<p>Well, from the other thread, some suggestions on the thoughts of providing a new thread for this topic. Let me start this first and I will fill in my stories when I have more time…</p>
<p>Go ahead guys…</p>
<p>Posted this on the other thread, but it seems like a fitting post to start off this one…</p>
<p>Oh… the tales I could tell…starting with the tenant who conducted a religious fire cleansing ceremony, complete with loin clothed priest in full trance and facial paint…started fire in turkey roasting pan on carpeted living room floor…in a building which had tenants traumatized by a previous fire…tenant proceeded to scream at first responders to turn of the %^&^% fire alarms because she was almost done. Same person had moved her parents and sister into unit after divorce so family could help care for newborn - this was a breach of the lease agreement but we felt sorry for her at the time. Yes, we evicted her, even after tearful promises to never hold a fire ceremony again. I figured we could still be in for a surprise during ‘water cleansing’ time…I could see her turning on the bath tub water and leaving for the weekend!</p>
<p>Best laugh of the day was when another tenant wanted to know why SHE had gotten a fireplace (saw wood logs being takien into unit) and demanded to know when was THEIR fireplace being installed or they would be asking for a rent reduction. </p>
<p>Fast forward to our current student housing units. There is a considerable contingency of international students who come from a culture which does not use toilet paper but installs their own version of a do it yourself bidet. I know life takes unpredictable turns and twists but I must admit I never envisioned myself googling the availability of ‘personal portable bidet fixtures’. And, until recently when another set of students from a culture which highly values saunas installed a steam unit in the bathroom and used the area as such…thus requiring a complete re-sheetrocking of the room - never thought we’d have to put a clause in the lease stating 'you may not turn any room of the unit (including closets) into a sauna. Luckily this particular state of the union allows for the collection of not only a standard 2 month security deposit but also of a non-refundable security deposit. So, as ugly as the above sounds, it did not cost us any actual $$ in the end.</p>
<p>Yup, ya can’t make this stuff up. Still…laughing all the way to the bank…may write a book when the empty nest kicks in.</p>
<p>My story happened 20+ years ago and it was like happening in front of my eyes today. The home was not mine but it belonged to a very close friend of mine and he is like family. His name is Steve. </p>
<p>Steve bought a condo in the garment district of NYC, today it would worth a lot of money. However, Steve also has a house in the suburban NJ, where he stayed with his mom. The condo was intended for living near to his work, but he did not occupy it after he bought it. To help the mortgage, Steve decided to rent it for few years so to prepare for his transition.</p>
<p>There were a lot of interests in the unit when Steve put it on the market. He finally decided to rent it to an elderly single man with no pets and was willing to pay the whole year rent and deposit up front. His credit rating was also great and with a good job. Everything seems checked out. What can you ask for more than that as a landlord?</p>
<p>Well, the story unfolded after few months into the lease. Steve was raving about his decision to rent to this guy until one day he received a call from the police. Steve’s store was very near to the condo, so he rushed there to see what happened.</p>
<p>It turned out that the tenant had left the unit unattended for several days, the pilot of the stove was extinguished and gas leaked out of the stove. After the tenants in the building found gas smell, they discovered the smell was from Steve’s unit. The fire fighters had to break down the door to enter and the whole building was almost up to the flames.</p>
<p>Sadly, the worst was not the gas leak, Steve soon discovered that the guy had never clean the unit since occupancy. Rotten food was over flowing from the kitchen, the bath tub was filled with skunks and roaches were all over the place. The guy did not even flush the toilet, so it was filled with … Never mind the carpet, the white carpet had turned into black. Mold was growing in the walls as moisture was found from overflowing from the sink. The ceilings had pizza and other food particles stuck on it as the guy apparently used it for some target shooting games.</p>
<p>Steve was heavily fined by the HOA and we had to spend a month to clean and rebuild the Unit.</p>
<p>To add to the insult, Steve’s store was held up under gun point one night when he was alone in the store. So he quickly closed the store and sold the Unit and got out of the area ASAP.</p>
<p>Not really a horror story, but I am always amazed at tenants who don’t (appear to) understand what is meant by a year’s lease. Some will move out after 6 months, and the very next day will say- I’m out, when do I get my security deposit back? They seem to think their obligation ends the day they move out, even if they get out early; but it ends when I get a replacement tenant.</p>
