Tales from a land lord

[Punisher Bass]

Be warned, this a long rant, but I have to get this off my chest.

So you wanna be a landlord? You might want to think twice about it.

First, a little bit of back story. My family had our house (a duplex) built special 16 years ago. We live on one side, and my grandma lived on the other side. She passed away in 99 and since that time, we’ve rented out that side to various people with the help of a management company. Most of the time we’ve had little to no problem with the tenants who’ve lived there… till Chad (name changed to protect the guilty douche bag) moved in a year ago.

At the end of last summer, my house started going through what is called mine subsidence. I’m sure most of you have no fucking clue what I’m on about, so I’ll try and explain. A company called Peabody Coal undermined this entire area many decades ago, and because they did not leave enough support behind in their wake, that area deep underground has collapsed. This means my house, along with about 30 others in my neighborhood, have started to break in two and crumble in various ways. But that is another thread for another day.

The point is while the house has some cosmetic problems inside and out, it’s still 100% safe and livable. It’s been inspected and is fully up to code. Hell, the city inspector is a former tenant of ours. The mine subsidence is fully disclosed to each tenant, and they sign a paper saying “yes, I know this house is going through yadda yadda yadda”.

Keep this in mind for later.

Last September our last tenant moved out and our management company found us Chad. Chad is a military asshole. Chad starts parking a trailer in the yard next to the driveway. CSM tells him that he can't do that, so he puts the trailer in the driveway and parks his TRUCK in the yard. CSM tells him that is even worse and he throws a fit.

About a week after this, the contractor we have on call to keep our house from falling apart (lets call him Bill), a person from CSM (John), and myself go next door to look things over. For the first few minutes he’s trying to be looming and intimidating to the three of us, till he realizes who I am and that I live right next door and have seen all the shit he’s been pulling.

Bill checks the supports in the crawlspace and John just goes over the subject of mine subsidence with Chad again, telling him people will be by periodically to make sure the house itself is ok. Then Bill goes over it with him again about what can happen during these events, and Chad says he understands.

Things are ok for a few months, other than Chad making a lot of noise from time to time, he doesn’t cause us much trouble. As the house moves, Bill and his crew keep everything in check.

Then April comes around.

CSM emails me a copy of a letter Chad sent them. In it, he says he wants to be let out of his lease with no penalties for the following reasons/lies.

1: He says the mine subsidence started after he moved in.
2: He says he was never informed about the mine subsidence.
3: He says the house is not safe and livable.
4. He says we’ve done nothing to keep the house safe.
5: He says he and his family (what family?) are in danger.

Needless to say, I hit the roof. We type up a letter shooting down each of his points and say "no, we will not release you from the lease". We also pull out the paper he signed that said "Yes I understand this property has mine subsidence". He does have the option of breaking the lease, but that means paying all the fines and fees that go along with it.

Since Chad didn't get his way he starts acting out like a child. And in the middle of May he just vanishes into thin air. His truck is gone and there is no noise next door. Into mid June there is still no sign of him. He hasn't given us or CSM a note or phone call or anything saying he would be gone for X amount of time. But his rent is still being paid.

The whole time Chad has been away, the grass has been growing and growing. A cop knocks on my door and says they've gotten a complaint from a neighbor about how high that side of the yard has gotten. He also says that if it is not cut soon, we will be cited and fined because we are the property owners.

I call up CSM and tell them what I was just told. They try to get a hold of him over the phone but have no luck. CSM can send one of their guys out to cut the grass for a $45 fee which Chad will have to pay, or I can cut the grass myself and charge him. I do the job myself and charge him $90 because it took 3 tanks of gas and 3 different passes to get the grass down to a normal level.

A few days after I finished the grass, Chad shows up again and starts throwing another fit. I'm sure it was caused by the letters CSM left him saying "You need to cut your grass" "Your grass will be cut for you if you don't" and "Here's the bill for cutting your grass". He doesn't pay up.

On July 4th I discover he now has a dog over there, which is a major violation of the lease. Because of this, he gets charged an extra $250 a month which he will get back, provided the carpets are not messed up because of the dog. Again, he doesn't pay up.

Shockingly, he decides not to renew the lease.

At the end of September he’s moving out and making more noise than ever. For the last few days it sounds like he’s stuffing whole potatoes down the garbage disposal and hammering the walls constantly. When he’s finally gone for good, I go over to have a look at things, and I am not happy.

He’s put all kinds of holes, scuffs, scrapes, gouges, and stains on the walls. I find bits of plastic, ceramic, and what looks like an orange bag inside the disposal. He’s stained custom made blinds. He’s put a nail in a door. He dented the front door. He also stole the broiler pan, shower curtain, and curtain rod.

