Update 8:40am CT, Nov. 8: The Daily Dot covered this viral TikTok twice in three days. We regret the error.
Landlords became some of the pandemic’s earliest villains, after businesses closed down and people were left facing rent with no consistent income. Tales of landlord woes, from withheld security deposits to the world’s favorite botched paint job, quickly began circulating, even as people struggled to stay healthy and keep food on the table. The latest tale of landlord woes may top them all, however, after a TikToker revealed her landlord’s extremely inadequate fix for a collapsing ceiling.
User @lollygaglab, who goes by Milie, shared the video to her account, only to have the brief clip rocket to virality in a matter of hours. The video has been on her page for less than 24 hours, but has already collected more than 680,000 views, along with tens of thousands of likes and comments.
The video, which only runs around 18 seconds, shows Milie walking into a bedroom in her apartment. A young man stands next to a severely bowed length of wood, which is firmly jammed between the floor and ceiling. the text overlay explains that the duo “told our landlord the ceiling was collapsing and this was his solution.”
The piece of wood, which barely looks more than a few inches thick, looks ready to snap as the young man examines it worriedly from the side. Milie, cackling, informs him that the makeshift solution “looks so ridiculous,” before pointing out that the toothpick of wood has the nearly impossible task of “holding up your roof.” This indicates that the room in question belongs to her roommate, rather than Milie.
Her roommate takes the frightening construct in stride, however, accurately comparing the bowed piece of wood to a curved, fragile children’s toy when he notes that he wishes he had a “hot wheel” to properly enjoy the set-up with.
Viewers were appalled at the thoroughly insufficient fix and urged Milie and her roommate to “sue them,” alleging that “this cannot possibly be legal.” While not everyone felt the botched job was sue-worthy, many begged the pair to avoid the room until a more effective solution was found.
While many commenters were busy worrying about Milie and her roommate, some people found quite a bit of humor in the uninspired maintenance.
“Please this is so funny they did you SO DIRTY,” one commenter wrote. Numerous other viewers agreed, and dubbed the clip yet another “episode of shitty landlord renovations.”
“Landlords really do everything besides fix things,” another user wrote.
Other commenters turned the stick itself into a meme, joking that “that stick is about as stable as my relationship with my parents.”
Other users compared the bowed stick to a wooden stripper pole, and joked that the renters got an upgrade.
Milie clarified in the comments section that she loves her landlord and that this was a “temporary solution.” “I just don’t know what the logic was here,” she wrote.
Milie could not be reached for comment.
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