I worked for a property management company in the US, doing maintenance. Mostly just doing turn arounds. I'd schedule carpet cleaners and painters, replace outlets and fixtures, order new appliances and troubleshoot furnaces.
They found out I'm also a painter, so I ended up replacing the contractors we hired out. It costed them 800 to 1200 dollars to get these guys to do it, while I could just pop in anytime and do it in a day for about two hundred dollars total.
It was really convenient since these were about 140 units of duplexes spread out over a few city blocks. I didn't mind that. Part of my “employee benefit” was that I got to live on site paying full price and be on call 24/7.
I just mentioned that I didn't get any discount on my rent. After about six months, they decided to raise everyone's rent in the park, mine included. They offset this by giving me a small raise roughly equal to the rent. At the time the rent was 1250 a month. Instead of deducting 1250 from my paycheck, they had some weird system where they deducted the hours from my check, often resulting in several hundred dollars difference. In their favor of course. This also had the benefit to them of making me look like a part time employee, since it took roughly half of my pay to get the rent covered.
So I called up corporate, and asked them what was going on. They tried to explain their convoluted system which made no sense to me. I told them simplest is best, just deduct the dollar amount from my check. I was later told that I would be put on part time, which barely covered my rent at all. And I quit.
I got a new job and was ready to just start paying rent like a normal person. But no, nothing is ever quite that simple. I received an eviction notice three days later, even though my month was already paid. When we went to court, I explained to the judge what had happened. I even brought up the fact that as a tenant I had a right to at least thirty days notice, while they only gave me three.
I could tell the judge was a little sick by what he was about to tell me. Since my apartment was given to me as part of my job, I didn't qualify as a tenant, it was an employee benefit. He begged us to come to an arrangement between ourselves, and very pointedly looked at the office managers when he said that nobody was going to be happy with his decision. We went outside and agreed on two weeks. I would get my final paycheck and close out my 401k, with a week to spare while I figured out a new living arrangement. Tough, not fair, but I just wanted it done.
Shit then hit the fan. My last paycheck had a 1250 deduction for rent, even though I wasn't staying the next month. I would have gone over by 4 days if I left after the agreed two weeks.. My 401k had been gutted; since they were putting in they could apparently legally withdraw from it. I could almost see the big middle finger sticking out of the envelope. All in all, I was missing almost 4000 dollars which I desperately needed. I called corporate again, thinking there was a mistake. I was referred to their lawyer who informed me that no, there was no mistake, but if I felt I had any legal ground I was free to hire a good attorney. He even laughed and advised me to find a good one.
There was no way in hell I could afford an attorney. With just 2000 dollars left I couldn't even afford to rent a small one bedroom. Even if I did get a lawyer, I would spend more dragging it through court. So I decided they weren't going to enjoy that 4k they took. I had a little party. Punched out holes in the drywall and filled them with half empty beer cans. Did some minor but very expensive structural damage to doorways. My washer and dryer were mine, but I couldn't take them, so I filled them with bleach and let them run dry. Everything I could pawn I kept safe, but my couch and bed got the bleach treatment as well.
You may ask why I destroyed my own belongings. Well, several times I had helped the lady in the office to sell off abandoned property from other tenants. They weren't getting anything out of me. We had fireplaces with cement hearths, I busted off a few corners. I made sure not to completely destroy the place, but total damage all in all I tried to get pretty close. Someone I knew showed the total bill for repairs, and I ended up going over by about 1500 dollars of what they took from me. The office staff quit, the other maintenance guy quit, and the company no longer manages that property. I like to imagine they just patched the holes in the drywall and never found all the beer cans. And on some warm summer night, the new tenants can still catch a whiff of shitty stale beer.
Tldr: company fucked me so I fucked right back. Fight the power people.
Edit for typos and two clarifications