On Reddit, user u/xyvz-_ asked landlords to share the wildest reason they ever had to evict someone — and the stories are hard to imagine! Here are 15 of the most surprising ones:
1.“Tenant got evicted for building turtle habitat without permission. They started a turtle breeding business and flooded the basement with maybe six inches of water — the entire basement. It was a concrete floor, but there was still drywall on the wall, and it was ruined.”
2.“When I was living in a dorm, there was a mysterious case of small plastic bags filled with poo appearing on a tree in front of the dorm building overnight. A student didn’t want to use the shared dorm restrooms, so he did his business in small plastic bags. Instead of discarding those bags discretely, he decided to just throw the bags out of his window into the tree at night. This didn’t go well with the facility management of the dorm, and he lost his dorm room.”
3.“My dad was a landlord, and one of the tenants tore out the cabinet doors and replaced them with chicken wire and put chickens in the cabinets.”
4.“I had to evict someone for not using the shower curtain. They took a long shower and flooded their bathroom, which ran down and flooded the apartment below them. We lost the downstairs tenant as well. Plus, insurance wouldn’t cover the damages since a burst pipe or other plumbing issue didn’t cause it. Then, when they were evicted, they asked for their damage deposit back.”
5.“My sister used to have some duplexes she rented out. One tenant was several months late on payments and numerous times the tenant promised she was working on getting the money. My sister was being nice because the tenant was in a hard spot. One day, she went by to visit, and the tenant had a brand new tattoo sleeve all the way down her arm. When confronted about why the money wasn’t used to pay rent, the tenant said they really wanted the tattoo. The eviction process started immediately.”
6.“My parents are landlords and they had to evict tenants because they kept damaging stuff in the house, then taking my parent to court to demand it be fixed. One of those tenants is now in jail for breaking into our house to rob us after being evicted.”
7.“My ex-tenant was growing weed in the house and other tenants were complaining. I called and told him to get rid of it. I don’t care about it being illegal, but I take the complaints from the other tenants seriously. He said he would get rid of it, but a couple of days later, the other tenants called and said the plant was still there. So I met him and said if you don’t get rid of the plant, I’m calling the cops. He said, ‘Call them.’ So I did. He was arrested and evicted.”
8.“My tenant fell asleep making bacon and lit the entire house on fire.”
9.“A guy I knew got evicted from university housing because he was using the fire sprinkler head as the endpoint of a clothesline. This broke the sprinkler head and flooded half the fourth floor and every apartment underneath down to the base level.”
10.“Our tenant had a dog, and we thought it was hers. She treated it like garbage and barely took care of it. One day, she left this little puppy in the snow, and my mom was furious. Before we could call over the dog to give him some warmth, the tenant walked out, grabbed him, and slammed the door. She used her ‘pet fees’ as an excuse to hold off on rent, and we eventually learned that A) she was lying and B) the dog WASN’T EVEN hers. From what I put together, she was holding her ex’s dog hostage and took it out on him by not taking good care of him. We got her dad involved, he paid the rent, sent the dog back, and we were done with her.”
11.“Not me but one of my college friends was evicted by his landlord because he was fucking the landlord’s daughter.”
12.“Evicted someone because he was running the shower non-stop to humidify his apartment. He believed that it was his right since hot water was included in his rent. His apartment was so humid that he had both mold and mushrooms growing in every corner. The building’s water bill had increased by $500 in the three months he lived there.”
13.“I had a tenant who started gutting the apartment and selling off the appliances that came with it.”
14.“The tenants left all the windows open during a rain storm and didn’t clean up water that blew in. Every single window in the house ended up rotted with black mold. They asked for their deposit back. 😑”
15.And, lastly, “My dorm mate freshman year got evicted for rolling through the hallway on an office chair blasting a big fire extinguisher.”
Well, as u/HeyYallWatchThiss said in this thread: “Landlords may get a bad rap, but you have to remember that they deal with a lot of assholes.” If you’re a landlord (or you’ve been evicted!) feel free to continue this conversation in the comments!
Some submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.
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