Tenant Damage/Horror stories (apartment complex, lease, eviction, renters)

[MRiedl]

After reading this subforum for a while, one thing has really confused me, and that would be the landlords describing situations where the tenants have basically destroyed a place, often shortly after moving in.

I guess I just can't wrap my brain around the concept of how such a thing would actually happen. I mean, it seems to me that to do any serious damage to a place, you would pretty much have to be actively trying to do damage.

While I can see the occasional nutcase taking a hammer to the wall, or a couple people getting into a drunken brawl and putting a dent in the wall, I just don't understand how it could be as widespread a thing as it apparently is. I've even heard some stories about certain groups of people who have done things like convert their apartments into makeshift farms complete with livestock, though, I've always assumed that one was mostly urban legend.

Furthermore, how could these people even get an apartment after doing something of that nature? I would imagine that sort of rental history would be hard to recover from.

It just amazes me that people who do that sort of thing can survive in the world, let alone be numerous enough to be seen as a hazard to landlords as a whole.

[Ultrarunner]

It does happen although every one's definition of destroyed and trashed is not the same.

My worst case was negligence... my tenant was frying fish and went outside... he didn't realize the house was on fire until he saw the smoke. The fire investigator noted that two of the three smoke detectors had the battery pulled back. My tenant apologized profusely and said he pulled out the batteries because the alarms sounded every time he fried fish.

My insurance covered all the damage, less my $2500 deductible. The Insurance went after my tenant and he eventually filed bankruptcy... It really was a loose/loose situation all around.

*******

I have a good friend that rented out a very nice High End Home in Peidmont CA. Never saw the tenants and the rent was always paid in cash. He was quite pleased that he had found such a nice guy to rent to.

PGE contacted him 7 months into the rental because the tenant had by-passed the meter and was steeling electricity for the indoor pot farm he was cultivating.

All of the Sheetrock walls and the hardwood floors had to be replaced from water damage...

[okaydorothy]

Our house was damaged by the animals who lived there. I say animals because thats how I consider people who bash kitchen tiles with sonething to crack them, break in the basemetn door ; breaking the glass and also totally breaking the door, pounding on the bilco door so much that it came off the frame ; it was one of those steel doors, breaking the glass pane in several windows, putting holes in the walls, not cleaning the stove for the whole length of time they were living there. And making the neighbours lives a misery by the screaming, pounding, noise, that they created.

This was a single mother with her three children. She also had pets that werent trained so they urinated over all the carpets, and left us a severe flea problem. Her father was a real estate laywer!!! Oh but they always made sure the rent was paid. They were evicted for the sanitation condition of the house. The house that we lived in for 8 years, that we raised our children in, that I was so proud of keeping clean and nice. She actually had the nerve to say that I had expensive things in it ; that was after she had to replace the screen door.
Now the new tenant will get ; the cheapest decor possible. I learned the hard way that tenants do not appreciate any of our hard work. This tenant even broke the handles on the crank up windows and one pane. That window cost us $1500 when we put it in!!

I still have to try to sue her father as he cosigned the lease and when she left, he knew of the damage and didnt say anything to me.
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[RoaminRed]

A rental home that I bought about three years ago had tenants currently living in it, whose lease wasn't set to expire for four months. I told them I would honor it and but that I wasn't going to renew it because I needed to do full electric and plumbing on the house in order to bring it up to the standards I want in a rental unit (it wasn't bad or non-working, but the plumbing needed updating and the electric service needed an upgrade at the main box). I also wanted to give everything else in the place a fresh coat of paint, refinish the floors, etc.

Anyway, apparently they weren't pleased that they had to look for a new place to live even though they had four months to find one. So they left five weeks later without notice and without paying any rent.

When I discovered they were gone and did a walk through, I found that all the kitchen cabinets had the doors ripped off, the ceiling fans had been pulled down from the ceilings (as if they had been used for a trapeze), every single wall had at least one hole kicked in it, windows and screens were broken, the hardwood floors had holes drilled in several places, and both bathrooms had been gone over with a sledgehammer to break the toilets and sinks.

[Aprilll]

I honestly can't understand the kind of tenant thought process that would make it ok in their mind to do such destructive things to someone's property. I remember some friends asking me why I was working so hard to clear out and clean the apartment I was moving out of. I looked at them like they were crazy and continued sweeping and scrubbing. My belief is if someone offers up their property for you to live in, one take care to hand it back, in in same condition as they moved in. Even with my limitations, I felt it was my duty to take the time to leave the apartment in as best condition as reasonably possible.