<p>I had one that I was about to file eviction for non-payment, but before I filed in court we came to a written compromise. They promised to be out including all their possessions by a certain date in exchange for my not filing with the court. Compromise even specified that any property left behind would be considered abandoned property. They had their utilities shut-off, and clearly they had moved, so I re-claimed possession 2 days after our deadline, started throwing out all property left behind. They saw this disposal, and reported theft to the police. Upon seeing my documentation, police not only denied their claim, but charged them with filing a false report!</p>
<p>Ahhhh, all you fat-cat landed-gentry landlords!!! ;)</p>
<p>We get a call one night from a tenant. “The upstairs tenant has been lying on the floor kicking and screaming and crying for the last three hours, is there anything you can do?”</p>
<p>Uh… we’ll try to call her. No answer.</p>
<p>A few days later, we get another call. “She just spends hours crying and moaning, what the heck is going on? It’s getting annoying.”</p>
<p>Uh… we still can’t get hold of her.</p>
<p>Next day we get another call. “This is the police. Do you own the apartment at such-and-such”?</p>
<p>“Yes… why?”</p>
<p>“You need to go over and secure the unit. We had to kick the door in.”</p>
<p>“What? Why?”</p>
<p>“Sorry, we can’t tell you.”</p>
<p>So we go over and after talking to the other tenants, the story comes out. Her boyfriend broke up with her and moved out. He brought an off-duty cop back to the apartment for protection to get his stuff because he was afraid she would get violent. At this point she went off the deep end, and after three days of carrying, one of the other tenants called the cops. Apparently she threatened to kill herself so the cops busted down the door and had her taken in an ambulance to a psychiatric hospital. She was also trying to quit smoking and was taking some anti-smoking drug which has known psychological side effects, which didn’t help.</p>
<p>Oh, the drama.</p>
<p>We wound up having to evict - the bf was gone, she spent a month in the hospital, and neither had any plans to pay the rent anymore.</p>
<p>We called her sister to come get her cats, and the sister’s first comment was “How did you get my number?” I guess this girl has always been a bit unstable and her family doesn’t really want anything to do with her. Pretty sad.</p>
<p>I used to think my landlord clients were exaggerating. Hardly…</p>
<p>Off the top of my head, “You have to come RIGHT NOW. You have to call an electrician and have him here NOW! The electricity doesn’t work.”</p>
<p>Me: Did you put in a new lightbulb? “No.” (this one multiple times, different tenants)</p>
<p>“You have to call a plumber RIGHT NOW. There is a gas leak” (dumb wife left open bleach bottle on top of washer and it jiggled off during load, spilled entire contents.) I have allergies and can easily tell the difference between gas and bleach…</p>
<p>Move out, leave 40 bags of trash (we bagged, they didn’t), break back in , cut the wires to the 220 for dryer and leave them hanging, try to steal dishwasher) In court, 6 months later, she got in my face and said, “If I pay you $5 a month, you can never come after me.” Filed contiuances for 3 more months until they filed bankruptcy. </p>
<p>Rock band in the garage. Amplified devil worship songs can be heard across entire town of 300. Neighbors call police 8 different times. Police “tell them to quiet down”. Great enforcement, guys! H gets in screaming match with mother and says you WILL get a ticket next time, she says, “Not my problem, he turned 18 yesterday.” He arrives, gets out of car at 10 a.m. Sunday with a beer in his hand.</p>
<p>Drunk who bought his liquor mail order, the bottles were 3’ deep, fridge, bath, kitchen not cleaned in a looong time.</p>
<p>Many renters–like above example–I am sure they use their food for target practice. How could that much food possibly end up on walls? I try to contain mine to dishes and the sink…</p>
<p>Clients have had renters who had their cats/dogs urinate/poop in every corner of every carpet, have had appliances stolen etc. Renters have more sob stories than the Hallmark Channel…</p>
<p>styrstressd, no doubt landlords had all the rights in years past, and lawmakers have tried to correct that. Unfortunately lawmakers have swung the pendulum too far as it applies to tenant rights and to wage garnishment.</p>
<p>And there’s the tenant that might wrongfully blame a LL for things. Such as: a tenant might say: He won’t fix anything! When the truth is he might not fix a leaky faucet. Chances are, he isn’t even required to fix it. “Habitable” under the law if far different from “perfect in every way”. Personally I try hard to provide top service and in exchange I charge a slightly higher rent. Some tenants want that, some don’t.
