Landlords ... who have been your "unique" tenants?

The Coffee Shop
1

Our tenants gave notice this summer that they were moving out of our Pittsburgh, PA house. They’re out, and the house is intact. Our realtor said that they “blew it out of the park” in terms of getting it cleaned and fixed. So, we’re happy about that.

We interviewed one prospective tenant that was all hyped to move in, but it went sideways when 1) she wanted a later move-in date than we wanted, 2) we wanted money to secure it for her date, 3) plus we wanted a pet fee after she disclosed that she has an “emotional support dog”, and 4) lastly she tried to tell us we weren’t allowed to charge a pet fee for her dog, when the law is that we are.

Now, our second prospective tenant is paralyzed. Has been in a wheelchair for 26 years. He said it’s the perfect house for him. The house is a ranch with a basement. There’s one room in the basement that is finished. There’s also the washer and dryer AND what will be a new bathroom when our contractor finishes next month.

So, the ONLY way he’ll be able to get to or would plan to get to the basement is to go outside, down the driveway and either through the grass in the backyard to the back basement door or to open the garage door (also at the basement level) and into the finished room through the garage space. We talked with him this evening about it, and he said he shovels snow, mows the grass, and acknowledges that there may be times when he can’t get into the basement. (I’m so grateful that I have full use of my body, because knowing the house and the property, I couldn’t imagine dealing with what he would face.)

Waiting to hear back from the lawyer regarding ADA, but I don’t think we’d necessarily be obligated to be compliant to more after he’d move in. But, it’s a crazy litigious world. Anyone else have a handicapped tenant before? Other unique situations?

How are your ongoing tenant relations in general fairing? Besides this situation, I’m just happy the house didn’t burn down.

2

I’ve had a house burn down

Current tenant is director of f1 team

Never hear from him. Perfect.

Only ever had 1 bad tenant and 1 bad tenant experience

The former we kept all their deposit and it covered it all

The later cost me about a month’s rent to get out of.

3

Which team?? You get paddock tickets?

4

I’ve never had tenants but we rented a place for 5 years and were the perfect tenants. Always paid on time, quiet, helped with shovelling.

We were his first tenants. Hopefully he found more like us.

5

One woman was moving from Florida. Had a new job at Bank One. Wanted to rent to own. Gave deposit equal to one month, first month rent, non-refundable rent to own deposit equal to one month, had Mayflower Movers move her stuff in, so had to be couple/several thousand for that.

She didn’t make it through orientation. Six weeks later moved out and went back to Florida. I was able to rent it right back out and had no loss. She paid at least $8-$10k for the honor of living in Columbus for 6 weeks.

6

We’re not landlords but are tasked with the “privilege” of looking after my father in law’s 4-5 properties when he’s away on one of his escapades.

Last spring/summer he decided to take off for several months to hike the Appalachian Trail. Literally days before leaving he hands over the keys to a property he had just recently purchased. Still slightly snow-covered and thawing out from winter, we cannot see what’s under the snow. It’s trashed. Tenant wants someone to clean up the yard. A couple of weeks later, a bird gets inside the place because of an opening FIL didn’t know about. Tenant gets the bird out, but wants someone to fix it. Within the first 2 months, my wife was on the phone with this tenant at least 8 times for various little niggling issues. The guy fixed every single one himself, saved receipts, billed the FIL, but it was like he just honed in on every little issue. The upside, he’d paid for 12 months of rent in advance, which actually made FIL more suspicious of the guy to the point he almost didn’t rent to him. But it’s worked out.

He had another guy we had to finish evicting during the same trip. Dude and his girlfriend just couldn’t keep up on the already-low rent so the total loss to FIL was around 3 months rent, yet the tenant still demanded his deposit back (hard “no” to that one), kicked in the front door before he was out, and then accused us of wanting to steal his stuff while he was away & a final walk through was performed. The stuff he was worried about – a glass-top table whose base is a painted resin leopard (actually so fugly that it was amazing) and a leather chair so dilapidated it was miraculous it didn’t also have bed bugs crawling out of it.

But the worst tenant – FIL’s cat. We’ve also had the “privilege” of having that fucking mongrel for 4-5 months/year the last 3 years because he selfishly foists it on us without actually asking and my wife cannot say no to him & it would be defcon 5 if I stood my ground on this one. But we’ve already informed him the cat isn’t welcome back next year since we’re now waiting for our order of 800’ square of hardwood to replace flooring the damn cat ruined. It was carpet she ruined, so he’s paying whatever carpet would have cost, but it’s still such a hassle. EVICTED, forever.