Here are some examples of the damage. He did a lot more than this, but it gives you an idea.













I call up CSM and they send someone over to see the damage. Rather than have them do the repairs and cleaning, I will do them myself. I've already painted that side of the house twice before and cleaning isn't hard. I am told once again that since I am doing the work myself, I can charge whatever I want and it will be taken out of the security deposit.

I figure it up at:

$350 for repair and repainting walls.
$200 for supplies and materials. (paint, new disposal, new blinds, ect)
$100 for carpet cleaning.
$90 for the grass cutting.
$40 for 2 hours of labor. (for removing the old and installing the new disposal and blinds)

TOTAL: $780

I worked from Friday afternoon to Sunday night and here are the results.









I wrote up the invoice and dropped it off at the CSM office on Monday morning, and now I wait to collect my money. I wish I could see the look on Chad's face when he realizes he's not going to be getting back any of his security deposit.

Also, his commanding officer will be called and notified of Chad's actions over the last year.

So if you ever have the chance to be a land lord, you might want to think it over.

Some people might think I'm overreacting, but think about it from where I'm sitting. If you had a very nice home that was in great shape with fresh paint and carpets, and someone came in and damaged it like that, you'd be highly pissed wouldn't you? Especially if you had to deal with crap from them over a whole year.

[Koenig]

That sucks, but some people in the world are real asswipes, so not much you can do about it. My parents own 6 properties in my town ranging from duplexes to bungalows to singles houses. Because of the close proximity to the two universities in town, we rent mainly to university students. Students are surprisingly good tenants, mostly because none of them are really aware of their rights, and mostly because all their bills are paid by their parents. However, we have one set of tenants that have given us some trouble. Let's call them John and Steve.

John and Steve share an apartment unit in one of our duplexes, and have been living their at the time we purchased the property, so we were not the owners when they moved in. Mike is a schizophrenic, but is on medication, so he's fine most of the time. Steve is a young guy with a full time IT job, so it pays fairly well. However they are both hopelessly messy, and have never cleaned the place in the 4 years they've lived there. One day, Mike had a real bad schizo attack, and was put in hospital. Afterwards, he informed us he couldn't live there anymore. My parents took pity on him, and let him out of his lease. However, a month later, he apparently went berserk, came back to the property, and proceeded to smash his way through the back door to get his laptop which he had left behind. The neighbours saw everything and called the cops, which took him away. Thus ends the saga of 'Mike'. 'Steve' on the other hand, continued to live in the unit. Even with his high paying IT job though, almost every month, he calls my parents to ask them to cash his cheque later than usual because "he's short just a bit". We find out later on that he has a huge drug habit.

My parents also increase rent every year. Not because they're assholes, but they need to to cover for inflation. The increase is usually about 2-3%. No one has ever complained before, but this year, Steve decides that he's had enough of inflation, and confronts my parents. He says that he will only pay the increase if he gets an actual parking spot. The duplex comes with 2 parking spots, one for each side. However, the spot on his side is already occupied by the tenant on the lower level, so he parks his shitbox on the street. But he says that he's afraid of people breaking into this car (the house is in a nice area of town), and that if we don't give him a space, he will move out when his lease is up. My parents basically told him, we'll do what we can, but if you want to leave, then feel free.

Sometimes you just really don't know when it comes to tenants, you can only pray that you won't get a bad one.

[Punisher Bass]

This is one reason why we have CSM, for a small fee they take care of 99% of the bullshit. Such as background and credit checks and whatnot. Chad is the first, and so far only, real problem tenant we've ever had. The best by far was an old couple named Al and Karen, Al being the city inspector I mentioned up above. They actually left the place in better shape than when they first moved in. Plus Al was a hell of a gardener while I have no green thumb at all. We had some trees come down in a big storm while they were here, and he had no problem at all helping me cut them up, then using his truck to haul them away.

God I wish we could get them back.

[efoolution]

I´ve been a leaser the last 11 Years now and could tell some stories from the other side of the field, about terrible to even criminal landlords ... but of course I also heard a lot of such pests of leasers (german law is favor of the leasers to protect them of their landlords so it happens quite often) and as a matter of fact one like that lived next to me some time ago. So I can quite understand both sides ... I always wish that terrible landlords get terrible leasers ... but sadly good landlords often get terrible leasers, and I end up with asshole-landlords

[Suedschleife]

I am sorry, but I find it hard to be sympathetic to you PB. Apart from trying to get out of the lease unjustly (assuming it's the whole story) there doesn't seem to be any major issue from my perspective.

