't matter if there's paint over the door hinges or mold growing in the bathroom, as long as they get that check every month.

One landlord's plan is so strange that this woman turned to the internet to figure out what she should do. As u/ismylandlordweird wrote to r/AmItheA**hole, her landlord has suddenly put her in an incredibly awkward situation. The OP shared that she has been living in the basement of a family's home. She got along well with them at first, writing that she mainly keeps to herself. But then suddenly, the landlord left the country , claiming he had a parent who needed urgent care. At first, he brou…

Every so often, you come across a landlord tale that actually turns out alright for the tenant in the end. This update was posted to Reddit's r/LandlordLove subreddit by u/Upbeat-Poem-1284 , who shared that after putting in several requests for almost a year and after several attempts at completing those repairs went wrong (see the original poster for details), the Redditor and their roommate decided to stop paying rent. According to OP, it is within the tenant's rights in their city to withhol…