Last November I get a knock on the door of my "newly renovated" basement appartment from the fire department saying I'm living in an illegal apartment and will be evicted in 3 months if the landlord doesn't get the place up to code. Landlord kicks me and my girlfriend out in february for "just two weeks, but we'll say three just to be safe". I ask if i have to move out ny furniture, and he says "no, theyll just work around it."

I then spent 7 weeks living illegally in my buddy's basement 30 mins away, paying rent, and commuting to work. Finally, in April, landlord gives me the ok to move back in, saying the place looks great.

When I got back, the entire place was filthy. There was thick drywall dust on every surface, paintcans, tools, and garbage in every nook, and paint splattered on the floor, windows, and all of my furniture including the matress. Some of my wooden furniture had scratches in it, and the shoe rack and shower curtain were destroyed.

I argued with him for days. He gave me $150 for cleaning and damages, then upped rent by $100/month because the "apartment is so much better now".

I never actually met him, but we nearly ended up taking him to court. We complained about a ton of broken things that he would never fix. When they did get fixed, it was by the unqualified worker that he hired from the Home Depot parking lot (no offense to those guys, but they didn't fix our roof correctly).

Being college kids, we go to the free legal council out university offered, hoping we had some options to get things fixed. The lawyer found out that the house we were renting had been foreclosed on 2 months prior and the bank owned it now. Extremely pissed off, we decided to stop paying rent to this guy while we got our things in order (we never did get our two months rent back from when he didn't own the house).

About 6 weeks later, he comes by the house furious that we hadn't paid rent in over a month. My roommate simply said, "We aren't paying you anymore, get the hell off this property." This pissed him off even more and he started threatening my roommate until my roommate said, "We know you don't own this place anymore and we are going to sue you for the money you stole from us." He shut up at this point and left, never to be heard from again. We didn't sue him because each of us were only out like $600 dollars (rent was stupid cheap for 4 college kids in a big city).

We made a deal with the bank to pay them the same rent we had been paying in order to stay until graduation in May. We were also responsible for cleaning up the yard and they would get someone out there to fix a few big issues (roof and plumbing) since they were going to sell the house anyway. We held up our end and enjoyed our last few months of college without a [bad] landlord.

It was an apartment complex, but this one stands out still.

They didn't pay the power.

Not, "they forgot to pay the power." Not, "they were in financial trouble." They just wanted to see if they could call the power company's bluff.

The power company locked half the breakers in every building.

I dunno if you've ever seen a riot take shape, but try cutting off the AC and refrigeration for a few dozen Alabamians in the middle of June in a heat wave.

While deployed, my wife remained at our home in Texas. The A/C broke in the middle of summer. They told her that the temperature wasn't hot enough to constitute a repair. When she showed them pictures of the thermostat reading over 100 degrees indoor they finally said that they would send a repairman but that I needed to be there because I was the primary name on the lease although she had power of attorney. I threatened to sue. A/C was eventually Jerry-rigged (the repair guy told her that he was paid to do the bare minimum fix) near the end of summer.

Fast forward. I'm home, it's getting hot again, and the A/C breaks again. Same story as before claiming it wasn't hot enough. This dragged on for awhile and I finally had orders to move to a new duty station. Gave them 30 days notice and moved out. They tried to tell me that I couldn't leave the home with a broken air conditioner and wouldn't honor my military orders, I had to pay to fix the A/C, and wouldn't get my deposit back. I once again threatened to sue and contacted the actual owner of the house. He was a cool dude living in New York and said he'd take care of it for me. He flew all the way to see me in Texas, fired the property managers, sued them himself, said I was actually the cleanest/most respectable tenant he's had, and eventually paid me double my deposit for my troubles. Nice guy.

Land lord found out I was a renovation specialist. With a long background in historic renovation and water/fire/storm damage. Asked if I would do little odds and ends around the place to fix it up. Took it off the rent or paid for materials to do the work. I did a lot for her. Refinished the concrete floor in the laundry room, replace ALL door knobs with new style knobs. (They were the old slide in glass knobs, so each door took about 6 hours to complete. Because of wood filling, sanding, and painting then resetting the new knobs.) Replaced the front door. Repaired walls all over and repainted the whole place. Hung new cabinets and installed a new dish washer after somewhat redesigning the kitchen to accommodate the dishwasher. Refinished the ancient front entry door. Rewired a few problem outlets/lights and switches.

When I moved in the place sat for a year empty. It was in rough shape. When I moved out the place was awesome. So nice on fact it rented out for 300$ more a month then I had rented it for. It also rented out 4 days after I moved out. She did not have to do anything to move a new family in.

So few weeks go by and I'm starting to wonder where my deposit is. Clearly I should be getting that back. Nope. Got a letter in the mail say she was keeping it because of a [nonsensical] list of stuff. So I took her to court and won. Her argument was basically that this is how she makes money. It's her only income. Judge looked like her was holding back laughter before he ruled in my favor.

