Bad renters....UPDATE....

[mldollins]

If you remember, we were renting to a young couple with two kids and we could not get them out. Well, as of today, their out. We changed all the locks. We had 3 holes in the wall. My wife and her parents along with myself put in around 20 man hours in cleaning and we are probably only half way done. These people never vacuumed and the floors in the bathrooms were stained and dark. I will be patching the three holes tomorrow and hopefully back on the market it will go next week with NO RENTERS.

They were only in there 7 months. When my wife first went in there, they had left trash everywhere and food was still in the fridge. Tomorrow four of us adults will be putting at least another 20 hours in.

Here is the amazing thing. Above the lavatory sink we have a light set with four bulbs. Our first thought was that the switch was bad. Well, I replaced the switch and it still did not work. Found out that they did not want to replace the bulbs so they relied on the light in the exhaust fan which was only 60 watts.

Here was our mistake. They "seemed" nice when we first interviewed them. Once month into the house they were lying up and down about things. I went and did an online search and found out that he had been in the state pen for 4 years and have had major dealings with the criminal justice system......both of them. In Illinois, you can go online and search court records.

I have learned from this experience. It seems that good renters don't exist much anymore.

[Ravenlost]

There are good renters, but I think they're few and far between. Best to do your research BEFORE renting, not afterwards.

[Common Tator]

I am glad they are finally out. I hated being a landlord!

[BUDSMOM]

I Would Agree With You. My First Ones Were There 7 Years And I Got Spoiled. The Next Ones Were There About 1 Year And Their Dogs Peed All Over The Carpet. The Next Ones Were Only There A Couple Of Months And Left It Pretty Bad. After The Dog People I Was Ready To Stick A For Sale Sign In The Yard. My Daughter Is Taking Care Of It Now. She Is Handier Than Me, Younger And Harder To Push Around. We Have It Rented Again And Are Hoping For The Best. This Is A Beautiful House In A Nice Town.

[mldollins]

Here is what I am out.......105 dollar water bill, 2 months rent owed, 100 dollars worth of cleaning supplies and equipment to patch the holes, and about 40 man hours. I do have a 500 dollar deposit....oh well....

[Whisperwindkat]

I know all too well about bad renters! Our first tenant destroyed the septic system by putting cat litter down the toilet. Major costly repair and she moved out in the middle of the night, no notice and no last months rent. The tenants we have now seemed nice enough and had good references. They are constantly late with the rent and many times get way behind. Then they catch up and stay current for awhile and then they fall behind again. They are currently behind. I absolutely hate renting, but the housing market is really really bad over there and we just can't afford to have the house stand empty. Glad you got your tenants out and just be thankful that they left the place filthy instead of leaving behind major destruction.

[stef]

Well, I am a good renter and always have been when I rent.
I keep things clean and neat. I always get an excellent rating when inspection time comes around. (Most recent was two weeks ago. The inspector just sat and chatted. When I asked why she wasn't looking around, she said, "Oh, I love coming here. I know everything is going to be alright!")

I dust and sweep and clean the corners. I throw out my trash and don't store huge amounts of personal clutter.
I pay my rent on time. Have never been late or missed a payment.
I'm respectful of my neighbors.

I wish it worked both ways. I'd love to have a landlord that appreciates a good tenant.

stef

[SpaceCadet12364]

We rented out our house once, back in the late 80's....had transferred out of the area. THOUGHT we were doing the smart thing by hiring a realtor to handle the rental for us. HAH!

The people she rented it to, after a period of time we finally had to get them out (think it took a couple of months). We had some friends that had moved into the area look into it for us, this realtor was supposed to be going by every once in a while (it wouldnt have been out of her way at all) to keep an eye on it. Take care of whatever might need to be done.

When the renters got evicted, the story came out that she was "afraid" (probably too darn lazy, we thought) to go out into a neighborhood that had a mild HOA. There were like 3 cops that lived not far from our place (one was right across from the house).

