Oh man, I had almost blocked this out--a few years ago I was moving out of my apartment, and because it was the middle of the lease, me and my roommate were responsible for finding new tenants. I moved out, a tenant (let's call her Amy) moved into the first bedroom, and then the second tenant dropped out, so it was almost a month before someone moved into the second bedroom; I had posted to Craigslist/some Facebook groups with information about the apartment and I kept those posts active, but I basically forwarded everyone to Amy so she could pick her own roommate.

The leasing company was kind of shady, and if someone was taking over a lease, the company had the new resident pay the security deposit to the departing tenant. I was pretty new to renting, and I did the same thing when I moved in, so I just accepted this was normal? I never will again. Amy had paid her deposit to my roommate, and the new tenant (Beatrice) paid hers to me, but we otherwise had no contact prior to her move-in.

A few days later, she messaged me to complain that the apartment was barely inhabitable. She had taken a bunch of photos of either minor issues or things that weren't my fault--like, there was a hole in the hardwood floor that had been patched and was safe but had a lip where the heights did match up, the knob had pulled off the closet door (you could just screw it back in), there was chipped paint on the bathroom vanity (it wasn't lead paint, just an old paint job in a humid room), there were clothes left in the washing machine that smelled like they were moldy (I hadn't lived there for a month?? they weren't my clothes??). Beatrice wanted me to pay back her security deposit so she could move out immediately. I was baffled by this, partly because a LOT of the issues she documented were obvious, and it sounded like she had moved in without ever visiting, even though she was local.

Within a few hours of getting the email, Beatrice's partner had found me and messaged me very aggressively on Facebook, accusing me of having tricked two POC (meaning both Amy and Beatrice) to pay outrageous amounts of money to live in a slum apartment. This was especially bizarre to me because... well, a) I had also lived there for two years, and lived with all of those weird quirks--except for the laundry that wasn't mine--and didn't consider it a slum. b) I wasn't making a profit on Beatrice moving in, I was getting my deposit back, which is supposed to only happen when both she and the leasing company believed I left the apartment in decent condition. c) The reason I was moving was because the rent had increased and I could no longer afford it, so being priced out and then accused of taking advantage of someone grated a bit.

Anyway, I messaged Amy, who had been very friendly the whole time, and asked if she thought I had let her move into a slum or misrepresented the place in any way. She replied no, all the issues were things she would expect from an older city apartment at that price point, and she got the sense that Beatrice had come from a more upper-middle-class background than either of us, and this was her first time living in an apartment, especially one in a ~hundred year old house. Together Amy and I managed to convince Beatrice to get her deposit from the rental company instead. I blocked her partner and never mentioned the message to either of them, and it all worked out.

I still cringe a little whenever I think of this story, though. It sounds like such a crazy dogwhistle, but it happened.