18. A friend of mine was managing an apartment complex near a university and was also living in the complex.
One day he tells me that I needs to come over and see what one of his tenants left behind after move out.
This was a fully furnished one bed one bath apartment that a student had been living in for 10 years while attending university. His Mom had played the rent for him every month for those 10 years until he decided he was done with school and moved out in the middle of the night.
We go into the unit, and the first thing that I notice is the smell of cigarette smoke. Not just the smell of a frequent smoker, but the smell of an old bar. Next up is the waist high line that runs around the room. Below the line is white walls with a few stains on them. Above the line, the walks are stained a dark brown from the cigarette smoke. Apparently, the resident had never taken his trash out, and it had piled up against the wall, protecting the paint from the smoke.
Worn into the carpet is a clean and well worn trail from the kitchen to the bedroom and to an empty rectangular spot in the middle of the living room. This empty spot had once been the couch, now missing along with all of the apartment owned furniture. Above this empty patch of carpet is a blackened patch of ceiling. The resident had sat on his couch and smoked for 10 years without any change in routine.
Next was the kitchen. It was empty save for the cabinets. No sink, fridge, dishwasher, etc… Cabinets hung from their hinges, and the tile was more stain than laminate.
The bedroom was as stained and empty as the rest of the unit, again with well worn tracks from the door to the bed and bathroom. The bathroom was relatively OK though, I guess the resident had to clean something.
If I’m not mistaken, the complex decided to write the room off, finish gutting it, and use it as a storage closet.
TL;DR: Tenant creates an unrecoverable wasteland full of trash and smoke.
18 Landlords Recall Their Best ‘Worst-Ever Tenants’ Story
By
Brian Gates,
