A New York City landlord made a viral TikTok about taking her tenant's packages 'until they pay up' in rent

Abbe Awosanya/TikTok

• A New York City landlord went viral after posting a video to TikTok where she claimed to withhold packages sent to her tenants because they were unable to pay their rent.

• She later told BuzzFeed News her TikTok video was a joke and that she had never confiscated her tenant's mail, which is a crime.

• A 21-year-old student in the UK, who downloaded the video and posted it to Twitter, said Awosanya told her she planned to take legal action against her for sharing her video, which was publicly posted to TikTok and available for download.

• People across the US have expressed difficultly paying rent as a result of job losses related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Visit the Insider's homepage for more stories.

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A New York City landlord incited backlash on Friday when she posted a TikTok claiming she had confiscated her tenant's packages when they couldn't pay their rent. After she received criticism, she claimed her video was untrue and a joke, and on Sunday the woman allegedly threatened legal action against a person who shared her video.

"My tenant is late on rent and is avoiding me but has money to order," read captions on the viral video of a woman dancing as she held a package. "So I take all their packages until they pay up.

"I'm so petty," another on-screen caption read.

Abbe Awosanya, who confirmed to BuzzFeed News on Saturday that she made the video, told the outlet that she never withheld packages from her tenants and that her video was a "skit" inspired by her previous experiences.

"Honestly, in the past, I had this issue with other tenants and I wished I could do this to them because they were blatantly ignoring me," she told BuzzFeed in a text message. "Nothing to do with current tenants."

Awosanya said if her tenants couldn't currently pay their rent, she would understand, telling the outlet that all of her tenants were presently up-to-date on rent payments.

In the comments of the since-deleted video, Awosanya told angry commentators, many of whom noted that withholding with her tenant's mail would be illegal, that the parcels she wielded in the video belonged to her and not ones she had confiscated from her renters.

The video seemed to strike a chord with users on social media, as people around the country have struggled to pay rent amid job losses related to the ongoing pandemic. An Insider poll last week found that 23% of people were unsure whether they'd be able to make their rent or mortgage payments this month. More than 30 million Americans have filed for unemployment since the pandemic began in the US, and protestors in New York on Friday called on Gov. Andrew Cuomo to cancel rent amid the pandemic.

Awosanya told BuzzFeed people should have "compassion" for both renters and landlords because "we are all going through the pandemic together."

The video had racked up more than 200,000 views on TikTok, BuzzFeed noted. It also garnered exponentially more attention in several versions posted to Twitter by various users. By default, TikTok allows for videos from public accounts to be downloaded to a user's phone — where they can be and often are uploaded to another platform like Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, or Facebook.

Since Awosanya's account and video were both public, there was nothing stopping users from posting her video on other platforms.

The landlord allegedly threatened legal action against someone who posted her video to Twitter

"Landlords are a menace to society," 21-year-old Haaniyah Angus, a student in Oxford in the UK, tweeted alongside the video.

Angus said she came across while scrolling through her "for you page" on TikTok, a seemingly infinite list of videos served up to users by the company's algorithm. Before she deleted her tweet, Angus told Insider it had around 60,000 likes and a "couple thousand retweets."

But it had significantly more views. Angus told Insider the video had approximately five million views, as Twitter allows users to share videos uploaded by other users with their own commentary entirely separate from the original tweet. Angus told Insider she deleted the video and her tweet Sunday because she received harassment from people defending Awosanya.

Angus said the barrage of responses she received were a mix of people defending landlords generally and by people who specifically defended Awosanya. Either way — she felt the harassment wasn't worth it, especially given a previous spat she had with fans of Ariana Grande.

"They were sort of threatening me with suspension and reporting my page," Angus, a self-described culture critic with more than 30,000 followers, said of those defending the landlord. "And I had previously gone through that last year with Ariana Grande stans, and I don't really want to rebuild my entire platform again. I was not going to take the risk, so I took it down."

Hours after deleting the video, Angus told Insider she received a direct message threatening legal actions from who appeared to be the woman who made the video.

"I was surprised," Angus told Insider.

The message from the since-deleted Twitter account allegedly belonging to Awosanya read: "With regards to your post made about my skit, Legal action is being taken. Consulted with my attorney and filed a police report with evidence of aggravated harassment without real cause or verification of the truth."

The message continued, alleging the existence of "snapshots of evidence" that included threats received in direct messages, calls, voicemails, and videos. In the message, the woman claimed her tenants would be able to testify on her behalf.

"Next time verify first," the message read.

Angus, who said she felt the direct message was attempting to "intimidate" her, didn't respond to the message, blocked the account, and tweeted a screenshot of the message. That tweet has been liked more than 40,000 times. Not long after, Awosanya's Twitter account appeared to have been deleted.

"My main thought was like I know she has to be joking," she said. "There's no way you can sue me from the United States when I'm in the UK over a tweet over a public video that you posted on your public platform. This is absolutely insane."

Angus said she felt "awful" that the woman was doxxed and that people shared her public information and contacted both her and her employer.

"I didn't condone that at all," she said. "I wasn't the one doing that, but for some reason, she thinks it's my fault because I was the one who shared the video even though it was going viral on TikTok already."

While Awosanya told BuzzFeed News she had no intention of deleting her video, saying it was "already out there" and there was "no hiding" it, her public TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn accounts all appear to have been deleted as of Monday.

She had approximately 6,000 followers on TikTok and 32,000 on Instagram as of Saturday before deleting the accounts, according to BuzzFeed news.

Awosanya did not return Insider's request for comment.

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