I had a really nice rental property sitting on 10 acres just outside of town. The tenant of four years decided to move on, so I put it up for rent again since the housing market is in the toilet without any chance of recovery.
I hired several repair people to come in and complete all the necessary maintenance to get the house ready for new tenants. Carpet cleaning, chimney service, garage door repair, service furnace with vent blow out, septic pump out. Cleaned each room from top to bottom, replaced all the sink plumbing upstairs and downstairs, repaired some electrical outlets and put in a brand new tiled shower in the basement bathroom. And the final touch… all new appliances. The house is ready – cost $7,000!
I go online and place ads on several of the free-help-u-rent sites, then sit back and wait for responses. The same day I receive six responses, but of course it was just spam. In the next grouping of responses I have three individuals who make appointments to view the next day.
I drive to the rental, open up all the curtains and doors then turn on all the lights. The first appointment is late, but they do finally arrive and I have them just walk through on their own since the second appointment was on time and I’m showing them around already. The third party didn’t show up so I give her a call and she says I was already there and left you a note. I said that is odd, I’m standing here in the living room and I didn’t see you drive into the driveway? Did you come up to the door and knock, she replies yes, and that is where I left the note. I said I didn’t hear anyone knocking, and I don’t see a note attached to the front door?
As the conversation continues I finally come to the conclusion she has obviously gone to the wrong house and left a note on a strangers door that the home owner will not understand. So she turns around and drives back and sure enough she originally had gone to the wrong house. She finally pulls into the driveway and I walk her through the house and then out into the yard. I ask do you want to walk to the back and see the horse buildings and she replies yes. I then look down to see she is wearing thongs… not good! I make the comment I really don’t think with all the tough grass, weeds, bugs and maybe a snake or skunk, it would be a very good idea for her to walk out onto the property. She leaves quickly to head to the house where she left the note to retrieve it before the owner finds it. Needless to say none of these possible tenants work out.
This process continues for about two weeks and I’ve now had about ten additional possible tenants walk through the house. Finally a couple says they would like to rent the place and I explain the details of needing a fairly good credit rating, good references and needing to speak with their current landlord in addition to having them fill out a rental application for a complete back ground check. Now I don’t know about anyone else but if someone tells me that I have to have good credit and will be having a back ground check done, I certainly wouldn’t have gone through with the process knowing I had a felony on my record, without mentioning this issue up front.
I get the background check back and the woman has a felony on her record within the last two years for larceny! Really do you think I really want someone living in my house that is a convicted felon? So the process continues.
A couple more weeks passes and I’ve pretty much lost count on how many more people make appointments to see the house, don’t show up, show up late, tramp through the house, more cleaning needed, blah blah blah.
I never realized in the horrible economy we’re currently in how difficult it would be to find “good” tenants to rent my house.
The tenants from hell come for a visit.
Once again I receive an e-mail from someone wanting to look at the house and they make an appointment for the next day. So I drive back over and go through the showing process once again. They say they want to rent the house so I hand them an application and once again explain about needing good credit, no felony’s and will need to speak to the current landlord. They tell me no problem and proceed to explain everything I will find on their background check to the letter.
In retrospect the following is red flag #1. They proceed to explain in great detail that they have average credit because the husband has had to fight his ex-wife for the custody of his oldest kids because she’s a drug addict and he had to file for bankruptcy. The wife was out of work for six months and they got behind on a couple of bills so their credit rating will be low. And of course I feel sorry for them and believe what they tell me that they are trying to rebuild their credit and they promise to take care of the house and pay the rent on time. Unfortunately I’m the type of person who wants to believe people and this couple knows it which I find out much too late.
So the story continues. I send off the rental application to the investigator and sure enough the report comes back with the exact details they gave me, so the only thing left is to contact their current landlord. The woman tells me they cannot reach the current owner because the house they are renting is in foreclosure and is scheduled to be auctioned off in two weeks and they need to move in sooner than what we had discussed. She tells me all of her problems with the kids being in school and having to move and she is VERY convincing, and of course I feel sorry for her and don’t question any part of her story!
So against my better judgment I accept them as tenants and they give me the first months rent and deposit and they move in July 4th weekend exactly seven days before we had agreed.
August rent time rolls around and I check the mail and no rent check. I make a call and the woman tenant tells me they didn’t have a chance to get to the bank and will bring me a check. She comes over and hands me a check for the rent and says everything in the house is working fine and how quiet it is living in the neighborhood.
