30+ Landlords Document the Devestating Condition of Houses Left by Nightmarish Tenants

A lot of people keep their rentals in good condition because they’re hoping to get their deposit back. This is the money you put down, and the landlord will keep it if they need it to repair the apartment afterward.

Since it took six months to evict these tenants, according to this landlord, it seems like they’d given up on the deposit with this move. Believe it or not, they didn’t. This landlord said that they did apply to try and get their deposit back.

There are some reasons why your landlord might need to keep your deposit. If you break something in the unit, they might keep the deposit to cover fixing it.

We really wonder what happened here. After all, tearing off tiles like this takes no small amount of force. We guess the good news is that the showerhead is still intact as well as the fixture but it’s still not something you can go without fixing.

This landlord shared this story about renting to someone who was a friend of their wife. Because they knew and trusted them, they skipped out on some of the standard check-ins.

At the end of the lease, they learned the hard way that you never know how someone lives unless you see it. This apartment was left in ruins and it looks like a lot was just left behind. Plus, we’re not sure we want to know what’s going on in that bathtub.

This picture had some commenters questioning what condition the apartment was in before. Could someone have managed to do this all in one lease? Others were less surprised.

Then again, this landlord seemed shocked to come in and see this apartment left in these conditions. It seems like, at the very least, there has been some artistic license taken on the walls, alongside some serious structural damage. This is going to take a lot of time and money to repair.

When you sign a lease to live in a building, there might be some limitations to what you’re allowed to do. For instance, some places have limitations on the pets they allow.

First of all, we have to point out that raising chickens is usually considered an outdoor activity. The more immediately concerning thing here, though, is that this picture suggests that these chickens were left behind when the tenants moved. Where are they going to go now?

There are some things in your home that can get progressively dirtier that you have to take care of, or they can easily get away from you. For example, a carpet can show a lot of wear over time.

It seems that vacuuming wasn’t a top priority for these tenants, and this before and after picture really shows the toll that the condition this carpet was in was shocking. Even without the “before” picture, it’s easy to see the difference between the patch of carpet where a piece of furniture was versus the rest.

It takes a lot of time to create this mess. The landlord who shared this story was helping their elderly 92-year-old grandmother rent out a property she still had. When they opened the door to see this scene, they were shocked.

Unfortunately, they said a lot of those bottles were filled with more pee than you might hope. All in all, this scene is unfortunate for the landlord dealing with it but suggests the tenant was probably going through quite a bit as well.

There are some situations that a landlord looks at and knows that they’re going to need that deposit money to do repairs. Other times, that money just isn’t enough.

This landlord said that they weren’t quite sure what to do about this situation that didn’t involve filing for bankruptcy. In addition to the massive holes in the walls and ceiling, it looks like the whole kitchen caught on fire at some point, and they just forgot to mention it!

When a tenant is evicted, it’s a difficult and emotional process. After all, most people don’t take kindly to being told that they need to vacate the place they’ve come to call home in short order.

These tenants clearly weren’t happy to hear the news, and they weren’t about to go quietly. When the landlord showed up to check the property after they vacated it, it was clear that they’d done what they could to tear the house apart and make more work for the landlord.

If you make a small damage to your rental, sometimes you can fix it. If a doorknob comes loose, it’s not too hard to tighten the screws or change a lightbulb that busted.

Then again, if you mount a TV and tear out part of the plaster wall, you might have to count your losses and call the landlord. Otherwise, your inexperienced DIY might end up looking something like this, which we’re sure made them lose their deposit anyway. At least they tried, we guess.

This landlord was left concerned and confused when they found their property like this after their tenants moved out to move into a new home that they’d purchased on their own.

It looks like they not only just left everything behind for the landlord to deal with moving out of the property but it’s not like it was cleanly organized either. It seems like the house was left in a state and the landlord was left wondering what they could do — if anything — about the state of the house.

There are some things that can definitely be considered normal wear and tear. One dirty mark on the wall or a tack hole doesn’t constitute losing your deposit.

Still, after seeing this, we have to say that we’re on the landlord’s side here. No matter what the tenant said about this being “normal wear and tear,” we’re going to have to say that it definitely isn’t. The toilet alone is enough to make us gag.

There are some scenes that you see as a landlord that you know will cost you money. Other scenes might have you wondering if you should be calling the authorities.

If you didn’t have any other story behind it, you might think a pet might have done damage to the wall in this room. Upon asking the tenant, though, they explained that her “four-year-old scratches for comfort.” Sorry, we would have to start making a few calls at that point.

We already looked at one home that was trashed when the tenants were asked to leave. Again, eviction is a process that can be very emotional for the soon-to-be former tenant.

So, that other home isn’t the only one that’s been damaged after an eviction notice. These tenants also left a rather unpleasant surprise for the landlord to find. They definitely were surprised to come in and see the property needed a lot more work than expected.

There are a few things that you might hope your tenants do and even assume that they do when someone else is renting out your property. For instance, you might expect them to keep up with trash disposal.

