Living off campus in college is so much fun. Of course, at first, you may have that big reality check on how difficult it is to live alone, but once you find that routine, it can start to be exciting. When it comes to finding a place to live off campus, it’s not always easy. The stress of finding somewhere that’s close to campus, grocery stores, the bars, your friends, and any restaurants, it’s all too much! And then you also need to find roommates, too, and decently-priced rent. I mean, can it get any more complex? The last thing on your mind is probably thinking about your landlord and whether or not they’ll be a nice person or not. You’re just looking for a place to live!
I’ve been very fortunate to have a great landlord who is responsive and comes to the rescue whenever there are any problems at all, but I know that some of my friends aren’t so lucky. If you are nervous about living in your first off campus apartment, don’t stress too much! Not all landlords are terrible, but here are some of the wildest college landlord stories that will probably leave you as jaw-dropped as I was when I heard them.
These responses have been edited for length and clarity.
“When my housemates and I first toured our house, it had an unfinished basement with only laundry machines and storage in it. The landlord mentioned finishing the basement over the summer, which sounded great, so we signed the lease on the spot. Little did we know by ‘finished,’ they meant convert it into a new unit and lease the space to a completely new tenant. This information was shared with us in an unrelated email where they offhand mentioned sharing the laundry with another person. We of course were very confused and concerned, and spent the next few months trying to wrap our heads around a stranger living in our basement. The landlord insisted it was not a big deal and they told us there would be construction (like that would mean a new unit being added?). Overall the tenant is fine, no issues there, but we were very blindsided. We lost a parking space and had to negotiate utilities and everything AFTER signing a lease for the whole house. Talk about being caught offguard.” – Anonymous, 20, Queen’s University
“We had rats and squirrels for like six months, and our landlord refused to do anything about it. We even found a dead rat in our basement, and they still refused to clean it. Finally, a year later, they decided it was time to clean the dead rat. At this point we were angry because the rat was living there rent-free and was smelly.” – Anonymous, 20, Guelph University
“Last year, I moved out of my old house a month early because my new lease started, so I had to return the key to my old house. When I went to drop the key off, it turns out someone was already living in my room, which I was still technically paying rent for. I proceeded to be gaslighted by my landlord by them saying that I had already surrendered my key, so she was able to rent out my room. Thankfully, my sister is a lawyer so I was able to threaten my landlord with the tenet board, but I would’ve had to pay for the application and would likely only get 25% of my rent back anyway. It wasn’t worth it, but I was pissed AF.” – Anonymous, 20, Queen’s University
“My landlord hires a cleaner to come once a month to clean the house. One month, they came when someone was in the middle of moving out. Without asking, the cleaner threw out everyone’s dishes that were in the sink and everything on the counter, including a perfectly fine blender. They also threw out everyone’s shampoo and body wash because the cleaners assumed that all that stuff was that person’s who just moved out. Anyways, everyone in the house got mad and we messaged the landlord, who refused to compensate us for any of the discarded products. The cleaners weren’t just randomly hired — it was my landlord’s family, who claimed they were cleaners so they could add an extra $20 onto our rent.” – Anonymous, 20, Western University
“My landlord posted our house for rent without telling any of us, even though we were all planning on renewing our lease (and told them). They took it down after they saw us and acted coy by asking, “Are you mad at me?” We were all convinced we were gonna lose our house and be homeless for the next year.” – Anonymous, 20, McMaster University
“When we first moved in, my roommates and I were concerned about possible mold on the ceilings and in the bathroom. Our landlord assured us that they did a mold inspection, but it turns out they lied, and we actually did have mold for a couple of months — no wonder we all felt ill. We also had so many things in our house that were broken that our landlord didn’t want to fix. But when they finally did, at least the repair guy was hot. It was a lose-win situation.” – Anonymous, 19, Queen’s University
“I had issues with the upstairs neighbors for a while. Their bathroom always leaked into my bathroom, and it absolutely destroyed our ceiling and walls. Our landlord told us he’d pop by when we were home, but he didn’t, and so we went to class. When we got back we saw the front door was open, but didn’t know why. We went in and our landlord had turned our bathroom upside down, torn down the walls, and rendered it unusable. He told us he’d come back later to check on the damages and assess what needed to be repaired. He then came back the next day at like 3 a.m. and just walked into our house without warning and started taking pictures of stuff. When we confronted him saying he couldn’t just do that, he ignored us and did it again the next night.” – Anonymous, 20, Western University