TAMPA, Fla. — A Tampa man thought he found the perfect place in Channelside for an apartment. But after two years of living there, he's being told to leave because of posts in a Facebook group.
10 Tampa Bay spoke with the man who says he doesn't feel welcome at his home. Robert Dressler is sick of how his landlord treats him and other residents.
“They make me feel like some kind of middle school kid,” he says.
He lives at The Slade at Channelside, but soon he'll be living somewhere else: He’s being kicked out at the end of his lease.
“The location here is amazing,” he says. “I'm just so settled in.”
He loves the neighborhood's proximity to the Tampa Riverwalk, restaurants, and other amenities and was shocked when his landlord sent him a non-renewal notice.
“I asked them why,” he tells 10 Tampa Bay. “They had said it's because of the negative energy you create in a Facebook group and lies and misleading claims.”
Dressler created a Facebook group when he first moved in to offer a marketplace for residents. But they now use the group to make repeated complaints about doors that don't lock, fruit flies coming through drains and dog droppings in the hallways, a 10 Tampa Bay review found.
In an email exchange Dressler gave us, the property manager says he “fostered a negative environment for the building… detoured (sic) prospects from renting… and made multiple false and misleading claims about the building.”
“I have since asked them to explain exactly what has been misleading in any of my Facebook posts and they just ignored me,” he says.
They also wouldn’t respond to our repeated requests for comment about why they decided to make Dressler find a new place to live. He says an attorney told him he had a case but that it was not worth the cost.
“At the end of the day, when you're talking about paying lawyers and fees, the cost outweighs the cost of just moving,” he said.
Checking the law, landlords usually don't have to give a reason for a non-renewal. But it's illegal for them to retaliate against tenants in certain cases, including participating in a "tenant organization." Only a lawsuit would answer if a Facebook group qualified as one.
As of now, he can stay until the end of his lease in 2025, but the next several months won't be “home sweet home.”