Expecting a rented space to be clean of an owner’s junk is more or less a norm, but a man in Wisconsin discovered that’s not always the case. Several weeks passed after he had started renting a storage unit; upon arrival to lock it, he was surprised to find the space filled with broken building materials. Months later, the landlord called and asked the renter if anything was inside the storage room, to which he said, “There was some junk in the unit, and I disposed of it.” The owner then sued the man for $8K for removing their “personal property.”
“I didn’t feel like I was doing anything wrong throwing away some junk, but now I am worried what is going to happen,” the Wisconsin man anxiously wrote in his post on r/legaladvice. “Calling the junk I found personal property seems like a stretch to me, but maybe legally it was,” he continued. A ‘Request to Admit or Deny’ was sent to him by the owner, claiming he should confess to failing to secure the unit immediately and for removing personal property without notifying the landlord.
“Am I the only one who thinks this may be some sort of scam?” questions a commenter, with hundreds of others upvoting in agreement. “100% scam,” another user replied, claiming that the Wisconsin landlord rented a storage unit only to sue the lessee for removing “imaginary things” they left in the room. One Reddit user said what we’re all thinking: “The person who rented you the unit is responsible to ensure it’s clean and free for use.”
Some suspect the owner might have had actual items in the storage unit, but they were stolen or damaged. The reason is that OP said the unit was unlocked when he first examined it. “It seems like they messed up and are trying to make me liable,” he remarked. The small claims of $8K the owner is attempting to sue for doesn’t exactly make sense either since “Wisconsin small claims threshold is $10,000,” as one user points out.
Hopefully, the renter can get out of this bizarre situation without paying this fishy owner any of the $8K. After all, the top comment states that, according to Wisconsin Abandoned Property Self-Storage Law, “the landlord has a lot of hoops to jump through that he didn’t.”
