'My heart dropped': Renter asks for toilet fix, landlord installs carpet squares with nails

A renter in the US has arrived home to an unexpected sight after raising a repair concern with their landlord.

The tenant, who lives in Massachusetts did not reveal their identity, detailed how they spoke with their landlord about an issue in their bathroom.

The issue centred on the toilet being uneven.

“Told my landlord the toilet wasn’t levelled,” the renter wrote in a post to Reddit.

“Came home from work to carpet installed on my floor.”

The renter then posted a photo of the bathroom and the area of the floor which had been carpeted with a series of fabric squares.

The mess of squares immediately caught the attention of other social media users.

“What in the name of indoor moss cultivation station is going on here?” one person wrote.

“Carpet samples instead of real carpet (for a bathroom),” a second person wrote.

“This should be illegal,” yet another person wrote.

The renter also shared their disappointment at the sight.

“My heart dropped when I saw it. Honestly, it felt like a nightmare. I was just really confused,” they wrote.

The renter also revealed the carpet was “stuffed under the toilet”.

“That’s what levelled it. Instead of fixing the floor itself, I guess,” they wrote.

They then shared that the carpet was nailed to the bathroom’s existing tile flooring.

“There is now holes straight through down to the subfloor where water will seep into when this carpet gets saturated,” the renter wrote.

“He doesn’t believe me and thinks I’m just being difficult. Says he did a good job on it.”

Many found this admission bizarre.

“You’d think he would be concerned about the potential water damage in the future,” one person wrote.

The renter agreed, but suggested that idea didn’t cross the landlord’s mind.

“His wife said: ‘maybe dry off in the shower’. I’m not joking about any of this,” the renter wrote.

The renter said in the more than five years living at the property the uneven bathroom floor was the only issue he has raised with the landlord. It’s likely to be the last thing he shares.

“He constantly asks me if anything needs attention. That’s all I could think of at the moment and he did this. So I won’t be saying much anymore,” they added.

Rental repairs have been a concern closer to home of late.

Last month, data from Finder, Australia’s leading comparison site, revealed tenants in Australia are experiencing significant delays linked to leaks, broken appliances and mould.

In fact, some renters across the country are facing up to a year waiting times for their landlords to address urgent repairs.

“It’s unacceptable that so many people are forced to live with problems like mould and water leaks for months, or even years on end,” Finder home loans expert Richard Whitten said in a statement.

Conversely, just over half (56 per cent) of Australian renters said they have not had to wait to get an issue fixed. Though, landlords themselves admit to dragging their feet.

A Finder survey of 148 landlords found 2 in 5 (38 per cent) have had a tenant wait longer than is reasonable for a repair in the last year.

READ MORE: The ultimate guide to renting