After reading some of the worst tenant experiences by landlords on Quora, we scoured the internet in horrified fascination to find out more terrible tales of rental nightmares. Again, the internet did not disappoint, as evidenced by the anecdotes found in this r/AskReddit thread, where landlords were asked the question “What is your worst story about a tenant?”.
#1 Not sure if insane or genius
Buddy of mine owned a 3 story house. Got a call from the 2nd floor tenants that water was coming though his roof. He went to the 3rd floor and when the tenants opened the door he could see one of those blow up swimming pools in the living room. Not the little ones mind you but one of the big 24 inch deep ones. As if this wasn’t shocking enough, the tenant had also removed all the kitchen cabinet doors and replaced them with chicken wire and had a dozen chickens living in them. – oldenoughtono
#2 Free rent for nine months
I grew up in Washington, DC where my parents rented out our entire basement floor. We had one tenant absolutely living in filth. The smell got so bad we decided to evict them. That was when we learned about DC’s Renters Right’s laws. First, you have to prove they are not only in violation of their lease, but also that they have not paid you in excess of three months. So if you do that, you have to inform them of your intention to evict. Then, after three months, you can submit your request to the US Marshal Service, they handle evictions for DC. It is an office of six people, for a city of 600,000. So then you have to wait six months for them to process your eviction. In the meantime, your tenant, that has been living rent free for nine months, has completely trashed the space because he knows he is being evicted. – Bonesnapcall
#3 A series of unfortunate events
Tenant I had was a great handyman/construction/deck-building/remodeling kinda guy who by all accounts would outwork three normal people on any job site. Unfortunately, he decided to apply this same hustle to dealing drugs after about a year of living there. Cops got onto him, swooped in on him SWAT style, and kicked in both doors of my house, tossed tear gas in through most of the windows, and generally f*ed the place up in the process of arresting him and searching for drugs. The cops ripped up carpet, one fell through the ceiling from the attic, and they punched holes in walls. I finally get the house fixed and rented, and some of his former “associates” came by and trashed the house looking for cash/drugs/whatever drug people look for. The tenants were not home, but were terrified and moved out. This is a nice, quiet street in a decent neighborhood. Next tenant was a nice couple who were school teachers. F*ing asshole husband banged a high school freshman and got arrested. The kid’s father, not content to let the Criminal Justice system do its thing, kicked in the front door and went batshit crazy on the dude, the house, and everything in it. – GhostonaRune
#4 Glitter gets everywhere and there’s nothing you can do about it
My landlords told me that they used to allow tenants to paint the walls but no longer did. This restriction can all be blamed on one girl who decided she wanted to paint the entire room (walls and ceiling) in dark midnight blue and then, while the paint was still wet, throw handfuls of glitter in it. My landlady said it was the biggest pain in the neck to get rid of because if you tried to paint over, the glitter would still show through. They had to scrape every surface. Now the whole house is the plainest of plain taupes. – bachrocks37
Do you have any nightmare tenant stories to share? Tell us in the comments or drop us a message on Facebook, and maybe your story will be featured in our next article!
