Landlord from Hell

Music: Skinny Puppy - La Human8

So, I've been here in Asia for a few days now. I've been away from home for 6 days and within those 6 days my old landlord has become a complete Asshole!

Lets start from the beginning:

Our last apartment, was in a house downtown. It was a great little spot, cute and cozy. With neighbours from hell. They smoked pot all the time, which doesn't bother me except when the house was old and drafty and we ended up getting more pot then they did. They also had no control of the volume of their stereo, they though that turning the bass booster off would mean that there would be no music, only words.

So, we moved to another house a little further from downtown but closer to my work. The landlord was very approachable and very nice. We signed the lease on the spot basically, and moved in shortly thereafter.

We had an arrangement with JW which would allow us to use our damage deposit as our last months rent since he wasn't going to give it to the Rentalsman [Essentially, the peace keeper between tenants and landlords.].

We'll move ahead a 6 months.

I had just gotten back from Brunei, when I saw JW in the driveway. He hardly said two words to me and didn't look very happy. The next day his wife started acting weird towards me as well. Did I do something to offend them while I was gone? Were they getting a divorce?

We tell him that we're leaving when our lease was up. We essentially gave him 4 months notice, but told him it would be more beneficial to rent the place for the first of September instead of the first of October to get more lookers.

Within 2 days of the place going on the market he had it rented. Which was awesome, he then came to us and asked up if we'd be able to be out for the middle of August because thats when the new tenants wanted to move in, we told him we'd be out the for the first of August to make the transition easier.

It was agreed.

Then he decides on a whim to try and change our agreement about lasts months rent without discussing it with us. Why? Because he's turned coat and become an asshole. He mentioned it to me on the phone while he was out of town and I protested, alot. He told me he'd call me back on Monday and we could talk about it more. He never did. So I assumed he was going to stick to our original agreement.

We found a place in the next town over that we were going to take and slowly move things over the month of July and then officially move when I got back from Brunei.

We called him just before the beginning of July to tell him of our intention to get our Puppy. (Did I say anything about the awesomeness of Fergus yet?) He went ballistic on us, so we said that we'd give him to my wife's mom for a few weeks until we moved out.

In the back of our minds we decided to find a new-new place, not in the other town, where we could move sooner instead of having to wait for such a long time.

JW went on vacation and we moved while he was on vacation. Was it intentional? No. We just needed to move before I came to Brunei, so thats what we did. Nothing personal. (He obviously took offense.)

He came back, and we were pretty well gone, just a few loads of odds and ends (microwave, toaster, etc) that needed to go in the car. We brought the puppy with us one morning just to get him used to being in the car. JW sees him and has a conniption, I swear he had an aneurysm.

He yelled at us about having the dog in the house; What if the people are allergic, he says. Our dog's hypo-allergenic, we comment. He yelled about the cats; we "lied" to him about them when we first moved in. And that he has a problem with a dog in the house period, not just visiting.

He then tells us that he's going to cash our check for rent for the month, we didn't say anything because if he was going to be an ass then he deserved the NSF charge. (We weren't worried because we closed the account altogether 3 weeks prior.)

The apartment was mostly emptied when I came to Brunei, which made me happy since the only dealings we had left was to clean it and then give back the keys.

My wife gets a telephone call on my 2nd day in Brunei from him and his wife threatening us with lawsuits because our check bounced and the apartment wasn't cleaned, they wanted their keys back, and were going to call back every day until it was rectified. Thats right they entered our apartment without our consent, and told us they were going to harass us. How nice of them.

We ended up calling the Rentalsman about the situation, and told him everything that was happening. This is a summary of what the rentalsman said:

Since your landlord broke the law and didn't give the damage deposit to me; there is nothing stopping us from using our Damage Deposit as our last months rent. And that we have done nothing wrong. He emphasised that fact and told us to change our telephone number if he calls us again.

After this, my wife gets another telephone call from him and he starts yelling at her again about the same things, all the while his own wife is in the background saying things like: "You give it to her.", "You tell that bitch how it is."

In the middle of all this my wife breaks out the news that he broke the law and we'll give him the keys "when we're f*cking ready".

I smiled when she told me this as it had literally made my day.

We haven't heard from him in a couple of days. Maybe he's gotten the fact that he fucked up.