RelationshipsOCT 16, 2023

“We Didn’t Agree With Paying $1,000”: Landlord Demands Compensation For A Scratch On The Floor

Moving out tends to have its “regular” pitfalls, landlords running the entire place under a microscope to eat up your deposit, strange last-minute fees, and packing. But some take greed and selfishness to the next level.

For example, one Sydney landlord managed to surprise still when they attempted to get a tenant to pay $1000 for a single, small scratch on a wooden floor panel. Fortunately, OP didn’t back down and reached out to the internet for help. She took their suggestions and later shared an update about how she contested and battled to get the fee reduced.

Being hit with a random fee while moving out can be annoying

Image credits: Yan Krukau (not the actual photo)

But one Sydney tenant shared her experience with getting a shockingly large bill over very minor damage

Image source: BabyButt3rcup

OP shared an image of the scratch

Image credits: BabyButt3rcup

The housing crisis has emboldened many greedy landlords

Image credits: Erik Mclean (not the actual photo)

The housing market is such a mess that every landlord has seemingly turned into a shark that smells blood on the water. Given that many can make huge sums of money renting out property on Airbnb, perhaps some landlords actually feel like they are being generous for allowing “regular” tenants to pay rent.

For example, a study conducted in Manhattan found that a full-time Airbnb could make approximately double to triple what a normal tenant would pay in a year. While not every landlord wants to bother with many short-term stays, the overall effect in larger cities (Sydney, for example) has been a 5 to 10% increase in rent across the board, as demand increases while supply struggles to keep up.

All this money and the fact that people simply need accommodation creates a new breed of landlord that can and will do their utmost to squeeze every last cent out of a property. It’s not like landlords had a great reputation to begin with, as even in the pre-internet age, people have struggled. But the current housing crisis has allowed bad behavior to pass since people are more desperate than ever to have a place to stay.

It can be hard to know what to do when a landlord is threatening you

Image credits: Ketut Subiyanto (not the actual photo)

While the housing crisis discourse tends to center on the US, where rents have been steadily rising over the last few years, this issue is truly global. Digital nomads and work-from-home have irrevocably changed where people can live since you no longer have to be near an office. The result is small, sleepy towns suddenly filling with wealthy, mobile professionals, increasing rent across the board.

If you are a landlord, this is wonderful news, as your potential tenants are no longer limited to local residents. Instead, you can now replace them with working adults from all over the country, if not the world and charge them even more, raising the overall rents across the area. At the same time, despite charging more, landlords aren’t exactly bending over backward to be more accommodating.

Instead, you find examples, both serious and parody, of landlords actually asking for tips, as we previously covered on Bored Panda. While often enough, landlords simply want to make some money on the side with the property they happen to own, there is a growing class of landlords who seem to think they are doing everyone a favor.

Tenants are often more protected under the law than they might be aware

Image credits: Maria Ziegler (not the actual photo)

This entitlement and feeling of impunity has perhaps bled into all other actions, like in OP’s case. Besides the fix not being nearly as expensive, she indicates that the landlord also lied about needing to change the entire floor, as they already had a new tenant. Not exactly something you do when someone has just moved in.

Similarly, you don’t need to change the entire floor to fix a single panel, much to some contractors' chagrin. This might suggest that the landlord already planned to change the floor and simply wanted to extort OP for every last dollar they could find.

Fortunately, tenants are often protected under the law and OP was wise to reach out to the internet in an update that you can find further in the post. While in a perfect world, the landlord would have just taken the new, real estimate (detailed below) it’s still a good sign that there are ways to fight back.