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.