A study out of the University of Nevada Las Vegas has confirmed that regardless of what your landlord is doing, odds are that specific thing is illegal.
“After hearing stories from friends about their landlords passing off illegal activity as ‘normal practices,’ I decided to see if this was true across the board,” said Lead Researcher Jordana Driggs. “Turns out, whatever your landlord is doing is probably illegal! Like, 100% of the time, it is probably illegal. Can you believe that? Turns out a lot of people don’t know what the law is!”
Of tenants that Jordana surveyed, 90 percent reported that their landlords were doing super fishy stuff but told them “not to worry about it.” The other 10 percent’s landlords were also doing super fishy stuff, but those landlords admitted what they were doing was illegal, then said, “But what are you going to do about it?”
“My landlord is doing construction in my unit, and when I mentioned that I don’t think that’s allowed, he laughed and said, ‘It’s absolutely allowed – look it up!’” said local tenant Rachel Weeks. “So I did, and yeah – it’s illegal. Did he not think I would look it up? He literally told me to look it up.”
A survey of landlords found that they often assumed tenants would not look anything up.
The study also found that even among tenants who didn’t report anything outwardly wrong, whatever their landlords were doing also happened to be illegal.
“I thought everything was going great, actually,” said another resident, Tina Gorgio. “But the people from the study came by to tell me my building is actually rent controlled, so my landlord has been overcharging me for five straight years. I didn’t even realize he was doing anything, but the stuff he was doing was illegal!”
The study contacted hundreds of landlords about these illegal practices, but only one responded: “I honestly did not know what was and was not illegal,” said the landlord on the condition she remain anonymous. “I just generally assume that if I want to do something, it’s legal! That’s normally how stuff works out for me.”
Okay, manifesting queen!
As of press time, most of the landlords who have been informed of the study have shaken their heads, made some comment about how it’s “so disappointing that other people are doing bad stuff,” then continued on as normal, hoping their tenants will not look anything up.
