You never know who you’ll find on a dating app. Maybe you’ll find a spark with someone you’ve never met before, or maybe you’ll rekindle an old fling after rediscovering each other through the app. Or maybe, as with TikTok user Heather DuBois (@dubwaaaaaah), you’ll find your old landlord who stole your security deposit.
In a video with over 75,000 views, Heather shares a message she received from someone on Hinge. Upon looking more closely at his photo, she realized that it was taken at a property she used to occupy. Noticing his Instagram handle, she put two and two together.
“This is my old landlord,” she says. “He clearly didn’t recognize me in the photo because we only met once when I toured the apartment, but things ended very badly to the point where we both said ‘don’t contact me again.’”
@dubwaaaaaah At least i know hes a homeowner 😩 #hingedating #landlordspecial #tenantsrights ♬ original sound – Heather DuBois
According to Heather, the landlord was a first-time landlord and herself and her then-boyfriend were easy tenants. However, when it came time to move out, the landlord refused to refund the pair’s security deposit.
“He ended up keeping our security deposit with absolutely zero word about what [the] damages were, no running list,” she explains. “He just texts me like, ‘You know the damage is far beyond the security deposit.’”
“No, I actually don’t know that,” Heather continues. “I paid, like, over 400 dollars for a move-out clean-out. We left that place spick and span. I used to be a realtor. I know my rights as a tenant.”
From there, things got worse. Heather says that the landlord threatened to file a police report against the pair and claimed that they visited the house and took mail, an odd claim given that both were now no longer in the same state as the property.
At the video’s conclusion, Heather shows a prospective Hinge message for this landlord: “Yes sure! But only if you’ll give me the security deposit back.” In a comment, Heather says she actually sent the message.
In the comments section, viewers offered further suggestions for how Heather could handle the situation.
“Ask him if you can come over, get his address, then serve him with a civil suit to reclaim your security deposit since he illegally withheld it,” wrote one user.
“Go on Just enough dates for him to pay enough to equal the deposit,” added another.
“I would have met him for the coffee and slid him a demand letter for return of the deposit plus interest,” stated a third.
The Daily Dot reached out to Heather via TikTok comment.