Just as I'm sickened by unscrupulous landlords, I'm just as sickened and disgusted by my fellow renters that lack respect for the property of the owner where they were permitted to reside. It just makes it so much more difficult on future renters that would take good care of the landlord's property. I do empathize with property owners that have to deal with such horrendous situations.

[ESFP]

Here's an experiment I did with one of my houses for rent. I advertised it twice, both almost identical, except one stated "References Required." The non-reference got 35 calls the first week, the reference required one got zero! Hint: Never rent to someone in a hurry. Usually, they're being evicted from somewhere else. And, deposits should be different than the rent, otherwise, tenants think that it's the last months rent and will move without saying anything. I'll spare you my horror stories, not enough room here.

[garth]

Here's a little story for y'all. Picture a nice two story 4/3 house, 3000 sq ft, two years old, with an IGG pool in the back yard. It had concrete patio and brick planters. Everthing was nice, clean, and cared for.

We rented it out to what we thought were a nice young couple. They had good credit and good references. His job was a little new, but with everything else looking fine I let that slide. His job was with a movie production company.

Well, they turned out to be from hell. What we failed to determine, was that he was an internet pornographer. It is a legitmate industry (nothing illegal), so that might not be a problem for some. However, it turned out to be a problem when I got calls from my ex-neighbors.

It was embarassing for them to tell me about the sex parties in the pool, porno filming in the house, and porno stars going in and out of the house. It was also embarassing for me to have to hear about it.

Well, apparently their business paid well because they always paid thier rent on time. However, they were required to comply with the CCR's, which disallowed the running of a business at the property. They couldn't take porno pictures or porno movies on the property for profit. I evicted them under that section.

In the meantime, my poor neighbors had to deal with the porno people coming and going at all hours. I told them that I was in the process of eviction, so they should call the police if things were too loud or perverse.

The good thing was that the immediate neighbor was a police lieutenant at the local agency. When he called, he got an immediate and thorough response. I supported him all the way.

There was more to the story than that. For example, there were problems with the plumbing, that never existed before their occupancy of the property. It was due to abuse. You really don't want to know what I found in the dishwasher line . . . . . . or why such an item had even been placed in the dishwasher.

Eventually, I got rid of them. I was lucky that they agreed to move, once I spoke to them about the eviction process. There was no need for me to file anything beyond the initial notice. They left of their own accord.

So, that's my little story. There wasn't much physical damage, other than needing to drain the pool and spa. I didn't know what had happened in it . . .

I also had to scrub the rooms, just because of the idea of what filth had happened throughout the house. Otherwise, there wasn't any real big physical damage.

[kjg1963]

I was a resident manager at a very small apartment complex. I agree with others that people can really suprise you with how they live. We were not invasive with our walk throughs and usually gave more than 2 week's notice. The way some people live is amazing. We went through one apartment (2 bedroom) that had to of had at least 10 people living there. We had to kick stuff out of our way just to walk in it. Apparently, they had a water leak they never reported in the kids bedroom. They had mildew an inch thick covering a 4 foot square area by the beds of the kids. They never reported it! Other tenants would move and leave the most astounding filth. No matter where I've rented from, I've always cleaned. I may not spackle the nail holes, but I don't leave a year's worth of crumbs in the refrigerator or stove.

[expgc]

Its easy, some people live worse then pigs and start that way when they first move in. It takes a very pro-active landlord to make sure that tenants don't destroy their place. A very easy way is to stop in an change the air filter on the a/c every month. All you need is 24 hour notice. Oh yeah, and these people rent from another landlord again because when you call a previous landlord for a reference, everyone is so PC and worried about getting sued that they don't tell you that these people are bad tenants. Scum bags just keep on getting a free place to live and destroy it in the process.

[RoaminRed]

Originally Posted by expgc

Its easy, some people live worse then pigs and start that way when they first move in. It takes a very pro-active landlord to make sure that tenants don't destroy their place. A very easy way is to stop in an change the air filter on the a/c every month. All you need is 24 hour notice. Oh yeah, and these people rent from another landlord again because when you call a previous landlord for a reference, everyone is so PC and worried about getting sued that they don't tell you that these people are bad tenants. Scum bags just keep on getting a free place to live and destroy it in the process.

Not so. If someone calls me for a reference and the person was a bad tenant, I merely say "Yes, they rented from me during X time period, and I cannot give them any recommendation." You cannot be sued for not giving a recommendation. You can't be successfully sued for giving a BAD recommendation either, because the truth is always a defense against charges of slander.