Here is some more tenant madness for you.
 

I sort of put down the rental house thing while my daughter was sick and going through treatment. My partner kept on top of things pretty well, to hold it together , and did his best to keep me in the loop.
We've got one, who is gone at the end or her lease. She is nice enough, but is bad pay, and the place is turning to crap. I was going to not going to renew her lease last season, but my life blew up at the end of summer, and we just let it ride till things settled down on the home front, and we could deal with cleaning up the place , and re-renting
She is a working section 8'er. Her rent is $850 a month and she works, so the city pays us $350.00 ish and she pays the rest.
She is 5, maybe 6 months behind with us now. You have to pound on doors, and send 50 texts, and countless letters to her for weeks to make $150.00 dollars show up on in our mailbox.
So , two months ago, one of her little carpet chewers must have been hanging on the pedestal sink , and ripped it from the wall, breaking the water pipe in the meantime. It happened in the evening and although she could hear water running, she could not see it, so she did not call my partner till the morning. ( It was running down inside the wall). He took off work, shot down there, turned off the water, and cleaned up the mess, because now , the kitchen drywall had caved in, and it had shorted out the lighting, and blew a breaker.
He pays a plumber, and electrician, to fix it all up, hangs the drywall himself, paints it up , and goes on about his merry way.
We get a letter this morning demanding that we pay the increase in her last water bill ( about 50 some bucks) due to the water running unchecked for 12 hours.
So, she owes us $2500.00 and wants to quarrel over a fin that was caused by her kids, and did a grand worth of damage to the place, in which we fixed right up.
Hold on while I run right down there and hand her a 50 for her troubles. ( when hell freezes over ) .
What farkin' planet do these people come from?

the planet renterdouche.

That must be a heavily populated planet with regular shuttle service to earth .

She is ENTITLED to your $50, as well as the taxpayer's $350/mo

You might as well give her everything you have, it's supposed to be hers.
I was a landlord for a while many years ago (and hated it). I had to deal with a few loosers, but I never had the courage to deal with a section 8'er and i'm glad I didn't.


If you invite scum in, sum will come in, and you'll be left with .... scum.

Another example of why I only use month-to month rental agreements.

I'm not waiting for a year to be up to lose someone like that.

+1....never had to, but "I" want control of MY properties. Long term lease doesn't really provide squat for the LL anyways for a "bad" tennant imo. Sec 8....nope, not gonna even consider 'em...don't need that hassle either.

I am having some issues w/ my renters...I hate having the houses and will begin contemplating selling. they were fun when I was young and hat the time and patience. I cannot believe the lack of rights or recourse I have as the owner...it is tough to fathom!!!!

I wish the op luck!!!

I have an older female tenant that complains in the summer that her unit gets too hot. She has air conditioning but she says it's too expensive. She asked for an attic fan to be installed and we complied. Now I find out she is using the complexes water that I pay for to water down the roof on hot days. I am going to draft a letter telling her in no uncertain terms that when the water bill comes in she is paying for it or I will evict her.

Month to month is the absolute best way to go. I have never seen an advantage to being locked into a commitment that is one sided. Even though the tenant breaking a lease is supposed to owe you the balance of the rent for the lease period, no judge will ever award that to you. Meanwhile, you lose time, legal expenses and stomach lining to get very little. The idea of being able to terminate the agreement in 30 or 60 days is very appealing.

I know someone who exclusively deals with section 8 rentals. He is pretty happy with the arraignment and tells me that at least the government portion of the rent is a certainty.

no truer words...

add to that, the long lease simply allows the tenant to do more damage to the house as they slowly decide to leave....lose, lose for the owner!!

That's a lot of work. Not sure if I could do your job. Keep at it!

Does this apply?...
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/off-topic-discussions/823357-one-you-created.html

That's why I only have fairly high end places. Professional types are so much easier to work with.

But yes, I have been there done that renting to people such as her.

Bill, I am with you. No section 8. What would you expect? I am in Oklahoma, pulling 1200.00 to 1400.00, check is in like clock work. Buying another before the end of the year.

To be blunt that is where you went wrong.
You should ask nice two times, one not-so-nice, then serve paperwork.

She causes a grand in damages but it's not her fault.
She has the money but no longer respects you.
"Pay up" sounds like "blah blah blah". He doesn't really mean it.

It's a game now, with only one conclusion: To see how long she can get away with it.
Can your business really survive(or thrive) long-term on $350/mo?

I'm with Bill as well. We bought the old village post office/general store last December to move our home office into. It has an attached residence, which we thoroughly renovated to a nice level, rather high end. We listed it with a realtor friend of ours, and they credit, employment, and reference checked prospective tenants prior to showing.
We wound up with a 23 yr old single female Sr. Engineer with Johnson & Johnson who loves the place, treats it with great care, and shows up with the rent & utiliies check in the week prior to it being due. It was worth one month's rent ($1,500) to the RE company to get a great tenant.
BTW: First time landlord here.

I had a bad start at the condo I bought:
1). The first tenants(young men) I inherited told me to get bent and stopped paying rent.
I took them to court twice, got ripped off by the attny, but should have kicked them out from the start.

I lived in the place a while, and fixed it up nice.

2). The second set(lesbian couple) who were filthy dirty and loud.
I liked them only because they fought with the scumbags downstairs causing 90% of the problems in the building.
Then they started demanding lower and lower rent to remain, and I kept conceding and bending over backwards trying to fix every little thing.
My mistake.
They finally threatened me with bringing in the EPA/Health Administration along with a resident class-action lawsuit because of cigarette smoking in the building. I had done what I could inside, but there were no prohibitions in the by-laws.
I finally told them to leave. Soon.

3). The third set was a responsible young woman with an alky boyfriend who lost his job.
She stayed a while then moved on.

I had a management company take over because of general burnout.
I figured they would get higher and faster rents.

4). The fourth set(young men) entirely trashed the place putting holes in the doors and drywall. About a grand and a half in damages, plus they were months late in rent.

The management co. sprayed the whole place semi-gloss white because the roof still hadn't been fixed after eight years.
There was (indicated) about $40K missing from the books and several lawsuits involved against the developer/majority owner/president/treasurer.
It's still an ongoing issue.

5). It's rented now at top dollar to a nice young man in Sect. 8, and the roof is fixed.

Nine years of bad luck...

I agree, Fred. When you let that second month go late, she knew she owned you.

I never, ever rented to anyone on welfare, section 8, Social Security Disability, always ran a credit check and gave a 3 day notice to pay or quit on the fifth day after rent was due, and filed an Unlawful Detainer immediately if the rent wasn't paid. The few times I had to do that, the word got around. You will end up with problem tenants once in a while and immediate action cuts your losses and should be considered the cost of doing business. You have a lot on your plate, but letting things slide just adds to it.

I have had rentals for 25 years...very few negative experiences. I am burnt out, quality tenants seem to be harder to get these days. I am probably selling ...just have deal with capital gains

+1 on immediately starting eviction procedures when rent is falling behind. It will only get worse once they start slipping. I speak from experience as a landlord ...

I have been a tenant for decades as well and never was late on my rent. Rent would always be the first thing that is getting paid.

That's the kind of tenant you need. If the one you have isn't that guy / gal - time to move on immediately.

Of course if you are having property in a rough area, your options finding a decent tenant may be limited. But I'd rather have an empty place than a situation ...

G