When Your Friend Becomes Your Landlord

"What that became, in practice, was closer to psychic warfare. "We both tried to leverage the fact that we're supposed to be friends," Henry said. "I'd use it against him all the time: 'Come on, dude, what are you talking about?' And he'd do the same thing to me.""

"Take, for example, the time Henry and his fiancé fostered a dog without asking Reid first: "I was like, 'He is not going to evict us for having a dog.'" Reid didn't, but he also didn't find out about the dog until he inspected the place after Henry moved out. Since there was dog-related damage, Reid announced he was keeping the entire security deposit. Henry haggled him down. (They agreed to $900 over claw marks on a door.)"

""We both got away with taking advantage of the situation," said Henry, who was still surprised at his friend's reaction when he broke the news that he was leaving New York. "I felt bad telling him," Henry said. "But he was like, 'Nice. That sounds great. I'm going to charge someone else way more for this.'""

Henry rented a renovated Bushwick one-bedroom from his friend Reid without a formal lease, attracted by low cost and no broker fee. The informal arrangement invited mutual leverage and petty conflicts as both parties treated friend status as bargaining power. A fostered dog caused damage discovered only after move-out, prompting Reid to withhold the entire deposit and negotiate a partial refund for repair costs. Henry ultimately left, surprised that Reid planned to raise the rent for the next tenant. The situation illustrates how informal roommate or sublet agreements can produce strain and financial disputes despite initial goodwill.

Read at Curbed