On Unreal Estate: Losing my Stable Foundation (Apartment), I wrote about skyrocketing apartment rents and my landlord suddenly kicking me out.

At that point, I had accepted my fate. I looked at places outside my comfort zone, and nada. The hidden costs far outweighed the cheaper rent: I refuse to sleep in a place infested with roaches, I don't want to camp out by the door every time I order a package, and I don't want to live so far from friends that nobody can check in on me if I need help. In the end, I decided to stay in my current area.

For the price? Yeah, I paid the premium. The new unit looks great, though. I surveyed the place, the kitchen set is dope, and the airflow feel amazing (even in Jakarta, at least at night)!

So I signed the contract. Only after having the agent revise it multiple times, of course. I nitpicked everything—because duh, it's a contract, there should be zero ambiguity or loopholes. Glad to have my proofreading skills from my competitive programming era paid off.

An Unexpected Message

Two weeks into the moving-out process—with my new contract already signed, I got a WhatsApp message from an unfamiliar number. The profile picture was the agency of the agent who had just told me I had to leave. I, of course, didn't believe it right away.

The person introduced herself as my landlord's new point of contact, asking if I was interested in extending my lease.

What.

Two weeks before I leave? Why now? Why so late? And wait, WHY IS THE UNIT AVAILABLE AGAIN?!

I had so many questions.

Still having doubts, I cross-checked the number with my previous agent. Sure enough, it was her boss.

After digging through a confusing trail of half-truths, deflections, and missing context, the real story finally unraveled. And it was ridiculous.

The Broken Telephone Game

Let’s call my original agent A, and the new agent (her boss) B.

All this time, I assumed my rental chain was simple:

Me <-> A <-> Landlord

Turns out, the actual arrangement was:

Me <-> A <-> B <-> Landlord

And here’s where it gets weirder, apparently, Agent A had resigned. In April. That was five months ago!!

She never notified me, never handed over my rental case properly, and never updated the communication chain. Honestly, if she had still handled things responsibly behind the scenes, I wouldn't even care.

Except she didn't.

She told me that my contract was ending because the landlord wanted the unit back for personal use. She presented this to me as the landlord's decision, with no indication that there was any room for negotiation.

I later learned that Agent B and the landlord had not actually made that decision.

In fact, according to what I was told, the landlord never planned to use the unit personally. It had always been an investment property intended to be rented out.

Huh.

That meant the negotiations, the stress, and the scramble to find another apartment had all happened based on information that apparently never came from the landlord in the first place.

The Meltdown

I never had any reason to question Agent A before this. I trusted her. She seemed experienced and competent. But the more I asked for factual answers, the stranger the situation became. And I asked nicely.

Instead of addressing my direct questions, she started badmouthing the agency, sharing internal drama, and even forwarding unredacted WhatsApp screenshots of conversations with other clients.

Whenever I tried to clarify simple facts, like for example, why she claimed there had been a miscommunication about extending for 2 months when I had explicitly asked for 12 months, she never answered the question.

Through the ensuing rants, another piece of the story slipped out: she and Agent B had apparently had a major falling-out. Agent A eventually acknowledged that she was supposed to propose my extension to Agent B, but because of their conflict, she never did.

Welp.

Uhh, internal office politics happen. But as a customer, that's your mess to sort out internally. If the people inside an agency are fighting, the customer shouldn't become collateral damage.

What I still don't understand is why Agent A presented the outcome as a decision from the landlord when she apparently hadn't even obtained that decision.

At that point, it wasn't just a communication failure. I had been making major decisions based on information that turned out not to have the authority behind it that I was led to believe it had. I had been confidently misinformed.

The Final Decision

Since the contract is signed and I don't want to be dragged into the mess, I chose to move out. If one person can make this much of a mess without the system catching it, then the system is also at fault.

At my new place, the setup is much cleaner:

Me <-> Verified Agent <-> Landlord

All payments go directly to the landlord, cutting out unnecessary middlemen holding rent hostage.

It cost me extra money and plenty of stress, but I want the peace of mind.

Let’s see how this goes.

I don't want to spend more time thinking about this apartment issue, please, I want to do other things...