Long time lurker, first time poster.
I know this sounds like a rant… Sorry its a long read TLDR at the bototm. I never told this story I think people might consider it an overreaction.
I had an incredibly bad experience with a corporate housing exploiter (land lords are PEOPLE not companies) where the unit in an apartment building was not sealed and my neighbor gave me bed bugs. I gave 30 days notice and dropped the key in an envelope with my unit number on it in the drop box on a Saturday and them moved cross country to be with family. I never heard anything from them at all so I assumed it was all working out. I go to get an apartment 2 thousand miles away (from CA to the midwest) and they refuse to rent to me because I was in middle of an eviction with the previous corporate housing exploiter.
I tried to call and email with no success. Calls were ignored and emails were ignored. I went to the website where payments are made and saw about 2 months of back rent plus a 10% fee for going to collections (even though it had not gone to collections).
The new apartment manager shared a non-public email with me from the old apartments along with their reply that dropping the key in the drop box on my last fully paid day with prior written notice wasn't good enough and the key needed to be handed into them in person.
The new apartment manager told me if I provided proof that I paid up the entire balance they would lease to me with a huge deposit because of the “eviction”. I went back to the website, paid everything EXCEPT the 10% collections fee (since it had not gone to collections obviously). I email the previous apartment managers on the non-public email letting them know that I paid it all off except the 10% collections fee and never got any response. I wrote a script that emails they person the same thing once a day and I plan to turn it off when I got a response.
about two weeks later the new apartment manager emails them to see if it was all paid up and they said that I partially paid and some of it went to collections (the new manager forwarded it to me). I checked online and the account was empty. I checked my credit report and sure enough, the exact amount of the 10% collections fee had been sent to collections and dinged on my credit.
The new apartment manager agreed to lease me a unit for a fat deposit. I turned it down and stayed with my dad for another month. I ended up buying a van and partially converting it to a motorhome (over 6 months, was still working) with my dads tools and machine shop. I stopped once it had power, heat, and AC. I love it in the van but I do miss out of lots of life (especially romantically) by living in the van.
The idea of renting an apartment or house, even though I could afford it… IT TURNS MY STOMACH SO BAD I FEEL LIKE VOMITING. I could see myself in a tent under a bridge before I could get over the feeling of renting again. The feeling of the land owner OWNING me.
I never told this story and it hurts to type out loud. A better man might admit to crying after saying these things, but not me. I don't enjoy living in the van that much, even after going to CA/SF for work where there are plenty of others.
Is this normal? Is this how life is? Giant corporate housing exploiters (again, landlords are people, stop humanizing corporate profit machines) turning normal people into… something else. Am I overreacting to this?
TLDR: Had a super bad experience with a corporate housing exploiter and now too traumatized to ever rent again, is it normal? Am I overreacting?