Friends Rent Control/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: The cast lives in a fancy apartment despite not having steady jobs.

  • Straight: Bob and Rob live in an apartment and they don't seem to have any jobs.
  • Exaggerated: Bob and Rob live in a glorious mansion and have never worked a day in their lives.
  • Justified: They had rent control, someone else is covering their rent, the landlord owes them a favour, they won a million dollars at a lottery...
  • Inverted: Bob and Rob live on the streets despite having high-paying jobs.
  • Subverted: It turns out they had a lease, and will have to pay at the end of the year.
  • Double Subverted: But the landlord likes them so much, he's willing to let them stay for free
  • Parodied: Bob and Rob are handed the bill for the rent. They add a negative sign to it and the landlord grumbles and gives them money.
  • Deconstructed:
    • The landlord is keeping tabs on their lack of payment and when he had enough he evicts them.
    • The effect that all of the free riders have on the market is made explicit. The result is not pretty.
  • Reconstructed: Fortunately, Rob did have a secret job and was keeping money stashed away from Bob. The haggles with the landlord to get their apartment back and succeeds.
  • Zig Zagged: At first Bob and Rob pay rent. Then a Broke Episode comes along and they get away without paying rent for a while. Then their landlord starts demanding payment. Then he eases up on them. Eventually he loses patience, however after Bob and Rob save his life and the life of his children he allows them to stay free permanently.
  • Averted: Bob is a doctor, or another high-paying job.
  • Enforced: Bob and Rob were originally going to be talented stock-traders who only needed to make trades once a day at most. However it wasn't considered marketable enough and they are then left as inexplicably wealthy singles.
  • Lampshaded: The apartment's slogan is "You never have to worry about rent again."
  • Invoked:
  • Exploited: ???
  • Defied: Their landlord gives them a newspaper to look for jobs to pay the rent.
  • Discussed: ???
  • Conversed: "How can Bob even afford this palace?"

Hold it right there, Mr. Siht! If you wanna go back to Friends Rent Control, I'll need ya to pay up for the last three months- whadaya mean, what's that!?

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