Her TikTok Video Prompted Real Conversations About The Lack Of Freedom You Have While Renting An Apartment
Renting an apartment used to be an affordable alternative to owning a home. However, the average cost of rent nationwide has soared in recent years.
Even since January of 2021, rent prices have jumped an astounding sixteen percent.
What’s worse is that apartment-dwellers often have to battle their landlord in order to transform their space from “housing” into a “home.”
One woman named Naomi Winders recently went viral on TikTok after sharing a voicemail from her landlord that parallels this sentiment. The landlord took issue with her minimal patio decorations.
“Hi Naomi, we’re calling you from Outlook Apartments. Could you please give us a call back when you get a chance? We would like to speak to you regarding a couple of items on your patio,” the voicemail said.
After sharing the audio clip, Naomi then showed a photo of her patio– which featured a decorative skeleton riding a bicycle.
“What could they have a problem with?” Naomi asked her TikTok followers.
Her video reached 1.2 million people and raked in nearly eighty-thousand likes. Most commenters also related to Naomi’s experience and described their hatred toward these all-too-common renting rules.
TikTok; pictured above is Naomi
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“You pay for the space. I don’t understand. As long as they [decorations] are not hate…or something, why would anyone care?” inquired one user.
“Seriously, living in an apartment is soul-crushing. Every aspect of your home life is controlled,” said another user.
“A minimum wage job never forced me to better my life. But apartment living sure did. Never again do I want a landlord or shared walls,” wrote a third.
TikTok; pictured above are Naomi’s decorations
Numerous TikTokers also begged Naomi for a follow-up video. There, she gave a disclaimer about her intentions behind posting the original video and opened up about what her landlord had to say.
“Originally, I never planned to post an update because the video was pretty much just to show off my skeleton. But a lot of people took my video as me being angry at my landlord, and whole fights broke out in the comments,” Naomi began.
“In no way was I complaining, though. I love my apartment, and I love my landlord,” Naomi continued.
And, what her landlord had to say about her patio decor was not what most of her commenters would expect.
“They said they found it very funny; they loved it. But, in my contract, it does say that I can only keep plants and patio furniture on my porch,” Naomi explained.
“I was fine with it, so now it’s a skeleton in my closet,” she joked.
Despite Naomi’s positive attitude toward the whole situation, the apartment-living conversations that her video spurred reflect real issues in the rental space.
If you have rented an apartment before, how was your experience? Do you believe renters should have more freedom to decorate their space as they please?
To watch the original TikTok video, visit the link here.
@naomiwinders What could they have a problem with? #apartment #landlord #voicemail
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