Nightmare Tenant + Covid19 = No rent, no evictions, harassment
HELP! **I know its long, but please read**
My step brother and I bought a 2 family home in MA, in a great location. We both work from home, and live in the top unit. Our tenant is a 61 year old woman, and lives in the bottom unit. This is our first time as landlords, so we did not do a thorough background check on this tenant. She had an agent representing her, was 61 years old, willing to pay us $2200 a month, drove a beamer, and seemed like an awkward but nice old lady. Her credit score was also almost 800... so we went with our intuition and let her move in (BIG MISTAKE).
From October until February, she paid her $2200 on time every single month. She harassed us CONSTANTLY with strange requests during this time period. She would break things on purpose, tamper with things, and then yell at us via text / email that they needed to be addressed. I could go ON AND ON with crazy stories, but I don't want people to stop reading before I get to my question...
Starting in March, she stopped paying her rent. She purposely created a bunch of issues in her unit, then called the Board of Health and told them we hadn't addressed them. The main thing being that her toilet was clogged (which she 100% clogged on purpose). After showing the BOH the crazy emails, texts, and photos that our tenant sent us - they agreed that she might be mentally unstable. The inspector told us to just quickly fix the issues and then either ask for the rent and/or try to evict.
After getting marked off by the BOH, she still did not pay rent. We then had a constable serve her with a 7 Day Notice to Quit (which she completely disregarded, and has not mentioned). We were about to serve her with the Summary Process Complaint and get her in court, but due to coronavirus this entire process just got put on a permanent hold. We were trying to evict her based on
- Harassment (we have various police reports of nonstop harassment, and she has recently threatened our lives)
- Cleanliness (she has overflowed the toilet purposefully and left feces and waste on the floor. She even has picked it up and put it in the tub, then pretended like it was coming up through the tub. The DPW proved that wasn't possible and then she admitted to putting it in the tub because it was all over the floor... HUH?!?)
- Nonpayment of Rent (since she has recently stopped paying all together as well.
Although she is older and MA tenants have a lot of rights, we were pretty sure we would have gotten her evicted based on the insane amount of evidence we have.
Now - We cannot continue the eviction process because of the Coronavirus. She has been threatening our lives on the security camera, and we no longer feel comfortable in our own home. We have three separate police reports, but all the cops can do is call her or swing by and tell her to stop. They don't have enough to send her to a mental institution or arrest her on criminal charges. (Even if they did arrest her on criminal charges - those are criminal charges, and not civil charges that will get her evicted). Our lawyer suggested to try to get a Harassment Protection Order against her to try and expedite getting her out... but the courthouse is shut down and it's impossible to see a judge. We tried to do it at the Police Station, but most of our evidence is video evidence - and the cops didn't think what we had in writing would be enough to evict her, especially at her age and given the current circumstances with Covid19.
So basically - we are screwed. We will not be able to traditionally evict her ANY time soon, cannot get an HPO that will force an eviction, and her lease is not up until the end of August. We are guessing that we will now have to just eat the $2200 a month for 5 months (she paid first and last, but no security deposit)... and try to sue her after she moves out for all the losses. We are also scared of her squatting when the lease is up at this point... because I feel like she thinks she can just get away with whatever she wants. We also feel SOOOO uncomfortable trying to talk to her. She is clearly unstable and we are insanely uncomfortable in our own house... especially getting nonstop camera alerts of her tampering with things in the basement, cursing us out on camera, etc...
Does anyone have any ideas?? What would you do in this situation? I'm officially at a loss of what to do. As of right now, I'm planning to just get no rent for 5 months, get her out of my house, and then sue her retroactively for absolutely everything. Thoughts?
TLDR
-Tenant (in MA) is crazy, cannot evict her due to covid19, now she is squatting / not paying rent... what do I do?