rSlash - r/Prorevenge I Blackmailed a Blackmailer

Episode Date: April 17, 2024

0:00 Intro 0:09 Dear landlord 9:29 Furniture 11:46 Comment 12:03 Life ruined Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to r slash pro revenge where OP gets swift, brutal, overwhelming revenge. Our next reddit post is from called in the 90s. Landlords are buttholes, generally speaking. Everyone knows that. But if you think residential landlords are bad, they are nothing compared to commercial landlords. Landlords of commercial buildings are some of the cruelest, nastiest people I've ever come across. This revenge tale is about a commercial landlord and how I dealt with him. Back in the 90s, sometimes I'd go for lunch at the restaurant in the basement of our building. This place was called The Vault because it had a massive bank vault that had always been

there, dating back to the days before the place was turned into a restaurant. The vault was so huge that they could seat a couple of tables in there, so you could eat dinner surrounded by rows of old, gleaming safe deposit boxes. One day I was there for lunch and the owner took me aside. The landlord is driving me nuts! The owner said. I said, the landlord drives everyone nuts. I was a sub-tenant in the same building, sharing space with an older lawyer, Aaron, and the landlord was always causing us trouble. I'd already had a few run-ins with him, and we hated

each other on site. In most jurisdictions, commercial landlords don't need court orders to kick you out. Instead, they just change your locks and you find out about it when you show up and your key doesn't work. Every time our landlord had a dispute with anyone, which was often, he'd always threaten to change the locks. The restaurant owner said, he keeps demanding all this stuff for extra rent and it's really weird because a lot of it is really old. The restaurant owner showed me a letter the landlord had served him earlier that day. I looked over the demand and I read a list of expenses for snow removal and parking lot repair and common area flooring and all kinds of stuff going back years. I read it

all the way to the end and there it was, the usual clause saying that he was going to change the locks if the tenants didn't pay this or do that. I said, from the wording of this demand it looks like you've been fighting with him for a while. Why'd you wait so long before consulting a lawyer? I asked one of the lawyers I know, and he said that it's hopeless. The restaurant owner told me the lawyer's name. It was some guy with a really terrible real estate practice who'd resorted to taking little legal aid cases to keep the lights on when the market tanked in 89. I asked, did you do something to make the landlord hate you? Because this is a bit over the top, even for our butt hole landlord. He knows that I'm moving the restaurant.

I think he's trying to grab as much money for me as possible before I go. Plus, he's giving me grief over the vault. He won't let it take you with you? Are you kidding? It weighs almost 100 tons and I don't need it. But the lease says that I have to remove it and that I also have to restore the building to what it was before there was a vault. That would cost a fortune! This butthole landlord says if I leave the vault behind when I move, he'll sue! I said, send your lease up to my office and let me look it over. I finished my lunch and when I got back to my office, the lease was there waiting for

me. It was just as bad as the restaurant owner said. The lease was a renewal of a renewal of an assignment of a renewal. The original documents dated back to shortly after World War II when a bank first leased the place and a vault was installed. Somehow the landlord had suckered the restaurant into taking over a lease that left him liable to remove a bank vault at the end of the term. No big deal, I thought. The restaurant can default, and all the landlord can do is sue a shell company. But when I got to the last page of the lease,

there was a guarantee clause. The restaurant owner had personally guaranteed the lease. So he was personally on the hook for removing a vault weighing 100 tons and then fixing the place up. It would cost a fortune. The case was hopeless, of course. That was the obvious answer. But then I thought about the butthole landlord with his demands and his threats and his rent hikes. And I asked my brain to do me a solid, which it promptly did. I picked up the phone and called the restaurant owner. I'm screwed, right?

You're calling me to say there's no way out. That's what my commercial lawyer already said. But I just thought I'd ask. I said, I can save you, but it's going to cost you. How much? $5,000 in legal fees and another $1,000 for the agent. Agent? What kind of agent?

Real estate agent. Send me up a certified check and leave the rest to me. The check hit my desk in less than an hour. I went to the office of Aaron, the other lawyer. I need a real estate agent, I said. You buying a house? Nope. Selling a house? Nope. By this point, I'd been sharing a space with Aaron for almost five years, and he knew me pretty well. You pulling one of your stunts again? He asked. Yeah, but nothing that'll get you into trouble. I know a guy. Heron knew all kinds of guys and that's one of the reasons he eventually got disbarred.

