Moving to a new place can be a scary concept, and one woman was far from encouraged after her landlord unleashed a torrent of hard-hitting information when she announced she was leaving.
Writer Caroline Moss, from Brooklyn, is planning a move to Los Angeles – an exciting opportunity a lot of people would love to take on.
LA is often portrayed as a land of glamour, often associated with celebrities, fame and fortune. Caroline’s landlord, however, immediately focused on the ‘garbage’ TV and the fact half of California is ‘burned up’.
Just what you want to hear before relocating your whole life there.
The writer shared the baffling response on Twitter, explaining she’d informed her landlord of her move and describing his response – sarcastically – as ‘very supportive’.
To be fair, the landlord’s message started out on a positive note as he wrote:
Hi Caroline sorry to hear we are losing you. Glad to hear you are getting a good opportunity.
The mood slowly started to shift after those two sentences, though there was still an air of good nature surrounding his words as he suggested Caroline could be the one to create ‘something watchable for TV’. The rest of the shows, bar ‘a handful’, are pure trash, according to him.
The landlord then turned his attention to more pressing matters; namely who he’d be getting his rent from. While he was probably just voicing his concerns, his comments seemed to be a slight dig at Caroline as he told her: ‘this will be a terrible time to rent so we need to start [advertising] early’.
He then apparently decided to try his luck by asking Caroline to delay her move until March, writing:
The only problem is the time of year. If you could make it March 31, [it would] be a lot better.
Given the fact March is five months away, Caroline probably wouldn’t have complied with this, so the landlord then seemed to revert to scare tactics.
As you may already know, California is currently struggling with numerous wildfires. Thousands of Los Angeles residents have been forced to evacuate and flames spread across more than 500 acres in just one day after the fires broke out on Monday, October 28.
The situation is dire and tragic; one Caroline’s landlord summed up with the simple phrase: ‘FYI, half of Calif [sic] is burned up’. He went on to say that the other half is ‘ready to go’ but while it ‘used to be a beautiful place’ it now resembles the ‘gates of hell’.
Now if that didn’t get the writer excited for her move, I don’t know what would.
The landlord’s message ended abruptly on that dark note, no doubt leaving Caroline with mixed emotions.
Her Twitter followers were quick to comment on the lengthy text, with one pointing out the message ‘builds you up then tears you down, again and again’.
Another commended the text for being ‘full of insightful analysis and useful climate news’, though another admitted: ‘This is giving me a panic attack and he’s not even my landlord’.
Hopefully Caroline won’t have been put off by the rollercoaster of a message, though it’s clear her landlord wouldn’t mind her sticking around – especially if it’s until March 31.
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Emily Brown first began delivering important news stories aged just 13, when she launched her career with a paper round. She graduated with a BA Hons in English Language in the Media from Lancaster University, and went on to become a freelance writer and blogger. Emily contributed to The Sunday Times Travel Magazine and Student Problems before becoming a journalist at UNILAD, where she works on breaking news as well as longer form features.