Having an amicable relationship with your landlord can be vital to feeling comfortable and at home in a space. So you pay your rent on time, you avoid making too much noise, and you are careful to respect the space. You never cause disputes, and you go out of your way to be kind whenever you encounter your landlord and their family. Yet for some reason, no matter how hard we try to be the perfect tenant, sometimes landlords go out of their way to create problems…

One tenant, LeatherSeveral7614 on Reddit, recently reached out to others online asking for some advice on a heated situation they found themselves in with their landlord. Below, you can read the frustrated renter’s full story and decide what you think their best course of action would be, and then let us know in the comments how you would respond to a landlord who tried to squeeze money out of you in this way. We hope you don’t have any similar personal experiences with landlords, but if you do, feel free to share them with your fellow pandas down below. And then if you’re interested in reading another Bored Panda article featuring landlord and tenant disputes, check out this piece next. 

This tenant recently asked for advice online after they were told to pay for their landlord’s child’s medical bills

Image credits: Dave & Margie Hill (not the actual photo)

Image credits: Rolf Larsen (not the actual photo)

Later, the renter shared an update on the situation and clarified some details readers were curious about

Image credits: LeatherSeveral7614

Landlords are notorious for being unreasonable. Whether it is overcharging for a space the size of a closet, raising rent by 20% and only providing one month’s notice, refusing to give a tenant their deposit back even though the place looks spotless, or slapping a white layer of paint over everything including electrical outlets and bugs, most tenants know they cannot always trust their landlords. But in this specific situation, there is no way the renter could be held liable. They were simply doing their laundry as per usual, and the problem only came about when the landlords were not watching their child closely enough.

I completely understand that you cannot keep an eye on your kid 100% of the time. At some point, parents need to take showers, use the bathroom, wash the dishes, tidy up, etc., but that does not make the tenant the default babysitter. Kids also get hurt all the time; it’s just part of growing up. As horrified as I’m sure the parents were to find their little one tumbling around in a hot dryer, sometimes, we just cannot protect our children from everything. A broken arm or a burn from a dryer is a lesson that kids need to learn every now and then. Of course, it is great to hear that the boy turned out fine and should not have any long-term medical issues, but he also probably learned a valuable lesson: to never do that again. I would hope that his parents learned to keep a closer watch over him too.

Many of the commenters told the tenant to lawyer up quickly if their landlord was going to keep demanding they pay, but hopefully, that won’t become necessary. Medical bills are ridiculously expensive in the United States, and it is unfortunate that this situation ever happened in the first place, but at some point the parents have to be reasonable. There is no way that a court or judge would find the tenant responsible for these medical bills, and it is completely unfair to hold the fact that they didn’t raise rent over their tenant’s head. We would love to hear your thoughts on this situation down below, and if you have any small children, please be sure that your washer and dryer turn off when they’re opened. (Or, you know, that your kids know never to open them…)

Readers have unanimously agreed that this was not the renter’s fault, while many even recommended they consult a lawyer

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