Tenant says her landlord told her ‘nobody visits anyways’ after she changed the WiFi password
Her WiFi had an unwanted guest, and unfortunately, so did her apartment.
For this tenant, paying rent didn’t always guarantee exclusive access to her home. She learned that changing the WiFi password can also be surprisingly effective at discovering just how invested her landlord is in what happens inside her apartment.
Reddit user feifanhotpot says her landlord lives in the same building and keeps a spare key to her unit. His visits initially came with notice, but eventually, she began returning home to find things moved around despite never being told he had entered.
She finally asked him to stop showing up unannounced. In response, he allegedly called her “dramatic” and argued that it was his property, so he should be allowed to check on it whenever he wanted.
Then her landlord wanted the WiFi password
A few days later came another request. Her landlord allegedly needed the WiFi password to “check the router,” and she gave it to him. She says she then noticed her internet being used at odd hours while she wasn’t home, so she changed the password.
The landlord noticed and allegedly confronted her, complaining that she was making his job “unnecessarily difficult.” She reminded him that she was paying for the internet and offered a remarkably simple solution: if he needed legitimate access to the apartment, he could contact her.
She said she wasn’t willing to give him unrestricted access to either her WiFi or her home. She says he called her “entitled” and threatened to cancel her lease once it ended. She also says he remarked, “nobody visits anyways.”
The Mary Sue was unable to verify the Redditor’s account, and the landlord’s side is not available.
Other renters have shared similar complaints. One woman claimed a realty company sent a tour group into her apartment while she was asleep, and a man said he suspects someone entered his apartment after he found chewed gum inside.
Reddit had bigger concerns than the WiFi password
The post drew thousands of upvotes, and Redditors quickly found more alarming things to discuss than whether changing a WiFi password was rude. “Honestly, the Wi-Fi password isn’t even the main issue,” one highly upvoted commenter wrote, pointing instead to the landlord entering her apartment after she had explicitly asked him to stop showing up unannounced. Others advised her to document every visit and check the tenancy laws where she lives.
His mysterious need to “check the router” wasn’t exactly connecting with the crowd, either. Commenters questioned why a landlord needed access to internet service his tenant paid for, while others suggested checking the network for unfamiliar devices.
That observation sent the comments somewhere darker than a dispute over bandwidth. Several Redditors raised the possibility of hidden cameras and suggested she inspect the apartment, check connected devices, or install cameras of her own. There is no evidence that the landlord installed surveillance equipment, and the tenant hasn’t claimed to have found any. Still, the original question about changing the password had acquired a rather alarming list of follow-up questions.
In an update, she thanked commenters for pointing out concerns she hadn’t considered, including the possibility of a hidden camera. She had already temporarily moved in with a friend, planned to cancel her lease as soon as possible, and said she wouldn’t return alone to pack.
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