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My Landlord Threatened Me

Written by The Landlord on 21 Sep 2011

Threatening to kick After soaking up a report about a landlord that threatened his tenants I’ve been left thoroughly amused. Now, you may think being threatened isn’t anything to be entertained by. Normally i’d agree, and even more so if I was the victim. However, taking into consideration the content of the landlord’s threat and the fact the landlord is a fully grown adult, it became easy to allow the situation to slip into a comic sketch rather than a dilemma.

I’ve read a few different reports covering the same story, and they’ve all been written with the same dull edge, with complete disregard to the comic value. Either my sense of humour is totally off the mark (which i’ll tell you right now, is positively impossible) or those reporters are just straight up ‘booshy’ (Urban Dictionary ‘word of the day’).

Landlord threatens tenant

Mark Fortune, 42, a very successfully landlord in Edinburgh, lost his temper after his tenants fixed a broken lock and a shower, and then asked him to pay the £160 repair bill. Mark’s natural instinct lead him to shout and swear, threatening to kick one of the tenants. He then heightened the level of his threat by saying, “You go and find out who my friends are, OK? Three of them have just been locked up for shooting somebody.”

Weird. You’re all thinking what I’m thinking, right? Exactly how stupid are his friends? Surely only one of them needed to shoot. I’m assuming the process of shooting the poor somebody was over-engineered by breaking it down into three tasks. One held, the other aimed, and the one with the long straw got to pull the trigger. Anyways, I digress, I’m no hitman.

The last time I threatened to kick someone was when I was 8 years old. My class-mate stole my crowned champion conker that I had preserved in a bottle of vinegar for over 2 weeks. It had 12 victories under its belt. Needless to say, my adolescent mind was livid. But long gone are those days. I can’t even remember the last time I heard someone threaten to “kick” someone else.

If that wasn’t premature enough, Mark dug deep into his bag of arsenal and pulled out ghetto variations of two classic threats we all grew up on as children, but Mark managed to strategically merge them together, resulting in, “Do you know who I am? My friends are bigger than yours” All Mark really said was, “I have three very stupid friends. Combined together, they managed to collect enough braincells to pull a trigger”

I’m not disputing Mark’s incentive for getting aggravated. I can definitely see where he’s coming from. However, let’s be adults. Even temporarily hijacking the mindset of a teenager going through puberty would have been a step-up.

Regardless, I thought the landlord’s antics were amusing. Perhaps the take-away from this story is to keep cool, refrain from taking the law into your own hands and acting like a premature monkey (no matter how frustrating times get).

As a result of Mark’s actions, he was taken to a small claims court, where justice was served. He was fined £650 for disturbing the peace, making threats, ~~and deceitfully impersonating a baby~~.

How to report a threatening landlord

Being threatened by your landlord is no different than being threatened by a random Joe. There is no special routes or governing bodies for tenants to go through. If your landlord is making genuine threats to the safety of your well-being, you should file a report to the police. If you want to take matters further, you can take it to a small claims court. For free legal advice, I would talk to Citizens Advice.

Tenant’s Right To Live In Quiet Enjoyment

Just like to also mention that tenants have a legal right to live in quiet enjoyment. That means landlords are NOT allowed to harass their tenants, which includes landlords requiring permission before entering the premises.

Out of curiosity, has anyone here been threatened before, either by tenant or landlord? Tell me your story. If there’s no reason to laugh, I won’t, I promise…

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3 Comments - join the conversation...

Smithy2011-09-22 19:28:23 Well if his friends have been locked up - by which I assume he means they are in prison, rather than stuck inside a house because they have mislaid their front door keys - then they are not going to be much of a threat to the tenants. 1

YesAdam2011-09-23 11:24:18 The landlord has lost his mind - threatening wont do much and his "mates" wont shoot someone over a measly £160 repair bill.

Landlords should remember this is a business and sometimes people dispute payments - This is where agents come in handy over disputes as it does not effect them significantly so can deal with it without "rage". 2

spencer2011-10-30 22:43:33 my tenant from hell has been harrassing me, he called the police on me over xxxx amount of times that i lost count with false allegations that the landlord is harrassing him, i am sorry to say but the DSS tenants are bad news, think they are untouchables and special with tooo many rights. These people are a nightmare. Beware !! 3