A TikToker named Kaitlyn (@cashmoneykaitlyn) said she got revenge against her landlord for billing her to unclog a drain in her unit.
In her trending clip, she explains that the building “charged” her to fix the drain, so, in retaliation, she decided to make a phone call to an inspector to come and check out the building to ensure that everything was up to code.
According to her, her one phone call ended up forcing building management to fork over enough money to cover the repairs of numerous other issues on the property.
Kaitlyn writes in a text overlay of the video, “When my old apartment charged me to unclog my drain so I called an inspector and made them fix everything in the building.”
She lip-syncs a deep voice in the clip that says, “When they go low, I go lower” while smiling into the camera and pointing to herself with her left thumb. The Daily Dot reached out to Kaitlyn via TikTok comment.
The economics of homeownership isn’t looking so hot these days. In the United States, as of this writing, it was easier to purchase a home during the Great Depression than it is today. Even if you do manage to save up enough money for a down payment on a home and build your credit score up enough in order to qualify for a mortgage, there are a litany of other costs factored into home ownership.
There’s PMI (mortgage insurance) that usually carries higher interest rates than your actual mortgage payments. There’s also homeowner’s insurance, and if you live in an area that may be prone to natural hazards like severe flooding or tornadoes, you’ll have to pay a monthly insurance charge for that. Not to mention your area’s property taxes that can easily balloon the cost of one’s home ownership to unmanageable levels.
Additionally, homeowners, more or less, are on the hook for any repair costs that aren’t covered by their insurance plans. Despite all of these costs/headaches, owning a home is almost always better than renting, but if one isn’t in a position to own their own home, renting may be one of their only choices.
According to numerous #canada hashtags appended to Kaitlyn’s videos, she presumably lives in Canada, where property values are also going up.
Viewers shared some of the negative experiences they had in dealing with landlords who refuse to address repairs in a timely fashion. One TikToker commented, “Bro I’ve had a hole in my ceiling for months! My bathroom was leaking into the living room so they came and cut a hole and never came back to fix it.”
Someone else remarked, “My apartment is saying a dislodged outlet (which is needed for wifi) ain’t their problem so when I get it fixed, imma make sure to ducking destroy it.”
Another viewer who saw the clip said, “The upstairs apt was leaking and creating water bubbles in the wallpaper and my landlord only came and peeled the wallpaper off and waited 1 yr to fix.”
One TikTok user appeared to have been inspired by Kaitlyn’s decision to call the building inspector, insinuating that they were going to get their own property management company in trouble as well.
“Me calling the health department,” they wrote.
It looks like Kaitlyn wasn’t the only tenant who thought of doing this either.
“I went 4+ months with no heat or air and I did the same thing hehe,” another viewer said.
