Landlord refuses to fix the appliances in the rented house, so renter sells them off to get his deposit back, and he wasted money: 'I still came out ahead because I pocketed about the same as our deposit'

Landlord got played by a master tenant who, actually, wasn't playing at all.

If you don't provide solutions, solutions will be provided by themselves. If I were in the same situation as this tenant. Suffering through the malfunctions of appliances and getting these dismissive responses from the landlord, not making himself responsible for anything, I would have reacted way worse to everything.  But this landlord brought all this disgrace upon himself. He was the one who said that the appliances weren't a part of the rented home. Then taking them, selling them, or breaking them didn't have any real impact. If they are not a part of the home, then they aren't different from something that they could have found on the street. So selling the appliances isn't inherently wrong. They can do it, as they aren't a part of the home nor the property of the landlord.