Landlords
I used to live in a flat in North London owned by a guy who had about 20 flats in the area. Must have been raking it in.

When I moved out, I left a single bag with a duvet in it in the flat as I was going back the next day to meet him and give him back the keys. I had to get the tube to my new place and just couldn't carry everything. He charged me an extra day's rent for leaving the bag. I argued that this was ludicrous, as it hadn't made a blind bit of difference. He agreed, but pointed out that had he decided to move new people in on that morning, or to send a cleaner round the day before (which he wouldn't have, of course, but anyway...) then my bag would have been in the way.

In the end, since it was £17.33 and he was threatening to just take it out of the deposit whether I agreed to it or not, I gave in.

Then he said he wanted to charge us 50p each because he'd run out of cleaning stuff and had to buy bleach for the toilet on the way over. The toilet was immaculate. Made no difference. He argued about it for a full ten minutes. In the end, I offered to scrub the toilet rather than pay the 50p, as a matter of principle.

He stood over me and watched me bleach and scrub it 5 times (with our bleach which we'd generously left in the flat) before giving up and accepting that it was clean enough.

I repeat - the guy had 20 flats. He must have been minted. Why waste 15 minutes watching me scrub a toilet bowl for the sake of a quid?
(SnowyTheWereRabbit the Leporid from Hell, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 20:27, 7 replies)

Well
I am sure it would have amused me.
(powervator and NONE SHALL PASS, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 20:38, closed)

Perhaps
you have a cute rear he wanted to check out?
( enoughblueskyforsailorstrousers, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 20:42, closed)

yes, and the landlord is probably still wondering
"I don't get it...why don't they ever like me?"
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 22:35, closed)

No ..
he probably doenst give a damn, and is several hundred quid richer from the takings.

That said, you can probably laugh at him soon as the price plummets and the over-supply of buy to let housing, coupled with increasing numbers of people buying their own house etc etc ... shoud stuff him nicely.
(flipper is going to die in a bizarre gardenning accident, Tue 28 Oct 2008, 8:50, closed)

That;s what I'd like to think...
but seeing as he didn't appear to 'waste' money on washing, buying clothes, etc., (and since when I phoned his house once his mum told me I had to leave a landline rather than a mobile number because 'it costs us money to ring you too, you know?'), I imagine he's the sort who keeps it all under the mattress.

That hasn't stopped me hoping he's lost everything though, definitely.
(SnowyTheWereRabbit the Leporid from Hell, Wed 29 Oct 2008, 0:04, closed)

Revenge
When I was a student, I got rolled over so many times like this, we'd move into a hovel, pay a deposit, leave a year later and lose the deposit because there was dirt on a wall or fluff on the carpet etc etc.

Some years later, between buying houses, we opted to rent for a year, to get us out the chain and improve our purchasing power ... and yes, the landlord tried it on. Various claims for fictitous shrubbery and non-existent carpet cleaning etc.

Silly sod.

Before I had been skint and not knowledgeable enough to wage legal war. Not now. It cost me a few hundred quid in fees, and my solictor did think me slightly crazy for the lengths I wanted him to go to, but, by the end of it I got my deposit back and wasted a shitload of the landlords time in jumping through a variety of legal hoops.

I had further fun with the letting agent (a local estate agency) who had taken the landlords side in the scam. Viewing a couple of properties and telling the owners I might be interested, but only of they moved it to a different agent ... got their backs up nicely :)
(flipper is going to die in a bizarre gardenning accident, Tue 28 Oct 2008, 8:48, closed)

What you should have done...
When you went up to the toilet, take one look inside, glance at him and toss his 50p into the pan.
Then just walk out.
I never give fuckers like this one inch. Never.
I'm as generous as can be to my friends, but tightwads like this deserve to have money spent on making their pathetic lives just that bit nastier!
(Kliper Filllets Getting noticed by twats on the internet since, Tue 28 Oct 2008, 9:23, closed)