The 90$ and 250$ charges seem a bit arbitrary, but as I don't know the US laws, it might be completely justified. Taking security deposit for renovation costs seems OK, that's what it is there for after all (as long as the lease specified the return condition like at move in).

But overall it sounds like a minor nuisance compared to the stunts some leasers pull over here (not paying rent until the apartment is evacuated by court order then disappearing, leaving the place as a dump etc). It's probably a lot harder for private landlords to deal with, but if you made a profit it's a business and that hardly is nuisance free.

[Seasonone]

http://www.houston-imports.com/dirty/dirty.html

Could be worse

[Lupin_IV]

Originally Posted by Seasonone

http://www.houston-imports.com/dirty/dirty.html

Could be worse

This is the first thing I've seen on this site to warrant the following smiley.

[Punisher Bass]

Originally Posted by Suedschleife

I am sorry, but I find it hard to be sympathetic to you PB. Apart from trying to get out of the lease unjustly (assuming it's the whole story) there doesn't seem to be any major issue from my perspective.

The 90$ and 250$ charges seem a bit arbitrary, but as I don't know the US laws, it might be completely justified. Taking security deposit for renovation costs seems OK, that's what it is there for after all (as long as the lease specified the return condition like at move in).

But overall it sounds like a minor nuisance compared to the stunts some leasers pull over here (not paying rent until the apartment is evacuated by court order then disappearing, leaving the place as a dump etc). It's probably a lot harder for private landlords to deal with, but if you made a profit it's a business and that hardly is nuisance free.

I'm not looking for sympathy, nor did I say this was the worst tenant on earth, it's simply to bitch and moan a bit and tell the story of this asshole.

The $90 for grass cutting might not have been an issue if he A: was a nice friendly tenant, B: had informed someone that he was leaving for a month, C: paid someone else to come and cut the grass. Why should I be fined because he's an asshole? And the $250 per month was going to be returned to him if the carpets were found to still be in good shape. With a little puppy running around a house, what do you think is going to happen? If the carpets were stained or ruined, that money would have gone to replace them. But it doesn't matter since he never paid that up either.

Also, no sooner did I finish my last post than I ran into Al. I looked outside and saw CSM was over there with a city inspector. I walked in and sure enough it was Al. He says everything is good, except I need to replace an outdoor socket with a new GFI one so it will be up to code. And to further prove how good of a person he is, he offered to swing by tonight and help me install it since he knows I'm no electrician.

Originally Posted by Seasonone

http://www.houston-imports.com/dirty/dirty.html

Could be worse

Dear god. That would either take total inertness or serious effort to be that fucking filthy.

[Susurrate]

Originally Posted by Seasonone

http://www.houston-imports.com/dirty/dirty.html

Could be worse

I think my father at one time owned the same couch as that guy.

I've seen it from both sides, it sucks either way you just have to be the bigger douche to win those fights.

[Donington]

Meh, i still want to be a landlord

Joke aside, I'm sorry it happened, although it seems to be turning out as ok as it can be. A very similar thing did happen to a friend with someone very like 'Chad'. Be careful out there folks.

[KaJuN]

Speaking of bad tenants there were recently some next door to us. While they lived there for over a year they were fine as neighbors and quite friendly. Then about a month or so ago they literally disappeared overnight. Childrens toys are still strewn about the back yard and yesterday someone finally came to mow the lawn. My guess is the happy young couple had a horrendously bad breakup and the woman bailed because she could no longer afford the rent without him.

[Punisher Bass]

Sounds similar to Chad. He moved in with his girlfriend and her two kids. Then about a month or so later, they moved out, probably because he's a prick.

[NooDle]

Well, here's my 2 cents.

While "Chad" is a grade A asshole with the "I never knew this place was falling apart" and with the sudden leaving, I don't think he did THAT much damage to the house itself. It's the usual bumps and scrapes you get from moving furniture around and stuff.

On the other hand : good on ya for doing it yourself and charging him for it. He could have fixed most of that stuff for a lot less money.

I've bought my house 2 yrs ago and it's something I'll never regret. Just the idea that you can do whatever you want to it makes it worth it. Our previous landlady was a weird one. She never ever ever checked up on anything really, but when we moved out she wanted us to repaint everything because we had hung up some posters with adhesive tape. It didn't matter that the tape could be removed without a trace.

In the end we convinced the new tenants to do it for us and send us a bill. They were smart, went to the cheapest paint store they could find, bought the cheapest paint they could find and sent the bill to us. I gladly paid those 100€ to get rid of all that shit

[Hidden_Hunter]

My dad had a renter below him that played fucking siesta music at like 3am in the morning

[Dsemaj]

Off topic here for a moment, but does anyone else find it hilarious to see an iron in that horror house?