7

We are on our third set of tenants in our basement suite. The suite is totally separate and pretty well sound proofed so we don’t hear or notice them. First set of tenants were two young men, 19 year old computer science students. The last two sets have been young women, around the same age, and colligate athletes. It’s great, they’re never home, always pay (well, their parents always pay), and they never party here. After the first few weeks with our current tenants, a curious neighbour came by and asked about the steady stream of attractive young women coming in and out of the house.

We haven’t had as much luck when we AirBnB the place. Most tenants have been great, but we have had the odd screwball. One couple, despite our warning about a lack of on site parking, showed up with two vehicles and a fucking boat in tow. When we asked what they were thinking they figured they would “just wing it and make it work somehow”. They were staying for a month. Needless to say, we made them find and pay for off site storage.

Another couple gave us 3 stars on check-in, despite them showing up at 1am (they were supposed to get in at 10pm). We left the lights on, bottle of wine in the suite, they had a newborn with them so we lent them our extra travel crib, etc. They were French Canadian, so, I chalked it up to them just being stuck up assholes by nature that always have to complain about something. Also, despite speaking flawless english, they posted their review in French. Fuck that whole province, I tell you.

On the whole we have been lucky, but, we are also selective in who we rent to, and are lucky in that our place is in a very desirable location, in a city with a vacancy rate of under 1%. We can be selective.

I have heard horror stories. Tenants who move in, then never pay rent and trash the place. It can take months to evict them here, and our local and provincial govs are currently very tenant friendly. Most of these tenants go from place to place doing this, they know all the rules and all the loopholes to take advantage of.

8

Wow. Lots of cash gone. Good for you though.

9

Sounds like a nightmare. Hoping we don’t encounter those scenarios. We allow small dogs but ABSOLUTELY no cats.

10

Not super successful at the moment but they make awesome road cars…

11

Two nuns. Called all the time to ask if I could move furniture, chores, etc. used to hang their underwear on the line outside.

I live in NN. They left for a week in the winter and turned the heat off to save $$. Luckily no damage.

12

I’ve never had tenants but we rented a place for 5 years and were the perfect tenants. Always paid on time, quiet, helped with shovelling.

We were his first tenants. Hopefully he found more like us.

We were always responsible tenants, but we had an irresponsible landlord when we rented for a year when we first moved to Maine. It was a house and we’d send in our rent money on time, and then the landlord wouldn’t pay the utilities like she was suppose to. Our electricity was shut off at one point, cable discontinued, etc.

13

We used to own a house where we lived up stairs and we had a single guy that lived down stairs in what was originally the family room/garage. (we no longer own that house)

He was divorced, drove a vet, and had a different girl over every weekend. It was interesting to watch which ones stayed the night, who left, and the repeat visitor. The guy was doing pretty well in that department by anyone’s standards.

After a few years he settled down to 2 different women. One was over every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday and left Monday morning, the other one showed up once in a while during the week. My son referred to them as “weekend woman” and the “piano tuner.”

On afternoon the piano tuner comes over right after lunch. About an hour later weekend woman shows up. She has her own key. There was a lot of yelling and then the piano tuner gets “thrown” out the back door naked. Right after that her clothes were thrown in the back yard, followed closely by weekend woman who was still yelling at her and at him. The piano tuner literally go dressed in the back yard.

We never saw either woman again. We sold the house a few years later and he bought if from us. We never discussed that afternoon, but my wife said that settles why he was divorced.

14

I have heard horror stories. Tenants who move in, then never pay rent and trash the place. It can take months to evict them here, and our local and provincial govs are currently very tenant friendly. Most of these tenants go from place to place doing this, they know all the rules and all the loopholes to take advantage of.

A guy I went to grad school with owned a house that was a couple of hours away, so he rented local and decided to rent out his home. Tenants moved in and then never paid him rent. It took him like 6 months to get them out and then they would never show up for court. I don’t know if he ever recovered any of the money he lost.

15

Never a landlord but I have a good “bad tenant” story - I was renting a house with three friends before I got married and the landlord put the house on the market, scheduling an open house for a nice summer Sunday afternoon and telling us to clear out for a few hours.

One of my roommates was dating a girl at the time who was pretty adventurous (as well as very loud) in bed, and they both come home around the time the open house was scheduled to end. No one home where the realtor had left so they start getting busy.

Realtor comes back a few minutes later with a couple that called to say they were running late so the realtor used the extra time to do a quick errand and met them in front of the house. They all walk in and hear the girl yelling out like she’s in a porn movie, yet the realtor keeps walking in the house saying “Hello? Is someone home?”