One apartment I rented had on the lease that they paid water and sewer. 3 months in the water was cut off because they did not pay it and they insisted that it was a mistake to put it on the lease and I needed to pay it. I ended up having to pay for the water and sewer but then when I moved out they billed me $1500 for breach of contract.

Seems the clause in the contract stated "In the event of a breach of contract the renter will be liable for a $1500 breach of contract fee." When I pointed out they were the ones in breach of contract they replied "The clause has nothing to do with who breached the contract, it only states that you are responsible for the breach of contract fee."

Not a police officer, but the person they talked to. I had just finished a cooking class and my husband was waiting for me. It was 9:30 at night and the parking for the class was in a back alley. Before we left, the officers turned on their lights and asked for identification and registration. They said, in their system, our plates were registered to a green vehicle (ours was white). They let us go on our way since the registration was all correct, but told us to talk to the DMV and get it cleared up.

The next day I went to the DMV and they said that the only car with those plates was our current vehicle.

Best we can figure is that we purchased this car in September and in August, our DMV had switched to a new computer system. So on the old system, was registered to our old vehicle. On the new system, they were registered to the new vehicle. And the police were still looking at the old system (this was in February, so 6 months after the switch over). I have to wonder how many other people they had incorrect vehicle information on.

Once again, not a police officer. I was on the receiving end.

I'd been at a small bar listening to some live music with a friend. We leave a couple hours later, and less than a mile from the bar I get pulled over. No big deal. I pull into a circular driveway and then I get scared. No fewer than 4 police cars surrounded us. Two behind and two in front. They come to both sides and leave a number of officers at our windows while they run our licenses.

See, earlier, in between sets, a lady got on stage and warned any women there not to walk home or accept rides from strangers. Apparently, there had been a number of abductions in the area. My friend and I ignored it. We were not alone and we were not women.

Finally, the cops give us our identification back and tell us we matched the description of the abductors. Didn't say how they determined it wasn't us, but apologized and sent us on our way.

It wasn't until the next day we realized just how bad that could have been.

Obligatory Not a Cop Butttt... One day I was on the way home, and I noticed the police helicopter flying overhead. I lived in a big city at the time so I thought nothing of it until I was blocked in by two police officers...

Someone in an SUV very similar to mine had been trying to lure children at a school nearby, and was considered a dangerous offender due to previous convictions. They thought they had their guy, but all they had that day was a very pregnant and bewildered white girl in an SUV with her ice cream. The one officer came to my window with his hand on his gun and asked me If I knew anything about someone luring children in my Jeep that day and I looked at him in bewilderment (I have a panic disorder, hopefully that explains my reaction) and blurted our “I have two under five and one right here, why do I want someone else’s for?!” Luckily they let me go after telling me what to keep an eye out for, I can laugh about it now.

Dispatcher here. I got 2 stories.

1, I get a call from another county not so close to us asking about a stolen license plate or car (I can't remember which). I ran what they had and it came back stolen and reported with our agency. The officer says they are out with the car and the registered owner and they swear they've never reported anything stolen and have never been to our county. Long story short, we entered it with a typo because the dispatcher wrote out the entry log first (handwritten) and then went to the NCIC terminal and entered it based on their log entry. They couldn't read their own handwriting and replaced a U and a V in the tag. What's worse is that we 2nd and 3rd party check all entries. So that's another experienced dispatcher and the shift supervisor checking off on this entry. Of course no one got into trouble for this.

2, the story goes that we received a warrant confirmation request from another agency and we confirmed the warrant based on the request. Turns out, the other agency stopped out with a kid and ran them by name. Their name was similar to someone with a warrant in our county. When their dispatcher sent the confirmation request, they used the info from our warrant entry to ask if we had a warrant on that person. Well, of course we do, what kind of stupid question is that? For those wondering, you are supposed to send the request using the info your officer gives you. If they did that, we probably would have spotted the error. So this kid that's never been to our county and has never been in trouble his entire life was picked up on a warrant on Friday that wasn't his and held in that jail until Monday because it was a No Bond warrant and had to wait to see a judge. Kid's father finds out who confirmed the warrant on our side and starts harassing her on facebook. That was fun.

Well like many other posts I’m not a PO but I did get felony stopped while on Las Vegas blvd. I left work pulled out of the parking garage and turned right on Tropicana. I then see lights behind me and start to pullover thinking it was an emergency vehicle. I am then surrounded by police with guns drawn. This was like midnight on the strip so it was intense. Police make get out walk backwards with my hands on my head. They cuff me and tear into my car almost immediately.

Long story short it was another mustang with out of state tags involved in a robbery. That was an intense evening.

