Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
So I finally got my tenant out last week and busy prepping the house to go on the market. The house was a wreck. Last night, I put out 6 contractor bags of lawn weeds, beer cans and broken beer bottles on the curb. This was just from the back yard. Which caused one neighbor to come out raging mad and yelling that my trash does not belong on the curb. (It can go there, he just did not want the pile on his street). So then another neighbor walks over and shares with me that my tenant's roommate would get drunk and pass out on his couch. He would have to wake her up and walk her home.
Do we really need to start a thread just to bash tenants? Seriously? Nothing good ever comes out of it and what purpose could it possibly serve other than a bunch of flame wars?
I've never been a landlord. But one of my idiot brothers once went to run a bath, fell asleep (????) and the bathtub overflowed into the downstairs apartment. I have no idea how he wasn't sued. I think his rental insurance kicked in some money to cover the downstairs neighbors losses.
I had a second floor townhouse apartment and one vacation, left my other idiot brother in charge who was supposed to be checking on my place, feeding my cat and fish, etc. The water pump filter to the fish tank malfunctioned and it overflowed into the downstairs. Maintenance came in and temporarily disabled the pump to stop the overflow. I have no idea how I wasn't sued (incidentally, that was the same complex as previous idiot brothers' issue with water). It wasn't for long, because the tank (55 gallons) was still 1/2 full. My brother disclaimed any knowledge (I think I would notice if a fish tank was 1/2 full) and I've never trusted him since.
Sadly there are no "funny" tenant stories. There are only two tenant stories:
(1) tenant rented for a while, paid rent, eventually terminated for whatever reason and left the rental property in good condition and got a full refund of security deposit.
(2) the rabbit died and a whole bunch of flack came down and eventually landlord sent tenant a refund check or payment demand and (a) tenant accepted it and/or decided to not file a lawsuit, (b) tenant accepted it and/or decided to not file a lawsuit, or (c) it went through the court system and the one with the best documentation won.
If you are a landlord it is your responsibility to have the best documentation. If so and you don't then you deserve to lose your case. Document, document, document. Certified mail is your friend, return receipt required.
Do we really need to start a thread just to bash tenants? Seriously? Nothing good ever comes out of it and what purpose could it possibly serve other than a bunch of flame wars?
I was not bashing the tenant. If I was bashing her, I would have mentioned the holes in the walls, 4 ft weeds, trash, all the belongings she left behind that I had to pay to dispose of, the cat per on the carpet, the broken dishwasher, the subfloor that is being replaced because of being saturated in cat urine. The roof leak she never mentioned... Or the chalkboard that was so nicely painted in one of the bedrooms. Or every window screen that is busted out. Windows I had never used in 8 years, and she broke every single screen.
This one is funny, although it is applicants and not actually tenants, just hopefuls.
I advertised a house with irrigated pasture early this summer. The ad said that the tenant was to put the irrigation water out. I had over 150 phone calls and about 130 of them had never done irrigation. When I talked to people I told them that I was specifically looking for someone who owned livestock. At least 20 different people responded that if they were required to have livestock, they would get a horse.
Although, perhaps you don't realize how funny that is unless you have owned horses.
The mailbox at my first property was (you see where this is going) one of those metal mailboxes on a wooden post. Three days before landing back in GA after a few weeks of vacation, I get an email from my tenant saying that someone had knocked over the mailbox. I get there, and it seems like a car had run into it or something because the post had split in half. I repaired it, kinda, and figured it was good enough. Two weeks later, they email me saying someone had knocked it over again! Repaired again. Ugh. A week later, ANOTHER email saying it was knocked over.
Don't know to this day who was knocking it over, but after that, I ditched that mailbox and got a fully metal one. Haven't had problems since. We think it may have been the mailman, but /shrug.
I don't take phone calls from the parents of my tenants (I rent to college students). If there is a problem with ANYTHING I tell my tenants to call me, not have their parents call me. I let them know this up front but also make them aware that if their parents would like to co-sign their lease, I will take calls from their parents. Parents never co-sign.
So anyway, I received a phone call from the mother of one of my tenants yesterday. This was the second time she has called me since Sept - the first was for a different issue her daughter was having with the dishwasher.
Woman wouldn't take a breath & let me get a word in edgewise. Once I realized where she was going I let her...
She was irate that we had installed a washer & dryer in the basement of the property.
How DARE we install them and hook the dryer up to her daughter's gas meter. Ever since we did this her daughter's (and roommates) gas bill has been out of control. What kind of LLs are we trying to get one over on her daughter and her roommates? She's going to drive the hour to the property, take pictures and then take us to court and blah, blah, blah.
We she finished her ranting and raving I had four words for her:
"The dryer is electric".
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