"I can't clean the house, but that doesn't mean I can't look clean!"

[NooDle]

I was actually more scared of the creepy amount of used cigarettes in the pile of garbage...

[Punisher Bass]

Originally Posted by NooDle

Well, here's my 2 cents.

While "Chad" is a grade A asshole with the "I never knew this place was falling apart" and with the sudden leaving, I don't think he did THAT much damage to the house itself. It's the usual bumps and scrapes you get from moving furniture around and stuff.

On the other hand : good on ya for doing it yourself and charging him for it. He could have fixed most of that stuff for a lot less money.

I've bought my house 2 yrs ago and it's something I'll never regret. Just the idea that you can do whatever you want to it makes it worth it. Our previous landlady was a weird one. She never ever ever checked up on anything really, but when we moved out she wanted us to repaint everything because we had hung up some posters with adhesive tape. It didn't matter that the tape could be removed without a trace.

In the end we convinced the new tenants to do it for us and send us a bill. They were smart, went to the cheapest paint store they could find, bought the cheapest paint they could find and sent the bill to us. I gladly paid those 100€ to get rid of all that shit

The damage he did was all over the place, I just didn't post the pictures of it. Because there were not only nail holes, but there were stains and scuff marks around every single one of them, so you had like a 3 inch wide circle of crap. Because there were so many marks all over, I had to repaint entire walls or else you'd end up with a bunch of spots where the paint doesn't match. I was lucky and was able to get an almost perfect match.

As for the cost, I learned my lesson from the previous two times I painted that place. DON'T buy everything that's the cheapest, invest in quality stuff and it will save you a lot of time and money in the end. Prime example are rollers, yeah you can get a 6 pack for $5 or so, but they don't work very well and fall apart during cleaning if they don't do it while you're using them. I'm not saying everything needs to be expensive, but know where to spend a few bucks and where you can get away with the el cheapo stuff.

If he hadn't been such a prick over the last year, violated the lease with the dog, and then finished it off with intentionally breaking a garbage disposal that was less than a year old, I probably would have cut him a break. But he was an asshole, so I simply returned the favor.

If you plan on painting anything, then I HIGHLY recommend buying a Wagner Power Roller setup. You can get the most basic one for about $70 and it is such a life saver. Not only will you get the job done ten times faster, but it will be far less messy. If I didn't have it, that job probably would have taken me another day to finish.

[AnGuRuSO]

PB you should have just let him out of the lease if he was such a pain in the ass. It really sounds like there was a lack of mutual respect between the two of you and as a result you guys had a bad relationship. He wasn't that bad at all. The damage pictures really are nothing and in the end you won.

[NooDle]

Originally Posted by Punisher Bass

If you plan on painting anything, then I HIGHLY recommend buying a Wagner Power Roller setup. You can get the most basic one for about $70 and it is such a life saver. Not only will you get the job done ten times faster, but it will be far less messy. If I didn't have it, that job probably would have taken me another day to finish.

Oh I know. I just wasn't that keen on buying the best equipment available to paint SOMEONE ELSE's house, while it wasn't even nessecery

I painted my own house with some expensive shit, I never thought paint + rollers and shit can turn out to be so freaking expensive. I think I spent 800something € on paint alone, and my house is oh so tiny!

[Punisher Bass]

Originally Posted by AnGuRuSO

PB you should have just let him out of the lease if he was such a pain in the ass. It really sounds like there was a lack of mutual respect between the two of you and as a result you guys had a bad relationship. He wasn't that bad at all. The damage pictures really are nothing and in the end you won.

We didn't let him out of the lease because he was an asshole, it's like a child throwing a fit and then getting rewarded with a candy bar. He had no legit reason to be let go from the lease, just a bunch of lies. There was always the option for him to break the lease at any time, he just wanted to be let go so he wouldn't have to pay the fines and fees that go along with it. It was just another one of his "I want things my way and if I don't get it I'm going to throw a tantrum".

Originally Posted by NooDle

Oh I know. I just wasn't that keen on buying the best equipment available to paint SOMEONE ELSE's house, while it wasn't even nessecery

I painted my own house with some expensive shit, I never thought paint + rollers and shit can turn out to be so freaking expensive. I think I spent 800something € on paint alone, and my house is oh so tiny!

800 euro? Damn. That house is 1200sq feet and in the past I was able to give the whole place 2 (sometimes 3) coats of paint with 2 5 gallon buckets for $40 each.