Tenant posts hilarious video highlighting apartment issues after landlord hiked her rent

Many landlords exhibit a lack of compassion, often neglecting to address the maintenance issues in their rental properties. To make matters worse, they frequently impose exorbitant rent hikes without justification  A tenant facing a rent hike made a video in which they effectively conveyed the best comeback to their landlord by showing an unsettling glimpse of the apartment they were renting.

The video clip was uploaded by @turboslut666 on June 10. The video is captioned, "Does anyone else hate when this happens?" and gathered 1.1 million views and 124k likes.

In the video, we can see the TikTok user hold a document titled "Form S," alerting them to their landlord's plans. The reference to the Residential Tenancies Act of 1997 indicates that the document was created in Australia. They sarcastically remark, "Oh no, they’re increasing my rent. I’ll just go put this in the cupboard,” and walks into their apartment’s kitchen. They take a moment before deciding, "I’ll put it in this cupboard." 

Then they open the cupboard to reveal the harsh living conditions of the apartment to show how the rent doesn't deserve any increase. The cupboard has unpleasant mold and disgusting dirt on the shelves that turned from white to rusty-dusty brown. "Maybe on the bottom shelf!" they say brightly, dropping the letter onto the bottom of the cupboard and shutting it.

TikTok viewers shared their thoughts on the apartment and rent increases while praising them for this perfect 'show, don't tell' clap back. "A well-presented argument," commented @zippysquid. "Apartments should require health inspections before being rented to a new tenant or renewed." @cccazzz121 suggested the involvement of a third party. "Have you tried turning the cupboard on and off?" joked @Sami while mocking the usual landlord response. "They should be paying you to live there," wrote @mzae06. 

Rent skyrocketing is not a new concept. Tenants everywhere are bothered by it. When Twitter user @bartleby_era discovered the rent history of the apartment she is renting, she was shaken. After factoring in inflation, she took to Twitter and wrote, "Got my apartment’s rent history and I am going to throw up." She showed a picture of the rent history from 1984 as well as another of the inflation calculator. The second image revealed after accounting for inflation she should be paying $404.29 per month instead of $2000.

She further wrote about the rent difference, "it seems like there hasn’t been any illegal shit (tho I didn’t go in and calculate all the percentages), but now I can’t stop thinking about what it would be like to pay $400 a month instead of five times that." She added, "outside NYC so context: the saddest part is that though I pay $2k/month (rent-stabilized 1bed), it’s still considered a really good deal! the CHEAPEST apartment currently available for rent on StreetEasy in my neighborhood is a studio for $2,400."

Many other tenants also shared similar experiences of dealing with increasing rents. @macbohannon revealed, "One time I made the mistake of looking up what my landlord paid in *annual* taxes on the *entire building* that he inherited and that housed my $3500 apt - it was $758." @Lylanthia gave an insight of her own, "Rent/Mortgage is usually a person’s biggest bill, so not including it in inflation calculations is an oversight at best and intentional lying about the buying power of currency at worst."