The lawn was soooooo overgrown, you could hide a compact car in it. All the inside doors were off the hinges, one bathroom floor had water damage from a leak (I guess) that never got either reported to us/realtor or they did and realtor did nothing. The living room carpet had some sort of paint spilled all over the place, and one section of the living room carpet it appeared that something had given birth. All the light bulbs were GONE. The realtor never did get the back rent out of them.

It was soooo much fun trying to coordinate getting carpeting replaced when you are two time zones away out in the middle of the ocean on an island. At least it was easier somewhat because we went to Sears and picked out what we wanted in there and the local store where the house was did the installing. Our friends ended up working on the repairs and buying the house from us.

I don't think I would ever want to be a landlord again, unless I lived either in the same town or a reasonable distance to where I could keep an eye on it or do some of the needed work myself. Too much of a pain in the keister.

Glad you got them out!

[Pearl B]

I wouldn't rent a house to any one.

My Mom rented her house out to what seemed to be a "nice couple" in the early 90's.
Thank goodness all they did was skip the last months rent & left it dirty, not trashed.

Where Im at now, the last 3 neighbors have had really bad luck with rentals.

Neighbor1: never got much rent after 4 months, took him a year to go through legal procedures to evict them, mostly cause he would give them a second chance or three,based on promises they would pay & they never did.Only to find when he did get them evicted, they were running a puppy mill, & didnt let the dogs out that often. He wound up replaced the entire carpet & a good amount of the floorboards beneath it.
he never did figure out what they did to the plumbing, yet had to replace a good amount of that as well. I dont think he made any profit after the repair bills.

Neighbor 2:rented to people from a foreign country, who liked goats, & apparently liked to let them in & go on the carpet as well. They left in the middle of the night,no notice. They had to replace the carpet as well, & were quite unhappy they couldn't contact the former renters for damages,oh well.

Neighbor3:this is just recent, they rented to what they thought was a nice young couple with 3-4 kids. Only to find that nice young family moved & stiffed them on 7 months rent.

[Danaus29]

The family who once rented the house next door to us burned it. Left the landlord with several months back rent due, utilities not paid, trash all through what was left of the house, and a dead truck in the driveway.

We were not the best renters but we did clean every place before we left and didn't owe any back rent or utilities. No damage was done and we did not take lightbulbs, venitian blinds, or ceiling fans when we left.

[homesteadforty]

All these renter bashing threads bug me. Roughly 1/3 the population (or 100 million people) rents housing. These threads pop up and you tell a few horror stories and proceed to tell how you would never own a rental because good renters don't exist, they are few and far between, they trash the place, etc., etc., ad nauseum.

If the total "bad renter" experience on here is 1000, then you are basing derogatory, demeaning statements about a whole lot of people based on your .00001% (1 in 10,000) experience.

I rent now... and have for the last 7 years and I've rented in the past. I deal with other renters for the organization of which I am Vice President. My parents have rented at various times in their lives, as has my sister. Both my daughters current are renting their first places. My uncle (a research Doctor) and his wife (head nurse for a very large hospital) rented all their lives. My ex has rented almost all her life. All these people (and others I know) take care of their homes as well as if they owned them... in many cases making minor repairs, upgrades, etc., thus leaving a place in better condition than it was when moved in to.

Discussing "bad renters" and experiences with them is, of course, a legitimate discussion... but in my opinion the blanket statements about all renters being no good borders on bigotry.

I'm off now to take my first load of stuff 200 miles to the new rental I'm moving into.

[Tricky Grama]

Homesteadforty said- "Discussing "bad renters" and experiences with them is, of course, a legitimate discussion... but in my opinion the blanket statements about all renters being no good borders on bigotry."

I can appreciate your concern, having been a very good renter for about 10 yrs and having good renters for about 25 of the 28 yrs we've been landlords.

But I can also appreciate those who have hard feelings, as it does seem that there are no good renters to be found. Gripes about those no-good renters, however, could hardly be borderline bigoted, since they are first hand experiences.

Some may remember my cries for help about overwhelming cat urine smell in an old frame 'farm house' we used to live in & now rent out. It cost us 15K to get that house in shape to rent again. Granted, the nearly 5K for new energy windows was not due to cat urine stink, but we put nearly 2 months of hard labor & $$$ into making it a great place to live.

