“Slumlord” landlords really don't do much good for anyone. Sure, they “provide housing” in the barest sense, but really, their landlord is just an extra convenience for them in addition to the land banking they're partaking in, the fact that there happens to be a barely inhabitable We found ourselves living in one of these places just out of university, desperate to find any available housing with our lease expiring and new jobs set to start. It was a pretty dingy building in an otherwise nice…

Keeping a friendly rapport with your landlord is essential if you want to make the most out of your stay. And yet, how would you feel if your landlord threatened to call the authorities if you didn't leave the dryer and washing machine behind? The story below is an account of a bewildered tenant. The original poster (OP) had just moved out of her apartment. After living in the same apartment for a considerable amount of time, OP had decided that it was finally time for a change of scenery. So,…

being a parent is hard, there is no arguing with that. How parents manage to take care of their kids and give them everything they have to offer while also maintaining their own identity and aspirations in life, is beyond me. Once one starts seeing their parents as actual, real people, one starts to learn that there is no rule book and there aren't any guidelines to being a parent, they just wing it as they go, which unsurprisingly means that parents make many, many , many mistakes. One mistake…

There's nothing like a bitter landlord-tenant dispute to make you feel better about your living situation (if you can). The business of returning one's security deposit in full is almost always a stressful process. You may try your best to keep your apartment in perfect living condition, but things happen over time and your property management may be ruthless in their decision-making. Now, there are ways in which you can be lucky and get out of conflict. A friend of mine had tried their best to…

Let's be real for a second, the best type of neighbors are those who you barely even notice are there. There is no need for pleasantries or friendships, all we need is peace and quiet, and the neighborhood will become a much better place. But as much as you can hope for these kinds of neighbors, chances are you are going to get stuck with the exact opposite. Neighbors with loud kids, or uneducated dogs, people who do not care about the noise they make or how miserable everyone else is because o…

The house-buying process is stressful and difficult to navigate at any point—especially when it's your first, and you have no idea what you're doing or what to expect. The process will see results that can have drastic and possibly cataclysmic effects on your finances as well as on the rest of your life and its quality. It's exhausting. The process and paperwork involved are almost like a second job, with months upon months of weekends taken up by an endless stream of open homes. With possible…

Never burn a bridge with your next door neighbor

This has to be top-tier neighbor drama. If you've ever had a tree fall over in your yard from a storm, you know it can be a terrifying experience. But even if you were lucky and the tree didn't cause any real damage from the fall, you still have to deal with the cleanup. And if you're dealing with a large, forty-foot tree on your property like this neighbor had, you probably won't be able to remove it by yourself and will need to hire a professional. But here's the catch: the tree that fell...

You're not supposed to take things that aren't yours—this is something that is ingrained in us from a very young age (or at least it's supposed to have been.) We were all taught that taking Little Jonny's red ball out at recess without his permission wasn't ok. Although we might still hold a grudge against Jonny for being a tattle tale (we were going to give it back), it doesn't change the fact that some valuable lessons were learned. These lessons and new-found boundaries should have stayed wi…

When you're facing up against power and authority, it's easy to feel helpless and like you don't have any options, feeling like the only thing you can do is try to mitigate the fallout they're causing by trying to keep peace with them. The thing is, they're counting on you thinking and feeling that way; a lot of times, petty authority and controlling behavior rely completely and wholly upon silence. It's difficult to do, but if you ask around enough, you're likely to find there are others with…

This week's crop of Karen stories ranges from the classic expected behavior of the entitled people of the world to unexpected levels of entitlement. First, we have a parking saga involving a crazy-eyed Karen who couldn't be patient to wait to get out of the same parking lot as everyone else who was stuck there waiting. Then, we have a one-star review from a Karen customer who was caught exaggerating about her so-called horrendous experience. Finally, we've got a scheming male Karen in the famil…

Sometimes, the only way to teach someone a lesson is by blocking them into the parking spot they stole from you and refusing to let them leave. This isn't an ideal scenario, but neither was having your officially designated parking space taken from you. This Redditor came home from work only to find a car in his one parking spot. That car turned out to belong to his neighbor's friend, who was visiting for the evening. This gave the Redditor plenty of opportunity to keep the friend from leaving…

Everyone dreams of the day their annoying neighbor moves out, but not that many people get the opportunity to make that moving process a living nightmare. This resident of a two-condo home had a ton of friction with the downstairs neighbors, who tended to shirk their collective responsibilities. This naturally led to a ton of resentment from the resident upstairs, who recently learned they were planning to sell their condominium. The resident knew his neighbors would likely make life more diffi…

When your neighbor complains to your mother about how you need to mow your grass, you might have a situation on your hands.

Never mess with an engineer! Having an engineer for a neighbor can be very useful in the right circumstances, but if you manage to frustrate them, things can backfire in unexpected ways. Here, we have a retired father who confessed to his kid about all the acts of petty revenge he has enacted on his difficult, noisy neighbors next door after they started hosting loud pool parties on weeknights regularly. Some of this pettiness ranges from launching debris over the property line to planting tree…

Imagine having such an atrocious experience with your HOA that you end up feeling the need to quit your job and move far, far away. Here , we have a night shift worker whose property manager needed to come into his place two to three times a week because there was an electric panel he frequently needed access to for work. Unfortunately, the HOA claimed that this was for legitimate emergency purposes despite the fact that there never seemed to be a real emergency and the 24-hour notice period wa…