Longtime Tenant Baffled By Former Landlord’s Meltdown Over Portable Garden
“Trying to sell the property with the additions you made is so pathetic.”
By Kendall Burke
The Cool Down
November 11, 2023
Excerpt:
It’s generally understood that when you move out of a rented home, you will take all your stuff with you and leave the space as you found it.
One renter did just that, except instead of the furniture, they packed up the garden they had carefully created at their rental. The landlord got upset, and the renter took to Reddit to see if they were in the wrong.
The renter had been living in this house for years and rightfully decided to make it her own by gardening in the backyard. This was within her rights in the lease, and she took care to not do anything too permanent. However, when her lease was up, the landlord put the house up for sale and listed the house with pictures of her garden.
When her landlords found out that she took the garden with her, they were “furious” over it and “demanded that [she] return the backyard to the former state.”
The renter had asked some coworkers if she was the “a” in this situation, and they said yes because the garden had increased the value of the house, and by taking it, it had “fallen dramatically.”
In many leases, renters are either forbidden to make any permanent changes to the unit or if they are allowed, they must return it back to its original state. This renter followed her lease, yet is still facing outrage from the landlord. Other renters have had much more intense stories of landlords forcing tenants to rip out gardens for no good reason.