I had a tenant one time ‘moaning’ to others that he wants his rent in full, on time, every month. That is something to complain about? Isn’t that just expected? It shows the mind-set of some tenants.</p>
<p>This is one of my favorites, thank god this wasn’t my apartment:</p>
<p>[snopes.com:</a> Beer Can House](<a href=“http://www.snopes.com/photos/odd/beercans.asp]snopes.com:”>Do These Photos Show a Home Filled with 70,000 Beer Cans and Boxes? | Snopes.com)</p>
<p>Oh my…I could tell you many. When we first started having rentals, we weren’t very good about determining who would be good tenants and we had some doozies. </p>
<p>Young males tended to be the WORST…One time two male roomies moved out with no notice. Of course the place was a MESS. but the oddest thing was that they had taken off all the electric plug covers and had cut the electical out. Never could figure out why.</p>
<p>After that, we have only rented to young marrieds and single moms with babies.</p>
<p>single moms with babies have been awful for me!</p>
<p>I think the beer can house was lot better than what I saw in Steve’s condo.(see story above). In addition, they collected 8 years of rent and its time to do a little remodeling.</p>
<p>A tenant in an upstairs unit didn’t let us know that his toilet was leaking. It caused thousands of dollars damage in the unit below which was empty at the time (so no one there to complain).</p>
<p>Hoss…the young mommies that we get often have their rent paid by the county. The checks come in regularly - but we do get paid less.</p>
<p>Not a big fan of renters with kids. Love it when you show the house and they have 3 running in different directions, literally hanging from doorknobs, flipping light switches, opening the fridge. If they control them (not) in front of me like that, I can only imagine how it goes when the landlord isn’t standing there.</p>
<p>The last showing cycle I had several single mom applicants on HUD, not paying a dime of their rent, demanding I pay the utilities and not charge them a security deposit. Oh, and insisting I also allow their lovely little pooches. 3 (or more) kids in tow, telling me they didn’t have time to get a job. Able bodied and young. Meanwhile, H and I are working FT, managing and fixing rentals, and running a farm. Sorry, this fries my cookies…</p>
<p>I beg my tenants to call me if something is dripping or leaking, or a toilet is running, or whatever.</p>
<p>They almost never do. Very frustrating.</p>
<p>The trouble with single moms - no jobs, no credit, no money, and there’s usually a baby daddy in the background somewhere who is a complete unknown.</p>
<p>Nah, I got the baby dadddy’s names and knew someone who could check them out–felonies, misdemeanors, ran the whole spectrum.</p>
<p>There’s a fine line between the overt b$$#chers/whiners and those who never complain. Stuff is going to break in a house and sometimes it costs a lot more if it isn’t fixed promptly.</p>
<p>I too had a moron who turned on his bathroom faucet full blast and LEFT the house, for THREE days! He had a Master’s Degree and taught college. He was the biggest ditz brain I’ve ever had.</p>
<p>My W knows a landlord whose tenant decided to go into a pool-filling business.</p>
<p>And where did he get the water to fill his tanker, you ask.</p>
<p>He hooked a hose to the kitchen sink and let it run.</p>
<p>The landlord started getting 4-figure water bills per month. And being a tenant-friendly state, it took months to put a stop to it.</p>
<p>My leases now have a clause about that. 
</p>
<p>What state is not tenant friendly? It’s insane how deadbeats are protected while they are stealing your property. Unfortunately, too many of them know exactly how to work the system.</p>
<p>Disclosure, I have had some good renters too:)</p>
<p>^ Texas. Utah. There are probably others.</p>
<p>It can vary pretty widely within my state. The laws are the same, but some housing courts are more pro-landlord than others.</p>
<p>
All my renters are good. Otherwise I wouldn’t have rented to them. :D</p>
<p>My court might be ok. We had no problem. I just decided right then I would never sue another renter b/c winning means nothing and collecting is futile.</p>