Not a police officer, but one night around 8 pm my fiance recieved a call:

Officer: Derek, we have you health card. Tell us your whereabouts right now.
Fiance: this isn't Derek...
O: You sound like Derek. Your buddies ratted you out and gave us your number. Now where are you?
F: I'm not Derek and I'm not telling you where I am. Who are you?
O: this is Officer Smith. Stop messing around and tell us your location, Derek.
F: Again, Derek is not my name. How do I know your a real officer?
O: Boy, if you don't tell me where you are, your going to be in much more trouble. My badge number is *blank*.
F: ok fine, I'm at home at *blank*. If you don't show up in a police car, I'm not coming out.

He hung up the phone, dialed 911 cause we live in a bad area and wasn't sure if this was a fake call or not. Operator verifies that it was a correct badge number. The officer called back. He apparently misdialed by one number. He apologized, but still blamed my fiance because "you were being very defensive and sounded guilty.".

Obligatory "Not a Cop". A few years ago, my husband and I were having a lazy Sunday morning, making pancakes, blasting music, having a good time. There's a really loud banging on the door, and I rush over to answer it, thinking someone must have knocked a couple times before we heard it, and open it up to 4 police officers who push into our kitchen.

Two of them grab my husband and start telling him that he's being placed under arrest for a hit and run accident that took place in a city almost 2 hours away. Freaking out, my husband explains to the police that he was at work all night, and just got home about an hour before that. He must have been really convincing, because two officers sat at our kitchen table with us, while the other two went outside to call my husband's workplace to confirm his story.

Turns out, a car that we had sold about a year before that was involved in an accident that hit 3 parked cars, and a woman the night prior (woman had minor injuries, thankfully), but the driver was nowhere to be found. There was a clear video of our old car smashing into parked cars, hitting pedestrian, and a man jumping out of it shortly afterwards. When the police found the abandoned car and ran the VIN, it lead them to our house.

In Ontario when you sell a vehicle, you're supposed to bring a slip into the Service Ontario centre to prove that the ownership has transferred, but, it's not really enforced, and there's no penalties for not doing it, because the person purchasing the vehicle needs to do the same (to get plates, stickers, insurance etc). Obviously, and stupidly, we did not do this.

Cops came back in, apologized for the mistake, gave us a halfhearted lecture about properly switching ownerships, and left. The jerk that was actually driving the car was caught the next day, an officer called my husband to tell him, and made a joke about us having to pay any impound fees.

Not a police officer but a "wrong person"

I was sitting in my apartment, girlfriend was in the shower, I heard knocking on the door and ignored it... heard a knock again, looked out the window, nothing... then came the cop knock. So I get up and open the door, two cops with guns drawn were hiding behind the door frames, and asked me to put my hands up. I comply. They ask, "are you here with your girlfriend?" I am super confused but I say yes, because I am.

They storm in and cuff me, about this time the girlfriend comes out of the shower, sees me handcuffed and is understandably pissed.

The whole time I am asking what is going on and saying I think there has been a mistake.

Then the cop points out the door to an old guy and asks "is this not your dad?" It wasn't and I said "No, what is going on?"

The cops look at the old guy and he stumbles saying "uhhh. No. No, that is not my son."

The cops turned white. They were super embarrassed and they left quickly.

A couple hours later one of the cops comes back and apologizes, apparently that old dude got a phone call from his estranged son saying he had a gun and was going to shoot his girlfriend... don't know what came of that but it wasn't me and that dad apparently didn't even know where his son lived.

Crazy day.

Then I went and got some tacos and a margarita.

Not a police officer, but I’m in a class called “wildlife law enforcement” which is taught by a game warden. They have police powers and can be called in if backup is needed.

My teacher is a great dude and he loves stories. Anyways, My local police force has a way of capturing people with outstanding warrants that may or may not be common. What they do is send a letter to the perp saying they “won a price” from the city. Apparently however they deliver this makes it seem very legit. To receive your prize you have to go to the community center at a certain date and time, then the police get you after you sign in for your prize.

So in my city they set up this and sent a letter to a particular man with a very recognizable name. The day of the “prize claiming” this very large old man comes in, and is soon fighting against 3 officers in this community center claiming. He fought pretty hard thinking he was being jumped, but of course got cuffed and stuffed in the back of a squad car. The issue? They didn’t check the important detail of AGE. They captured Senior when JR was the one with the warrant. They assumed because of this man’s very recognizable name that there could only be one.

Obligatory “not a police officer, but..” I travel frequently across the Canada/US border, sometimes by bus. On one bus trip, the whole bus was held up by one woman, who was pulled back to be interrogated. An hour later, she gets back on the bus, announcing that there was a person on the most wanted list with her same name. HOWEVER that person was a 5’4 white male, and she was a relatively tall (probably 5’10?) black woman. It took them an hour of interrogating her to realize they had the wrong person🤦‍♀️.