TRAPPED in a Bad House Hacking Situation due to COVID-19 Laws
I decided to try house hacking with my first Duplex, I'm living on the top unit and renting out the bottom unit. I rented the other unit out on a month-to-month basis in the beginning of March, right before the corona virus scare really started to ramp up here. I should have been more strict about the few red flags when screening this tenant (540 credit score, no landlord references) but I had gotten 30+ applicants all with similar disqualifiers in the month that I had been advertising the rental, and I thought I would have to lower my standards a bit if I was ever going to get the place rented out.
Everything was ok for the first few weeks, but then I started smelling smoke in my upper unit. The tenant claimed not to smoke, but on several occasions I am smelling smoke drifting up through their ceiling, through my floor into my bedroom and living room where I am forced to breath it in my own home. (I am not a smoker) This is especially bad since I am having to stay home more often due to the quarantine.
I confronted them several times about this but their behavior has not stopped.
They often end up fighting and arguing with each other (non-physical fighting, from what I'm told. I did hear loud banging around because apparently when one of them is upset he likes to use the cabinets as a punching bag)
One time their loud yelling argument spilled out onto the front yard and neighbors called the police on them.
It has now been almost a month since they moved in and they still have not put the gas + electric utilities in their name (these utilities are NOT included in the lease) The ONLY fortunate thing is that they have SS income that is sufficient to pay the rent at least...
This problem is obviously MY fault for not being through enough in my screening process and for allowing them to move in before getting the utilities in their name... I made the decision to let this into my life and now I need to figure out what to do about it. In normal times, the solution would be to not renew the lease at the end of the month since it's only a month-to-month lease, and give them a 30 day notice. However, the corona virus laws are prevent me from removing these tenants.
So right now, even if I did not renew the lease and give them a 30 day notice, I would not be able to actually get them removed. They would have no incentive to continue paying the rent with their SS income, and their behaviors would likely get even worse (intentional property damage or damage to my car which I park outside?) and I would be labeled by society as the "bad guy" for trying to remove tenants during a quarantine, even though they are degrading my own quality of life since I have to live right above them and am forced to breath their smoke and listen to their screaming contests.
So is my only option to simply continue to confront them about their lease violations, but not to actually cancel the lease until the state of emergency/disaster is over? I have heard reports of this lasting until June, and I do not want to keep living like this until then.
Should I preemptively cancel the lease now and and give them a 30 day notice, not accept May's rent, and hope that the courts open back up and begin to allow me to legally remove a tenant by the time the 30 day notice is finished?
Cash for keys?
At the very least, this has been a great learning experience on how NOT to house hack. Once I eventually get these tenants out, I'm considering not even renting the other unit out until I am able to buy a single family house for myself to live in, and then hiring a PM to rent out both duplex units, since I'm obviously not able to handle tenants directly myself...