The $24,000 Raise:
Goodbye Predatory Landlords,
Hello Freedom!

I was born and raised on Florida's Treasure Coast and have called South Florida home since 2007. In nearly two decades, I can count my good rental experiences on one hand. The nightmares? I'd need two hands and a legal team to count those.

I've played the game. I've paid the deposits. I've handed over $1,800 a month for a "stunning" studio where water roared through the ceiling like a waterfall at any given moment. I've been redlined by bigoted management companies who demanded six months of bank statements because they couldn't believe a single professional "like me" actually earned the six-figure salary on my tax returns.

The Final Indignity

My most recent experience was the breaking point. I moved into a 1976 mobile home, only to discover there was no heat and no working AC. I didn't just complain — I got the receipts.

I hired licensed and certified HVAC and mold inspectors. Their reports didn't lie: no AC, no heat, and 16,000 mold spores in the master bedroom. A unit officially declared UNINHABITABLE.

While my health deteriorated and I burned through every hard-earned sick day, my landlord was busy being invasive and gossipy. I'd come home from a long day of teaching to find her car in my driveway. I'd find my mail removed from my mailbox and left on the carport — an "act of kindness" to save me 30 feet of walking, or so she claimed.

Text after text: "Fiona let me pet her." "How about I reduce the rent to $1,650? $1,750? Sorry to see you go." And through months of no AC, no heat, one message actually read: "Does the AC have heat? I can bring a space heater?" This was during a Florida winter vortex. Did she bring a space heater? Of course not. Because anyone with any degree of common sense knows a space heater is insufficient and does not meet the legal standard for habitability under Florida law.

When I finally demanded a habitable home, the mask slipped. I was treated like a runaway slave refusing to return to the plantation of no AC, no heat, and an outhouse. I was threatened with a $6,000 rent demand for the remainder of a lease on a home that was literally making me sick. She even sent a demand letter to my workplace — mockingly claiming that "a space heater is fine for freezing South Florida" and that I had "complained about the buttons from the beginning to get out of the lease."

Choosing the Car Over Predatory Landlords

I made up my mind. I am a single, six-figure earning professional with no children. I don't want to own a home in this inflated market — and never have. Nor have I ever wanted children, though I recognize the beauty of parenthood. My life is complete without them. For years, I simply wanted to pay my rent and be left alone. I tried publicly managed properties and private owners. Both have been problematic. So I am finished being a paycheck for people who won't provide the bare minimum of human decency.

I am saving $2,000 a month. I am reclaiming my health, my income, and my sanity.

Acknowledgments

I want to thank Bob Wells of CheapRVLiving, Mav, and Where is Tiffany for showing me that a vehicle isn't a "downfall" — car living is freedom.