The Last Laugh
My landlady found out that I was a renovation specialist with a lot of experience in historic renovation and water/fire/storm damage. So she asked if I would do little odds and ends around the place to fix it up, and I agreed. She would either pay for the materials I needed or she would deduct the cost of them from my rent. I did a lot for her.
For one job, I replaced ALL of the doorknobs with new knobs. Each door took about six hours to complete because I had to file, sand, paint, and reset each new knob. I also replaced and refinished the front door, refinished the concrete floor in the laundry room, did some rewiring, repaired walls, and repainted the whole place.
In the kitchen, I hung new cabinets and installed a dishwasher after adjusting the layout to accommodate it. When I moved in, the house sat empty for a year because it was in such rough shape. When I moved out, the place was awesome. So nice, in fact, that my landlady was able to charge $300 more per month than I had paid.
After I left, she was able to rent out my place in just four days. A few weeks later, I started to wonder where my deposit was since I should definitely have been getting it back. Nope. Instead, I got a letter saying that she was keeping it for some ridiculous list of reasons.
Well, I got the last laugh. So I took her to court and her argument was basically that this is how she makes money. The judge looked like he was holding back laughter as he ruled in my favor.
Story credit: Reddit / CloudMage1