Best Rental Nightmares Stories Post

The Rental Nightmares Stories cases readers rated highest and believed most — the jury's all-time picks.

1. The Apartment Had a Door That Was Not on the Floor Plan

   The apartment was a great deal, a little too great, in a converted old building full of odd angles. There was one locked door in the hallway…

   394 Upvote · 85% of readers believe this story

2. My Landlord Had a Key and Used It When We Were Out

   We rented the ground floor of a house, and from the first month something was off. Small things. A chair not quite where we left it. A cupbo…

   392 Upvote · 85% of readers believe this story

3. The Host Lived in the Basement the Whole Time

   'Entire home. You'll have the whole place to yourselves. I live across town.' The listing was emphatic about it; privacy was practically the…

   179 Upvote · 96% of readers believe this story

4. Room 6 Is Never Rented, and the Book Says Why

   It was an off-season seaside motel, the kind that survives on truckers and people whose plans have gone wrong, and I was the second category…

   155 Upvote · 74% of readers believe this story

5. The Smoke Detector That Watched Us Sleep

   We'd booked the place for a week — a slick city apartment, superhost, glowing reviews, the kind of listing that photographs like a magazine.…

   142 Upvote · 85% of readers believe this story

6. The Reviews Were Written by People Who Never Left

   I'm a data analyst by trade, which is both why I noticed and why I can't unsee it. The rental was fine on the surface — remote, beautiful, c…

   93 Upvote · 74% of readers believe this story

7. The Hotel Room That Was Already Occupied

   I got in late, past 1 a.m., a delayed flight and a longer taxi, the kind of arrival where you're running on fumes. The night auditor — young…

   81 Upvote · 97% of readers believe this story

8. The Mirror Was a Window

   I have a thing about two-way mirrors since a documentary years ago, so I always do the fingernail test — press a nail to the glass, and if t…

   56 Upvote · 76% of readers believe this story

All Rental Nightmares Stories