Sometimes it is not about personal gain but making sure that any unfair gains are worthless.

How does smearing marmite make the unfair gain worthless? It might make you feel smug for a few hours, but if your enemy is vindictive, it could be used against you.

The best move is to avoid playing the game.

I just asked my other half how she was feeling about it after 16 years and she laughed so clearly petty justice has a lasting effect.

I think the person in question would be in vastly larger amounts of trouble for even raising his head above the cesspool he floated in for a moment. It would be like a chase from the Benny Hill show with local housing enforcement, HMRC, the police and a trail of angry and abused tenants.

The best move is making the game worthless so there are no winners. Shit on the board. It's a stalemate then.

That is not just "an asshole". That is criminal.

It probably felt good though!

If you prioritise the short term over the long term, then yes.

I think the sibling comment demonstrates that it is was long term benefit.

Only a long term benefit in hindsight. Could have gone any number of ways.

Unlikely. There was some intelligence behind it. He was aware the locks had been changed as I explained his in an SMS so I did what he asked explicitly. Secondly I could apologise for the mistake of leaving the wrong keys inside the property. As for the marmite, some kid did a prank! Ooops. Based on the police's previous attitude, would they likely come out for a bit of marmite in a letterbox.

The put the keys through the letterbox thing was actually a masterpiece of idiocy on his part which I refrained from mentioning to him.

> Only a long term benefit in hindsight. Could have gone any number of ways.

Isn't every long-term benefit long-term only in hindsight?

Well it seemed like there were zero long term consequences. So it worked out.

I think you need to read my post again, I'm not talking about real ethics or so-called Christian ethics. I'm talking about doing what's in your selfish best interest. Put simply, don't do things that can be used against you by your enemy.

Maybe it's my hyper-legal American sentiments (pardon the joke at the expense of America's litigious culture, if that's not your particular breed of sardonic humor), but I'm in full agreement here and a little surprised at some of the comments waving this off as anything other than something that would result in justifiable legal-reprisal, if the landlord really wanted to mess with people.

But again, that's probably (very most likely) just the result of me existing in a hyper-litigious culture where In pari delicto is very much a thing.

Right, but now he's telling his mates about how his absolute arsehole of a tenant spread marmite on his letterbox for no reason whatsoever. He still has a story, except this one just makes tenants look evil.

Yeah, but let’s be honest - if he does mention the deposit though - his mates will quickly understand why the marmite ended in his letterbox.

So in the end we’re not giving any ideas to other people that their actions will have no repercussions.