My roommate said afterwards that he could hear the realtor and was trying not to laugh, yet still kept going where his girlfriend was into it. Needless to say, our landlord was bullshit when the realtor called him and complained where she thought he lived there and that it was actually him that was in the house. He gave us an earful later about how that couple could have been the prospective buyer (the house had been on the market a while) and he missed a chance to finally sell, never mind having to apologize to the realtor. We were moving out towards the end of the month anyway, which is the only reason why he said he wasn’t going to kick us out.

My friends and I still laugh about that story to this day over 26 years after it happened; I ran into the landlord a few years ago and we chatted for a few minutes and then he brought that up. He could laugh a little about it now after all those years but he did say “Where you own a home now, you can understand why I was so mad.” I agreed but then said "You have to admit though that it is a funny story ", to which he laughed and agreed.

16

I owned a house in the Caribbean and when looking sell it, a family who had just moved back from Florida asked if they could rent for a year and then buy it. I was skeptical but with a $7k deposit for the purchase, and a month rent up front for the rental, it seemed relatively risk free. The family were locals - he was a church pastor, his wife an admin assistant, his 20+ son in police training and a teenage daughter. The main issue was that in the country the house was in, it was impossible to change the names on the utilities, so electric, phone etc was still in my name.

First couple months were ok, but it was a little concerning when the rent was being paid in cash with some pretty small notes. Then a couple of months the rent was short, but made up later. Then came the big $2k phone bill! Seems their daughter spent rather a long time chatting to her boyfriend in Florida and racked up a ridiculous phone bill. They claimed it was an error and refused to pay it. Then they started not paying rent and the electricity bill. After a couple of months I tried to get the electricity cut of, but it was actually pretty hard to persuade the electric company to do so. Eventually I pulled some strings and had it done (in August in the tropics).

At that point they had to leave the house because it was intolerably hot, I immediately had the locks changed and kept their stuff as collateral for the money they owed me. Of course there was a debate about the $7k deposit meant for buying the house. It barely covered what they owed in rent and utilities, whereas it was supposed to be extra money they would lose if they failed to go through with the purchase.

They were desperate for their passports and their son’s police uniform, and in the end we found a compromise that they would pay the utility bills and I would keep the $7k. I then dumped their crap on the front lawn. I came out about even in lost rent and went back to trying to sell the house.

The lessons learned were:

  • never trust a pastor,
  • don’t rent to buy and
  • don’t ever have the same lawyer act for both sides in drawing up the contracts. An old friend acted as the lawyer for both parties, but once there were issues with them not paying, he basically said there was nothing he could do as it was a conflict of interest for him.
17

“- don’t rent to buy”

What I learned really quick with this is that people who want to rent to buy are broke and/or don’t make good financial decisions. So they think rent to buy is their only chance of getting a house. Most everyone who asks about that (including the one I set up for that) has some shenanigans going on.

18

Used to own a commercial building. The computer shop tenant was on a lease but he pulled out and refused to honor the lease. Took several months to get it rented as it was a time of a recession and bad economy. Took him to small claims court and won my case. He wrote me a check in the court room. That’s about it. I’ve stayed away from residential rental properties. Heard too many nightmare stories.

19

I had a $60k condo I was leasing for $750 / mo. Tenant came to me wanting to buy. Both husband and wife flipped burgers 50 hours per week so they were making about $800/900 per week. They had two kids who could walk to the half way decent elementary school. I told them I would sell for $55K - this really was a good deal for them - if they could qualify for financing. Even though they cobbled $8K together they could not get the financing. They asked me to owner finance and after some thought I went with it. $47K note for 10 years @ 6%. They have made every single $525 payment on-time since 2012 and they have paid every condo association payment (~$200) on time as well.

In about 2 years they will own their home free and clear. One boy finished high school only 15 months ago, went to community college and is already an HVAC apprentice.

Not what you were looking for but worth sharing.

(I had 7 condos in this community. One guy “caulked” every crevice in the house with blue painters tape. )

20

I had a $60k condo I was leasing for $750 / mo. Tenant came to me wanting to buy. Both husband and wife flipped burgers 50 hours per week so they were making about $800/900 per week. They had two kids who could walk to the half way decent elementary school. I told them I would sell for $55K - this really was a good deal for them - if they could qualify for financing. Even though they cobbled $8K together they could not get the financing. They asked me to owner finance and after some thought I went with it. $47K note for 10 years @ 6%. They have made every single $525 payment on-time since 2012 and they have paid every condo association payment (~$200) on time as well.

In about 2 years they will own their home free and clear. One boy finished high school only 15 months ago, went to community college and is already an HVAC apprentice.

Not what you were looking for but worth sharing.

(I had 7 condos in this community. One guy “caulked” every crevice in the house with blue painters tape. )

That is a great story, actually.