The good news is that this trash got as far as getting into a trash bag. From there, it wasn’t so great. Instead of taking the trash to the dumpster or the curb, it seems like they just kept it all in the attic. We’re shocked the smell wasn’t too overpowering.

If you move into an apartment building, you might not see the exact unit you’re moving into when you tour. Instead, it might be an identical unit, and you’ll get one that’ll be free when you’re moving in.

This landlord thought they had it all set for the new tenants to move in just days after the old ones moved out. They may have wanted to double-check the condition of the place before promising the date that they know we’re pretty sure they’d need to bump back.

When it comes to decorating rental units, usually properties have some rules. The most common rule is that you can temporarily change things, but they have to be changed back when you move out.

We’re not sure what the rules at this place were but this landlord was shocked to find the rental unit painted with new backsplashes and some damages to boot. This left them with a lot more work to do than they expected in order to get the house in its original condition.

Some landlords do what they can to keep their tenants in their homes. This one said they took late rent payments and even had three months that they didn’t pay at all.

The end of the line, though, was failing to pay utilities — putting the livability of the unit at risk during a hot summer in the American South. When they finally asked the tenants to leave and did a walk-through with them, they were shocked to see the damage as well as human waste in the toilets and animal waste on the floors.

This isn’t the worst home that we’ve seen, but we’ve seen some bad ones. This is still a major inconvenience and cleanout project for the property owner here.

This landlord may not have seen a bunch of damage but this basement is so full of wood and furniture that it seems almost impossible to navigate. It’s going to take a while to move everything that this tenant left behind out of the basement to take care of it.

If you were a new landlord, you’d probably hope that you got on well with your first tenants. After all, most people probably don’t want more conflict in their lives than they need. Smooth sailing wasn’t what this new landlord got.

After assessing the home after the tenants left, they were stuck wondering how to craft one of their first itemized letters to let them know that they wouldn’t be able to return their deposit after seeing this level of damage.

This story is nice in the sense that the tenants didn’t have to be evicted, there’s no real property discussion, and there’s nothing to suggest the relationship ended on poor terms.

Then again, that doesn’t mean that it can’t leave a landlord without questions. In particular, this landlord was a little curious as to why someone would bother to use electrical tape all over this light if it wasn’t there to fix any damage.

There’s something really, really important missing from this picture that most people can’t live without. Can you tell what it is?

If you can’t tell from the tight angle of the image, this is supposed to be where a toilet goes in the bathroom. Instead, there’s just a big mess and a nearly unexplainable flower arrangement. Plus, there’s that missing potholder. What could have possibly happened here?

There are some things that might not require your whole deposit, but leave your landlord wondering how to handle things here.

If you get a new counter, you might expect it to last more than a year. However, after a year with these tenants, this brand-new countertop wasn’t looking so great. Not only was it seriously stained, but it also seems like they didn’t use a cutting board the entire time.

Just like any other job, you might be left wondering what to do at times when you’re a landlord. This landlord wasn’t sure how to classify this damage when it came to using the deposit.

We aren’t sure how long these tenants lived here, though the damage to these floors is substantial. It’s not easy to answer their question about the deposit from this, but it is enough to make any hardwood floor owner cringe.

We have a few things in our homes that are dangerous if you use them incorrectly. For instance, you don’t want to have a serious mishap with your garbage disposal.

This former tenant apparently wanted to break it. However, this would do a lot more damage than just to the garbage disposal in an even slightly different situation. Those could have easily shot out of the garbage disposal causing some serious harm.

There are some things that you do that are simply outdoor activities. Some things are simply too messy and too dangerous to do inside.

While these tenants weren’t worried about the fumes or the mess that comes from paining a whole vehicle, the landlord was left to clean up the substantial mess that the project caused. We can only imagine the scene that this must have left behind in the apartment.

There are some things that you may not plan but can have dire consequences. Unfortunately, a kitchen is a place with a lot of fire hazards that can sometimes lead to worst-case scenarios.

We’re sure this situation was a major inconvenience to everyone involved. This family probably wasn’t trying to make their home unlivable — they were probably just trying to make dinner for the evening. The result, though, was massive damage.

Landlords often don’t want to go through an expensive eviction process. This one was even more expensive than the average one. This landlord said that all in all, most of the tenants they’ve dealt with are absolutely reasonable.

Still, there are a few like this that can be real nightmares. You aren’t even supposed to pour grease down the sink — much less concrete that would absolutely ruin the pipes beyond all possible repair.

Okay, okay, so maybe stinky isn’t the only word that you can use here. If we had to choose another, we might go with “a massive biohazard.”

We can’t blame this landlord for opting to just let a crime scene cleaning team take care of this one. The truth is, your average maintenance team probably isn’t equipped to handle a scene quite like this. Plus, we’d hope you’d get paid a lot to deal with a situation like this.

We’ve seen a lot of tenants who wanted to make a landlord’s job as hard as possible when they left. It seems like this guy was pretty determined to cause as much damage as possible.

When the landlord got there, so much of the apartment was nearly unsalvagable. Then, as if cutting up the carpet and ruining the drywall weren’t enough, they went the extra mile to make sure that the pipes froze — which can lead to damage of no small expense.

