'My friendly landlord had a key to my apartment. What he did with it still haunts me.'

Maria Rosey was "broke and desperate as hell", and she needed a new place to live — fast.

When she saw a tiny studio above a shop, it seemed like the perfect fit.

The landlord smiled a lot and said she'd be "like family."

Something about his vibe didn't sit quite right with Maria, but the apartment was safe and cheap in an area known for soaring rents.

She wasn't exactly in a position to complain.

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Looking back, it should have been her first red flag.

But Maria wouldn't understand why until she started noticing things — small things that didn't quite add up.

After finishing a shift, Maria came home and stopped dead in her hallway.

"The first time I came home and found my stuff moved around, I thought maybe I was going crazy," she said.

Maybe she'd just forgotten how she'd left the place… But she couldn't shake the feeling that it was something else.

She was right.

"There were muddy footprints on my carpet that weren't mine," Maria said.

Another time, Maria noticed her dresser drawers had been rifled through.

"The whole thing really hit me when I'd dragged myself home after brutal shifts at the restaurant," she recalled.

"There, [he] would be, already inside my apartment.

"He'd be 'fixing' stuff that worked perfectly fine and going through my mail like he owned the place.

"Knowing this creep had a key and just waltzed in whenever he felt like it? That scared the crap out of me."

The stress took its toll.

"Honestly, it nearly broke me," Maria said.

"I was constantly on edge, never knowing if I'd come home to find [him] rifling through my stuff again.

"Those 6am texts about my water usage, all his gaslighting — it messed with my head big time.

"I felt unsafe in what was supposed to be my sanctuary."

Fed up, Maria changed the locks. But her fight with her landlord was only just beginning.

"He yelled about property damage and said he'd kick me out," she said.

After a few months, Maria's heat stopped working — smack bang in the middle of winter.

"Every time I called him, he said, 'Maybe next week' or 'I'll get to it when I can'," Maria recalled.

The chill was "like hell on Earth".

"I was sleeping in two sweaters, my winter coat, and wool socks every single night," she said.

"I could literally see my breath when I woke up. His brilliant solution? Some piece-of-junk space heater thatkilled the power every time I tried to heat leftovers."

At first, Maria felt trapped, unsure of how to get out of the situation when she couldn't afford another rental and wasn't sure if her landlord would give her her bond back.

A friend told her to document everything.

"So that's exactly what I did," Maria said.

"I took pictures, printed out [his] insane text messages, and even started recording our conversations. Having all that proof? It made me feel like I could actually fight (him)."

When Maria moved out, her landlord kept her deposit money anyway, claiming there was "too much damage".

The damage? Water stains from a pipe that burst because he never fixed the heat, Maria said.

"I should have trusted my gut from the start," she said.

Ultimately, she decided losing the deposit was worth it to free her from him.

Today, Maria lives in a "beautiful" one-bedroom with a landlord who actually respects her boundaries. But the experience lingers.

"That whole nightmare taught me something important — I'm way tougher than I ever imagined," she said.

"And you know what? You don't have to take people's crap. There are ways to fight back and win."

Feature image: Getty. (Stock image used for illustrative purposes only).