July Tenant Turnover: Got Possession!

When dealing with move outs, possession is the biggest stress and the most important thing. We can deal with just about anything that goes wrong in a move out, as long as we can get the tenant to leave.

We gave notice to our deadbeat tenant to move out at the end of June. She’s the one who avoids us like the plague. On Monday 6/30 Bruce got her on video stating that she would be out by Tuesday night, on time, and that we could change the locks Wednesday morning. A few hours later she texted us saying that she had until end of day of the 31st, so why were we asking her to leave a day early. We explained that June only has 30 days.

On the morning of the 1st Bruce was up and heading out to change the locks and assess the situation when we got a text from her begging for a few more hours. This stretched out; Bruce had midday appointments, so he gave her some grace. That evening I went by the place. She had the door wide open, was hiding in the bathroom. We could see all the way through the unit and could tell she was far far far from getting moved out. That’s always a sinking feeling. Our only consolation is that her dad is on the rental agreement.

We finally got possession the afternoon of the 2nd. It’s a wreck, but hopefully not a terribly expensive or time consuming wreck. She stole one heat cadet (photo). Her fridge and freezer are filthy and full of food. All of the flooring is very sticky. The doors look like they’ve been through a warzone. The walls are dirty, full of evidence of things hanging and being yanked out, and even some burn marks. Her bathroom was truly her sanctuary, lots of cigarette burn marks all over. Looks very different from when we were inside for a full inspection in April.

With plenty of evidence of unauthorized smoking and a cat living there, she forfeits all of her deposit.

We’ll do a few things this weekend, but meeting with the property manager Monday morning and I’m leaning toward letting her handle it to see what she does to get units back to move in condition.