Published on Reddit’s r/Antiwork forum, an account under the anonymous username u/SmashNDash23 posted a submission that reached over 15,000 upvotes and 1,900 comments.
Posted to social media, a landlord explains their reasoning for wanting their tenants to leave. They posed the question, “Is it possible to terminate a tenants lease early?”
“I have a tenant that pays on time, and pretty clean, so no issues there. However, all the utilities are included in the lease, and they run the A/C at 70 degrees 24/7, causing it to back up,” they wrote.
They go into detail that they have to contact an HVAC employee to fix it which costs them around $350. They explain that this happens once every two months. They already told the tenants that they should keep the A/C at 75 degrees during the day and 72 during the evening. The tenants “don’t care” and keep it at 70 degrees.
“I’m at the point where I don’t think I want them living there, I don’t think what I can provide fits their needs, so I want to terminate their lease early,” they concluded.
Newsweek has published several articles regarding conflicts between tenants and landlords including how a landlord was shocked by the state of their unit after evicting a tenant, the internet left divided after a landlord refused to reimburse their tenant for their hotel stay and a tenant praised online for not telling their landlord that they’re leaving after buying a house.
What are some reasons you can kick out a tenant?
According to research done by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, about 2.7 million households are threatened with eviction each year.
If you are a landlord looking to kick out a tenant, here are some legal reasons you can ask them to leave, via apartmentguide.com:
A tenant isn’t paying rent on time or in full. A tenant is involved in criminal activity. If the tenant is committing domestic violence including abuse, harassment and kidnapping. They are not following the community health and safety standards. When their lease is up and they have yet to leave the premises. If they are housing an unauthorized pet or person. If they caused a large amount of damage to your property.
Redditor reactions
U/ambush_boy wrote, “They’re not fixing the issue if they have to come out twice a month…”
“Professional HVAC tech here,” u/Binnacle_Balls_jr replied to the above comment, “Having your ac set to 70 is not the cause of a ‘back up’ (whatever that means). There is something wrong with this thing and the landlord doesnt want to pay to fix it. Hes leaving this part out (the tech probably tells him this every time they come out).”
“So the landlord wants to kick out a perfect tenant because he/she doesn’t want to buy a new HVAC system? Policing the temperature in the home of a paying tenant is borderline prison treatment. How disgusting,” u/YellowSaylor exclaimed.
“It backing up is not the tenant’s problem. Pay the money to fix your asset. It’s the least you could do since another human being is paying off YOUR property. You clearly have a tenant because you CAN’T AFFORD it otherwise. Being a landlord is not a job. It means you bit off more than you can chew,” u/DreJDavis commented.