Okay, so we’re all guilty of cleaning up from time to time and then realizing that there are a few things that we aren’t sure of where to put. So, there might be a closet in your house that’s particularly full.

Then again, some things that you stuff in your closet — like a few board games or extra coats — don’t cause a problem. Landlords probably stumble across forgotten, benign items a lot. On the other hand, a closet full of diapers will cause more of a stink.

There are some things in your rental that your landlord is responsible for. If part of the roof caves because of structural damage, then your landlord has to fix it.

On the contrary, if you set your apartment on fire and you caused the fire, you probably will want to make sure your renter’s insurance is up-to-date beforehand, if possible. We’re not so sure that this one is on the landlord to cover.

When it comes to a flooded apartment, let’s be honest, there’s not really a “good” version of that. Yet, as this story tells us, there are definitely a few petty terrible versions of it.

One, if a flood with just water wasn’t damaging enough, this one included plenty of sewage to make things worse. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the wait to do anything about it left everything to sit and make an even more gag-worthy mess by the time the landlord found out.

Usually, if you hear about rats in an apartment you’re renting out, it’s a big problem. Pet rats can be a different story since, well, they aren’t just rats who’ve found their way in thanks to a mess.

Still, remember how there are limitations to what you can do in a rental? “Renovating” the kitchen to make the cabinets into rat habitats isn’t really allowed, and we’re not sure it’s recommended for the rats either. It’s surely not what this landlord wanted to see.

Some things really take you by surprise because you probably didn’t know that they could happen at all. It’s really the last story that nails this down as a nightmare for a landlord.

After all, to an extent, you expect late rent to be a part of the job when you’re dealing with tenants with their own complicated lives. However, no one really prepares you for your unit to start growing grass through the carpet.

We’ve already said that if you’re a landlord, you might find an odd end left behind by your former tenants at some point. Then again, some things will still surprise you.

It’s not like this home had forgotten a stuffed animal or DVD that hadn’t been watched in a decade. Instead, there was a freezer that was full of meat. That might not have been such a problem if the power wasn’t cut and the meat sat in the heat for way too long before someone figured it out.

We’ve already discussed how big of a problem pests can be in a unit. They can really wreak havoc on tenants and be a real nightmare to get rid of. This story is gross in a number of layers.

The pests are already enough as are the destroyed carpets. What really pushed this landlord over the edge, though, was the fact that they left such a disgusting mark behind on the wall. Why do people keep doing this?

If you have a manageable leak in your roof, it’s probably an annoyance that does need to be fixed, but usually, a bucket under the leak on a rainy day works in the interim.

This isn’t a story of a landlord not getting around to fixing the unit, either. It seems that this person didn’t know at all until they saw the destruction caused by the roof damage.

Listen, it might not be a good thing, but some of the destruction that we’ve seen here isn’t only due to neglect.

As for this unit, they really probably worked to make some of the mess they left behind. After all, while we’ve never tried it, cutting off part of a door on a washing machine doesn’t seem like it’s an incredibly easy thing to do.

Sometimes, when you pay attention to the rules in a particular area, you start to notice that they’re a little weird. That’s what started to make this person wonder. There’s a certain level of danger to trying DIYs at home.

When you read a lease, you expect some rules — like no renovating the kitchen or that you can only paint the walls if you paint them back. Looking at these rules, the OP had to wonder what the last tenants put the landlord through to have to specify such specifics.

Sometimes, you can commit to an intermediary DIY project to fix something in the short term until you can really, permanently solve the problem.

If a problem can be serious and it only gets a bandage, it can clearly build-up. While this couple may have thought the towels were stopping the leak, they managed to create the perfect environment for some nasty stuff.

There are some smells that can really make your eyes water. If you’ve ever been in an area where cat pee is everywhere without any cleaning, you know that it can really create a lingering scent.

As if that wasn’t enough, this isn’t something we’re supposed to be around in high volumes. Animal waste can get you pretty sick. As far as days to come in and regret coming to work, we have to say a cat pee-scented unit would make us call in sick one day.

There are some things that you might come to expect when you’ve been working with tenants for a time. After all, things like a messy apartment can be part of the job.

It sounds like this whole situation was weird. Not only was the apartment a mess, but her threat about dirty dishes is creative, to say the least. Those would have to be pretty foul dishes to destroy the whole apartment by sitting in the dishwasher.

Some things just really make your skin crawl, no matter who you are. A cockroach infestation is often enough to make even the toughest people recoil from the pests.

The cockroach problem was a big one when these tenants moved out. As if the bugs weren’t enough, they also had to deal with an overwhelming odor in the house. We guess you have to do something to attract bugs in the first place.

Much like a car accident, you have to consider whose at fault for a problem in the unit. In this story, the tenant in question even had a car complaint. Usually, landlords leave tenants’ cars to them.

After all, they aren’t renting those out. Still, if you run into the wall of the parking garage, it’s on you. This landlord was shocked when it came to their desk that she wanted the property owner to pay for her mistake.