But he knew a guy and he gave me the agent's name and number and the next day I paid the agent a visit. I told him what I needed and we agreed to terms. I gave him some papers and the cash for his fee. A few days later I was again at the vault for lunch. The owner saw me walk in and greeted me himself. The landlord's here, he said. Why? For lunch and to be a butthole? Let's sit in the vault room so I don't have to

look at his face. He took me to the vault room and, with the door almost completely closed, we had a consultation while we ate pasta and drank red wine. We're making demand on the landlord, I said, munching on spaghetti carbonara. Demand? What are we demanding? I pulled a document out of my briefcase and pass it to him while I sit my wine. We're demanding that the butthole landlord release all the restaurant equipment. The ovens, the freezers, the ventilation, everything you need to run a restaurant. The lease exempts all that stuff.

He can't stop me taking what I want. The only thing that matters is the vault. And of course, I don't want that. I shook my head. You need the vault, I said. And we're demanding that he release the bank vault as well. We're insisting that he let you take it out within seven business days. You think you can beat the landlord with reverse psychology? You think if you treat him like

a two-year-old you can manipulate him into doing what you want? We'll find out soon enough. He's had our demand for a couple of days now. The restaurant owner dropped his wine glass and it shattered on the marble floor. You already gave it to him? The restaurant owner said. The owner got up, swung open the vault door and called for the waiter to clean up the mess. Let's see what the landlord has to say, I told him and we walked over to the landlord's table.

The landlord was a big beefy man with a big appetite. He sat alone, eating wolfishly and with his hands. My client needs an answer today, I said. The landlord looked up at me as he chewed noisily. I'm the vault's lawyer, I said. I landlord looked up at me as he chewed noisily. I'm the vault's lawyer," I said. I gave you a demand letter the other day. My client needs an answer right now. He needs the vault for a new place and he's got to make arrangements. Your client can forget about the bank vault," he said, wiping his massive,

greasy hands on an already soiled napkin. But you can't do that, I said. My shock was feigned, but the restaurant's owner jaw dropped for real. The landlord laughed at us. I'm the landlord. I can do what I want. I'm gonna need that in writing because my client might sue, I said. Sue all you like, the landlord told me. Sue till you're blue in the face.

He told me I'd have a formal response by day's end, and then he told me to go away and let him finish his lunch. When the letter arrived from the landlord claiming ownership over the bank vault, I brought it downstairs and showed it to my client. How the hell did you do that? Trade secret, I said. The following month, the restaurant moved out and the place was empty, and that was too bad because I'd always liked eating at the vault.

Now the restaurant was in a new location 20 minutes away. They called the new place the vault and they preserved the vibe of the old place. It was very similar, except they didn't have the bank vault. That bank vault, all 100 tons of it, was where it had always been, in the basement of the building where I rented the space. I showed up for work a little after that and Aaron cornered me. The landlord's looking for you, he said. Oh yeah? What about? He's really angry. He said his deal fell through. Deal? He was supposed to rent the place downstairs to a new tenant, a bank or a

credit union or something like that. They were supposed to come in and sign the lease but they didn't show up. And what's that got to do with me? I said to Aaron. And I said the same thing again to the landlord when he managed to track me down a couple of days later. I know you were behind this, he said, his jowls quivering. I know it was you. That offer from the agent, it was all BS. Just a trick to make me keep the vault so that your client could sneak out of the place and leave that effing bank vault behind. I'm gonna sue."

I said, if you're looking for counsel, I think that I'm gonna have to declare a conflict. I'm gonna sue the restaurant and that agent and I'm gonna sue you. He stormed off. But the landlord didn't sue. Of course he didn't. He didn't have a contract to sue off of, only a vague letter of intent that I drafted. Just enough to hook a greedy landlord who was used to having his way. The offer he'd received was non-binding, incapable of acceptance without the signing

of a formal lease, which of course never got signed. When I moved out of that building a year later, the downstairs was still unoccupied with a sad, for rent sign sitting in the window starting to look faded. Our next reddit post is from Examination Fun. So my dad owns a house that he's been renting for some time now. The tenants that lived there were for the most part decent people who my dad thought were trustworthy. That all changed about two months into the tenancy when the tenant refused to pay the month's rent. My dad showed some leniency and gave them another month to pay what was owed, but they

