‘Dad, I need a gun’: Tennessee inspectors barge into women’s apartment with no prior notice, catch tenants with their pants down

It seems like anywhere you look these days, there’s a story about nightmare landlords making us never want to rent ever again. While we wish this trend would die down, TikTok user @alleeapplegate sadly has us worried the trend will not be going anywhere anytime soon. Even more worrying was the way Allee was treated by inspectors at her apartment.

As Allee recounts in her video, she was rudely woken up by two mysterious guests showing up at her house around 9 a.m. on a random Tuesday. By the time Allee opened her bedroom door, the two inspectors had gotten into the actual home and were coming upstairs. The entire time they were entering, the woman of the pair was yelling “Inspections!” to make it clear why she was in the building, but never said anything further.

Allee then claims the woman walked right past her into Allee’s bedroom and bathroom, and took photos of her bathroom. The woman never gave Allee any type of ID or paper entailing the inspection, nor told Allee her name or who she worked for. The first words the woman says directly to Allee are as she’s leaving Allee’s room, telling her “Don’t worry, it has nothing to do with you.” The woman and her older male partner then move on to Allee’s roommate’s room and do the same thing, though said roommate wasn’t home.

Arguably the most concerning part was when the pair went downstairs to Allee’s other roommate’s room. Apparently, that roommate was in the process of getting ready to go to the gym, and had headphones on while she was getting ready. The inspeciton pair walked in on the roommate actively using the toilet, and rather than apologize or shut the door, the woman took her inspection photos, laughed, and leaves with the bathroom door wide open.

After the unexpected guests leave, Allee said she contacted her leasing office and someone came over immediately to apologize for the situation. That’s when Allee finds out that the guests were state inspectors, though the leasing office never clarifies what department they work for or what they were inspecting. In a follow up video, Allee shares that she knew she was getting an inspection of her HVAC unit that’s in her garage that day, so she assumed when the woman was yelling about inspections it was for that. However once the woman started coming upstairs she knew something was off.

While laws vary from state to state, since Allee is based in Tennessee, the law there states that a landlord has no right to access the unit except in cases of emergency, the tenant has abandoned the unit, the tenant is deceased/incapacitated, or it’s within 30 days of the lease ending and the tenant is giving tours of the unit (even then, 24 hours notice of the tour is required). Based on the story Allee presents, none of those claims were met, as the only place the inspection named was the HVAC unit in the garage.

Naturally, the commentors on Allee’s TikToks were extremely outraged by the treatment she received. Many were not only mad at the inspectors, but also the landlords for letting this unauthorized inspection occur. “Don’t let the complex off that easy,” wrote one commentor. “She had some type of master key to your unit, they were prob notified of these inspections and you weren’t told.” Another commentor mentioned “If you are renting, more than likely they told the homeowner that they were coming and your landlord didn’t tell you.” Allee has said she intents to go after the state for how she was treated by the inspection team.