Landlord makes my life hell and refuses to pay me a deposit.

So I freeze his bank account.

Back in 2018, I had a temporary internship in California at an undisclosed large tech company.

So I took a recommendation from a friend about a room for rent.

It would be living with five other people, but otherwise it looked fantastic with spacious

common areas, multiple huge TVs, full amenities, community rec centre with a pool, short drive

times to multiple places of interest, and all for 650 bucks a month. Utilities included.

I contacted the landlord, whom I will refer to as crappy landlord from here on out.

He seemed fine on the phone at the time, so I sent him my security deposit to move in a month later.

When it came time to move in, I discovered a few caveats that came with this low rent price.

The common areas were all dusty, none of the three large TVs worked properly, and if

we wanted to access the rec center and pool, we'd need to pay the $80 a month membership

fee.

And all of the short drive time estimates were exaggerated unless you were speeding at twice

the speed limit.

Whatever, it's not the end of the world, especially at the relatively low prices.

I'll survive.

But then it got worse in the coming months.

Crappy landlord decided to charge us an extra $20 a month for paper towels and public

cleaning supplies.

Crappy landlord only checked the community mailbox once a week when he was in town, and refused

to trust anybody with the mailbox key.

...