September rent time rolls around and once again I head to the mail box and no rent check. So I contact the woman tenant and she says she was sorry she didn’t make it to the bank again but she will bring me a check tomorrow. Then she says by the way, the drain in the laundry room is backing up. I call the repairman to come out and see what ups the next day. The repairman comes out and snakes the line to fix the problem.
The woman tenant brings me two checks for September’s rent. She calls a couple days later saying the problem with the drain is back. I call the repairman back and they send out a different repairman and this time he goes out and pulls the septic tank lid to reveal the septic tank is over flowing into the yard. Yuck!
One of the checks the tenants gives me bounces, so I give her a call and tell her what my bank has charged me and they will need to get me a certified check today.
I contact the septic pump out guy that I had come out before the tenants moved in and ask him what could be the problem and he believes the leach field has failed. He contacts a good friend of his and he comes out to confirm their suspicions.
So his friend gives me an estimate for $6,000 to complete the repairs and REQUIRES a 50% deposit - red flag #2. I give him his required deposit and he starts the work in three days. As he’s working he realizes his equipment can’t handle the repair and he stops working, this pisses off the woman tenant and she calls the county health department. OMG now the world comes to an end.
The county calls the repairman and tells him hold on you didn’t get the proper permits and shuts down the repair on the spot. So I have to go through the permit process which requires an engineer design the system taking another two months to get the necessary paperwork and of course another $2,000 down the drain!
October rent is due and no rent check in the mail. I contact the renter and once again get a sob story and she gets me a check two weeks later. I contact the septic repairman now that I have all the permits needed and he keeps giving me excuses for not completing the work; it’s snowing, it’s too cold, the engineer won’t let him complete the work, blah blah blah.
November rent is due and no rent check in the mail. Once again I contact the renter and get another sob story and have to wait another two weeks for the rent check. I also call the septic repair guy and he gives me more excuses why he can’t/won’t fix the problem.
December rent is due and no rent check again. Post 3 day notice on the door and no response so we end up in court. Tenants agree to move out January 2011 and promise to pump out septic and clean up the place. I contact the septic repair guy and he refuses to come out and complete the work and he refuses to return the deposit! Unreal!
January arrives and I drive by rental to see their dogs killing their goats, so I call the woman tenant leave her a voice mail message and proceed to call the cops. The cops arrive to see the tenants dogs finish their kill and I leave the premises. I receive a call later that night stating the woman tenant has filed a complaint against me saying I brought my dogs over to their house had them kill their goats then drove my dogs back to my house and then came back to the rental and let their dogs loose and then called the police. I reminded the officer that he saw the tenants dogs killing their goats and he said yes he did, but he had to follow up on her complaint. The woman tenant wanted me arrested! Can you believe that!
The tenants from hell FINALLY move out.
My attorney gives me a call and said great news I received a call from the tenants and they are out, go check the place out and change the locks. In retrospect I wished I would have taken a valium before I went over to look at how they left the house! There is trash everywhere on the main level of the house, all over the basement of the house, in every room. They have burned a hole in the living room carpet and tore out the closet carpet to make a make shift piece to cover up the burn. They have painted EVERY room in the house horrible colors and painted the living room with barn red paint. The painting looks like it was done by their ten year old, it was horrible! They even painted over all the wall switches and electrical covers. The brand new appliances are filthy they never cleaned anything in the six months they lived there. There was dog feces everywhere, and rabbit urine stains all over the garage floor. I went into the shop and they allowed their goats to live in there and they ripped out most of the carpet and I guess ate it and busted the windows out and the smell was absolutely putrid!
Their dogs scratched the crap out of the black wood fence and ate most of the panels. The man tenant took a nail gun and nailed the gate shut where their son allowed their dogs to kill their goats. They left all of the dead goats on the property to rot. They destroyed the washer and dryer, and they ruined the vanity in the bathroom, never cleaned any of the toilets, and there were syringes in the trash! YUCK! They left a fridge in the garage and it was filled top to bottom with empty liquor bottles. They even tore the rain gutters off the house. But none of this compared to the damage they did to the septic system! They destroyed it!
I have renters insurance on the house but that didn’t do me any good, these tenants did over $30,000 in damages in only six months time. So I get the attorney involved and he manages to get a judgment against them for a third of the damages then he tries to collect. So he garnishes their wages and sure enough they run down to the courts and file for bankruptcy again.
So I’m out almost $40,000 because I felt sorry for these people and believed them when they said they were trying to get back on their feet and wanted to give their kids a better life and great place to live.
A warning to anyone planning on renting their house out – DON’T DO IT!!!