I have no advice, really, to those who rent, other than to say we've been very fortunate and are thankful for that. We've always screened our renters, and have always had several to chose from & try to make a wise decision as to whom to rent. It just doesn't always work out well.

Patty

[John Carter]

I am not a landlord and havent rented in 30 years.
I do know a couple of people who are landlords.

Here is a little trick they use and follow religiously.
They will interview the people and then walk them to their car...........not being polite mind you. They want to get a look at the inside of the car.
If the car is clean inside and outside they will be good renters.
If the car is trashy, empty coke cans, food wrappers and trash they will be bad bad bad renters and they wont rent to them

It works forthem

I was a good renter and left the house beter than the wife and I found it.
The house across the street is rented, to the same couple for 12 years. Great people. The house down the street was renteed for 1 year and isnt safe to live in any more. It is slated to be torn down.
Some renters are low life scum sucking, welfare trash, ghetto thriving ..............I manage a code enforcement division of acity.

[Ryan NC]

Being a landlord isn't for everyone! Some of my best deals have come from people that decided to experiment with playing land, you either are or you aren’t... if you don't take it like a job and do it to the best of your ability you're most likely going to get smoked.

The flip side is it isn't hard to screen out 95% of the bad eggs! If you pull a formal criminal background, a credit report, and you verify income you've got most of the dirt you need. For entry I don't want to see any criminal problems, no charge offs from utilities and /or personal judgments (likely an old LL) Medical, CC's, vehicle repo's, and the credit score in general I could care less about, I want to see that they've always paid for their housing which doesn't including living in the weekly motel. For income I want to see 3x rent for working folks or 2x for fixed income paid once per month.

I find that only about 1% of my tenants are what I'd classify as "bad tenants". For the most part if you are screening properly about the worst you're going to get is broken mini-blinds, trash left, and the tenant leaving owning you a little money. I dislike the horror stories as well but over time I've come to realize that they almost all come from private parties that decided to "try renting" without doing any homework. Unfortunately we have a very small portion of our population that subsist on moving from place to place to place leaving a wake of busted walls and unreasonable damage everywhere they go... They normally are looking for the uneducated landlord to pray on from my experiences.

There are quarks with being a landlord, if you're not willing to pickup someone else's trash after they've paid you several thousands of dollars over a period of time it's not for you! This is one of my biggest pet peeves with tenants, every place I ever rented was spotless when I left... Today I have 80 or so rentals and over the last 6 years I've given back a grand total of 4 deposits. Most of the deposits were used to pay the small outstanding balance owed and to pay for cleaning the place. I would like to know why they take every freaking light bulb with them though!

One of the biggest tips I can give anyone considering renting is to use a month-to-month lease, it gives you many more options to out a tenant if things aren’t working out. Here in NC it only requires me to give a 10-day notice to vacate, I don't even have to give a reason only that I'm terminating the lease.

I'm sorry you've had a bad experience, I'm starting to get burned out myself but it has been semi-pleasant experience and I've had the opportunity to help many neat families over the years. There are still good people left in this Country, it just getting harder to find folks that don't expect someone else to hand everything to them.

[TheMartianChick]

My husband and I have several properties. Here are a few tricks that we use to make sure that we get good tenants. Bad tenants cost too much time and money and we have precious little of both!

1. We place an ad in the newspaper stating that we have an apartment or house available for $xxx in rent. We list a phone number that goes to an online voicemail (costs about $12/month for the voicemail)

2. People call the voicemail to express interest. The message on the voicemail says something like " Thank you for calling our company. We currently have a 3 bedroom apartment available for rent in the Eastside area. Located 1 block from a bus route and 6 blocks from a shopping plaza, this apartment also includes off-street parking and a fully fenced yard. The apartment features a combination livingroom/diningroom and an eat in kitchen. The kitchen and bath have been newly renovated and there is new carpeting in all of the bedrooms. If you are interested in viewing this rental, leave your name and phone number after this voice message. Please be advised that our company has a zero tolerance policy for illegal activities in and around our premises. During the course of the applications process, a criminal background check and /or credit check may be conducted. Thank you!"

