I Didn’t Put Much Thought Into It
I lived in a studio apartment above a bar in a downtown area. I had friends who had lived in that building for years, and I was pretty excited to move in. Everything was fine for the first six months, but then I started to have this strange feeling. Almost like the place was haunted. Things would end up in odd places, and I would sometimes see black shadows out of the corner of my eye.
I didn’t put much thought into it until one night when I suddenly saw a few shadowy movements in the kitchen area. I watched as the shadows tipped over my garbage can and turned on the light. They were rats! And not the cute, little ones that I used to have as pets, either. These were massive, mean-looking “don’t mess with me” rats.
From that moment on, they stopped lurking in the shadows and became extremely gutsy—until it reached a terrifying turning point. I woke up one night to find a giant rat sitting on my chest, staring me down. I turned on the light and it didn’t even flinch! I complained to the landlord every day for a week, but he claimed that there hadn’t been any other reports of rats in the building.
The rats were getting progressively more aggressive. They even tore out sections of carpet, which created a terrifying whack-a-mole type of scenario. They would pop out, take something, disappear, and then reappear on the opposite side of the room. I provided pictures of all the damage, but the landlord just shrugged it off and told me he had taken care of it.
I brought a friend over to show him how terrible it was, and when I jokingly opened the kitchen cupboards with a dramatic flourish. Big mistake. A literal squirming pile of massive rats came pouring out. That was the moment I walked. My landlord didn’t care that I was moving since I had a month-to-month agreement anyway.
I tried to get a prorated refund for the remainder of that month’s rent with my deposit. They happily gave me one…after deducting the damages to the apartment. I had to pay for new carpeting, patching the holes that were chewed in the wall, and infestation control, even though I know the owner just sent his son to go look at it.
At the time, I was just so happy to be out of there, that I didn’t care about how much I had to pay, or that I had to replace a lot of my stuff that had been torn apart.
Story credit: Reddit / 00ttt00