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Hey Pandas, What Was The Worst Rental Situation You Ever Had, And How Did You Get Out Of It?
I rented an apartment from a very wealthy man who was a notorious scumbag. The house was actually a historic landmark. It was totally rat infested. Located in Sarasota Fl, which is notorious for its tree rat population. Although I worked long hours, I questioned my neighbors as to whether they had problems as well. They did. I reported this to the landlord and stopped paying rent.
I called Code Enforcement to come out, reported them, and refused to pay rent. They took me to court and tried to evict me. I took a stack of 20 pictures with me to court. Pictures of rats that I had caught with adhesive boards. The judge was stunned. I got a stay of execution, in that the judge postponed any hearing for nearly 2 months, and told the landlord he had to cut down the branches of the banyan tree which the rats used to get into the bed of the house.
We're talking over 10 grand. The final hearing was right before Irma hit. The judge had gone on vacation to a rented cottage in the Carolinas, and when we appeared in front of her she said to me, that the place they rented was full of rats, and now I really understand the problem. She told me I owed no back rent, and gave me 90days rent-free. Irma hit, and I had no electricity for 5 days, I had to sleep on the floor at a friend's house, and when I finally got electricity back and went home, the rats had taken over. I caught 9 rats that night.
Moved out, and eventually left that God-forsaken, rat-infested, roach-infested, red tide taken over beaches full of dead fish piss hole called Florida. Don't go there, ever. I mean it, don't go to Florida, especially Disney world, unless you want your kids eaten by alligators
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#1
7 months pregnant, took a shower after a long day of moving and unpacking. Standing in said shower with water running and touched the shower head to move it. It shocked me.
Got out of the shower and explained the situation to my now exhusband and while we were talking, the ceiling fan started spinning fast, the lights flickered and sparks came out of the breaker box in our bedroom.
The house wasn't haunted, it was just that the whole house was not grounded. Electricity was just flowing all over the place. The power company came and locked the power box on the house and said we couldn't stay until an electrician came and fixed everything.
It fried our computer, TV and xbox. We were young and broke and expecting a kid so we couldn't afford to just move out and buy new stuff. We immediately called the landlord and he kinda just brushed off our worry and didn't offer to DO anything to make it right.
Luckily my ex father in law knew the guy. He showed up at his house at 7am the next day and told him if he didn't make it right, he would have a BIG mess on his hands. We ended up with new everything and 3 months free rent.
I am, and always will be okay name dropping my ex father in law in situations. He has had my back on several terrible mishaps. He says it's a shame I have to, but it's nice to have the small town mafia of sorts when you need it.
Final score:
4points
RELATED:
#2
When my neighbor's dishwasher overflowed and flooded my apartment, it was the Saturday before Memorial Day. This particular neighbor's apartment unit was behind mine, and she had gone out of town for the holiday. Luckily, emergency maintenance showed up with huge fans and a shop vacuum, but the old carpet in my apartment stunk to high heaven. When the property managers returned the following Tuesday to assess the damage (Monday was a holiday) my apartment smelled like someone had died there. Being the notoriously evil cheapskates they are. they only replaced the one strip of carpet that was most saturated. Even then they wanted to argue my pet messed up the place. What, my pet T-Rex? Not the 8 pound CAT had on my lease? I was furious at their lack of care and blatant stupidity. I was never so happy to move out of those overpriced slums.
Final score:
3points
#3
In my late teens my best friend and I rented a place that turned out to have fleas. We had it bombed twice and it didn't help. After much complaining to the landlord we just walked away from it and any obligations related to our lease. Fortunately the owners never tried to stick us for it.
Final score:
2points
#4
Ah, this is an easy one. Not me, but my wife's apartment she had while we were still engaged and just before we got our house. The apartment from Hell... LITERALLY.
Now why did I call it the apartment from Hell? The temperature. The heaters were electric baseboard units that NEVER. SHUT. OFF. EVER. In the dead of winter, we had to run the AC, which brought it down to an absolutely FRIGID 80°F. The polar vortex the Midwest experienced that made it literally colder than Antarctica? Oh yeah, windows open, sliding patio door wiiiiide open? Brought it down to a reasonable 73°F. The summer months is when we truly discovered that she had in fact found the gates of Hell, because the apartment routinely passed 100°F with the AC running full blast! (Nothing was wrong with the AC, it functioned fine, the heaters just never shut off. The heaters, btw, were rated for approximately 1500sqft, and the apartment was around 250sqft)
We called maintenance on a near daily basis, and every visit was met with, "there's nothing wrong with the heat or air." The only being that appreciated the temperature was our snake. We did figure out a solution, which was a literal blanket fort around the AC. It wasn't much of a shock to us when the neighbors in the third floor a building away had a massive fire that the fire department determined was caused by?
If you guessed malfunctioning baseboard heaters, you would be correct! Thankfully, the pandemic hit the housing market, and we were finally able to afford our house, so that nightmare was behind us.
Oh, and they kept her security deposit when she moved out because of a purple stain on the porch... Which was caused by bird feces from the berry bush on the ground level.
Final score:
2points
#5
Ok, this wasn't me, but a good friend of mine and I did spend time at the place. The place was one of those larger apartments and my friend was one of the three people living in it. The whole thing even started weird as he couldn't move into the room he was renting, because the police were making sure the death of the previous tenant was really a süicide and not something worse. Then one of the other tenants developed a nice drug addiction. And it happened to be the one that had been in jail for manslaughter when he was younger. And btw. the different rooms for the tenants didn't have locks so this convicted killer could just burst in the door while high as eff. All of us (in our circle of friends) were so effing relieved when he (our friend) managed to find an apartment all to himself. We were basically making him couch surf at our places, because we were afraid what would happen if he stayed at his place. Btw. The housemate ended up in prison for murder a few months later.
Final score:
1point
#6
We moved to a new town because I got a job there so had to get a place we could afford on just my wages at first. We ended up renting a room in a house. The room was a converted garage that had no heat or AC. We were supposed to be able to use the kitchen and had a fridge we could use. The man who lived in the house was an older hispanic who spoke no english and we spoke no spanish. We tried to be friendly, but he just seemed to get angrier and angrier over time. Eventually we quit using the kitchen all together after he got in my face and screamed at me. We started cooking dinner at the park every night. We had a microwave for breakfast/ lunch stuff and got a mini fridge because our food started going missing from our fridge (not in our room) Things kept getting more and more tense. We eventually asked if we could buy a window AC unit because it got over 100 degrees and was killing me. They agreed. We bought a small energy efficient one and set it up. We usually just had it on fan though. That man lost his everloving mind!! He wanted to charge us another $50/mo because of us running our AC *ALL* the time. smh.. We agreed, but said that it would only be fair if they dropped that fee in the winter because we wouldnt be using a heater. The first time I paid angry man the new rent he threw it at me and screamed.. turns out he thought we should pay the *entire* electric bill!! I gave notice right then. We ended up moving out 10 days later. I paid him a pro-rated rent for the 10 days. He hadn't charged us a deposit, but I made sure to leave our room better than when we moved in. His son even said it was amazing! He had the nerve to block me onto the property and not let me leave. He apperant;y now wanted a deposit? I ended up having to call the police to help me escape. He then made noises about suing us. I explained to his very embarassed daughter that if he did, I would be counter suing for $15k Because we had to cook at the park every night and that we had to buy our own fridge cause he stole our food. It was also well documented that he flat out refused to accept our deposit and that his son said the room was left way better than when we moved in. She must have talked to him, cause he never did sue us.
Final score:
1point
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