3. Usually we just hear a click since the person decided that they might not measure up to our standards. This saves us time and keeps us from having to talk to every caller who has questions about the property. It also keeps us from allowing our emotions into it. Lots of bad tenants are charming and friendly. This way, we don't talk to them. Instead of the 40-60 calls that we used to get about each available property, we now receive about 15. All 15 are usually solid prospects.

4. We set appointments t show the property to each person and then have them fill out an application.

5. We call to verify employment and select 3 applicants that seem to be good tenants. We stop by our #1 choice with a copy of a lease for them to sign, which gives us a peek inside their home. If we don't like what we see, then we won't rent to them and we move on to contestant #2. We have yet to actually perform the criminal background check or the credit check.

Works for us!!

[Wolf mom]

Run credit checks and background checks before you rent to anyone. This is a business, folks & that's only good business.

A hint I found works well: write in the lease that you will come in once a month to change the furnace filters. Some states require a 48 hour notice. When you go in, you can check the house condition and will have contact with the renters & will then have an idea of what's going on with the property.

[SunsetSonata]

Originally Posted by TheMartianChick

3. Usually we just hear a click since the person decided that they might not measure up to our standards. This saves us time and keeps us from having to talk to every caller who has questions about the property. It also keeps us from allowing our emotions into it. Lots of bad tenants are charming and friendly. This way, we don't talk to them. Instead of the 40-60 calls that we used to get about each available property, we now receive about 15. All 15 are usually solid prospects.

Now there's some numbers. If only about 15 out of 40-60 calls actually leave a message, that tells me that deadbeats are actually in the majority in your area. I doubt those hanging up are doing so just because you have off-street parking or whatnot, at least if your initial ad already contains apartment size and cost. Seems to back up people's claim that there's more deadbeat renters than responsible ones.

While both good people and deadbeats may choose to rent, the concentration of deadbeats will be higher simply because deadbeats aren't responsible enough to succeed at owning property. I would hate to be a landlord because I would expect to have to rule out a LOT of chaff, and even then there's no guarantees. I myself always pay my bills on time and hate being in debt to anyone, and also try to be considerate of others, so I would hope I'd be considered a hassle-free renter if I ever had the need to rent.

[AR Transplant]

perhaps there should be a bad land lord thread. the knife cuts both ways. My dd left her apartment spotless before she moved out of town, the land lord stiffed her on the deposit because he knew she would never come back just to complain. I personally hope that the next renter pours plaster of paris down all his drains. the sorry piece of work!

[mldollins]

We have put up to 40 man hours putting the place together. That is 4 people working 2 days.

In 7 months, these people never once changed the air filter, nor vacuumed and it appears they never cleaned any of the bathrooms. The damage was repairable. The holes in the wall today I just patched. The FIL will paint tomorrow those spots. The kids scribbled on everything.

The front door looks as if they tried to kick it in because it is a little split along the edge.

Then we found some attorney papers where this 28 year old idiot beat up a 16 year old. They left an old TV behind along with baby seats, high chairs, and junk and more junk.......good luck to the next landlord.

[Wayne02]

Originally Posted by mldollins

Here is what I am out.......105 dollar water bill, 2 months rent owed, 100 dollars worth of cleaning supplies and equipment to patch the holes, and about 40 man hours. I do have a 500 dollar deposit....oh well....

Consider yourself very, very lucky. That is a drop in the bucket compared to many rental horror stories.

My father had one single family rental where the original renters just disappeared and in their place three young deadbeat drug dealers moved in. Many states laws favor the tenant and it can be very difficult to remove non-performing tenants. It took 8 months, a lawyer, and $17K (attorney fees and rehab costs) to get them out. And another 4 month of labor time to make the place livable again.

There are good renters out there though. Two examples come to mind is the 50+ year old single women in one of the duplex's and the young mom and dad with two young children in another duplex.

Not everybody is cut out to be landlords, in fact most people are not because they don't like the conflict/tension that is a natural part of the landlord/tenant relationship in most cases.

This is why many people will employ the use of property management services and figure this cost into the ROI/income calculations when determining if a potential rental property has any viability or not.