didn't pay a thing. By this point, my dad was frustrated by the whole situation and since he was already out two months rent, he offered them a deal. If they would leave the house as soon as possible, then my dad would only make them pay half the money that was owed. They countered with a different agreement. They would leave the house in a clean state with all their furniture left behind as compensation. My dad, wanting to just be done with them, agreed. So when my dad finally gets the house,

of course the place is a mess and none of their furniture is left behind, including the furniture that belonged to my dad in the first place. The two sofas that my dad owned were left behind, but they were trashed and left in the shed. When my dad confronted them asking for them to pay up the full amount that the furniture was worth, he was met with the promise of payment after two weeks, which he didn't believe. And when he requested they pay earlier, he was met with good luck getting your money, followed by laughing emojis. This made my dad angry and he decided that he wasn't going to let this slide. My dad knew that the tenant was a Christian pastor of a church and his son also had some job related to the church. My dad contacted the church and explained

everything from how they hadn't paid him rent money to stealing the furniture and trashing the place. The church was somewhat interested about this behavior. The next day, my dad gets an angry phone call from the tenant's son, cursing at him and asking him what he thought he was doing contacting the church saying that he was being unfair. My dad hung up on him, only for this guy to try to call back 10 more times. From what we could piece together, the church had told the pastor that if he didn't settle things with my dad, then him and his son would lose their jobs. My dad received the full payment the same day and agreed to back off. My dad later said that it was never about the money, but instead about the way that

this guy treated him and his values. My dad is a Christian himself, so he was disappointed. Down in the comments we have this interesting reply from nerdgirl71. Odd. The church usually pays for the residence where I come from. I guarantee they were receiving money from the church and pocketing it. Well then in that case, Opie's dad wasn't just threatening their jobs, he was also threatening their homes.

Our next Reddit post is from Further Dimensions. My very good friend made some slightly dumb mistakes and sent some pictures to someone that she reasonably thought that she could trust, but not knowing much more than his first name, his screen name, and roughly where he lived and the type of work he did. He's not from our country, but he indicated that he would be traveling to work near us shortly and they'd made some plans to meet. And when she got some red flags and backed out, the dude threatened to publish these pictures online. I am, incidentally, an attorney.

So after searching, his online handle led me to a TikTok page, which led me to an Instagram page with his name on it. That led to a LinkedIn page with his place of work that matched a picture he sent with a branded polo that he was wearing. Some more searching got me the emails of the CEO, the VP of HR, the Operations Manager and the Public Relations Manager. I just fired off an email on behalf of my client of the screenshots of him threatening revenge P-word and snippets of the conversation showing his username while he sent that exact picture of him wearing his company's branded

apparel as well as links of how I know that it's him along with pictures that he sent her of his motorcycle with the license plate showing as further proof that it's him. I also included screenshots of him discussing a workplace incident that were time stamped along with pieces of dialogue discussing how he had intercourse with an ex at his place of work, and discussing plans to have intercourse with my friend in his office as well. I also included a picture he sent her showing his work laptop with his entire Outlook calendar, along with proprietary information. He sent us these screenshots to prove that he was busy, along with other pictures he

took of his workplace with non-consenting employees. I further informed his employer that I would be forwarding all this information to their local law enforcement. And since he had indicated that he would be traveling to the United States soon, I would also forward this to the local office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, since my client is a US citizen on US soil, and here those threats constituted a federal crime. So, if they should continue his employment and send him to the US for work, then I would

ensure on behalf of my client that federal law enforcement would be waiting for him on arrival. Which I would definitely do because one of the assistant US Attorneys for this region is a law school buddy of mine. Since I have his license plate number, I know where he lives and I'll be contacting his local authorities tomorrow. You dumb mother effer thinking you were hiding around anonymity thinking you could threaten my friends.

It took me 45 minutes to destroy your life. Stories like this are why I started this channel. God, I love a good revenge story. That was r slash pro revenge and if you like this content, be sure to follow my podcast because I put out new Reddit podcast episodes every single day.