Tenant moved, left personal items in unit in Ohio. What next?
Hello. I have a rental in Ohio that 2 tenants were splitting the rent on. One of the tenants possibly has some mental issues. Both tenants were using a Help Crisis Center to pay their bills and my rent checks were coming directly from this center. On Nov 18th I was given a 30 day notice that they were moving. Prior to Dec 1 tenant #1 left the crisis center program so I did not receive any rent for his half for Dec. He has since moved out. I did receive tenant #2 rent but this only amounted to half the rent due under the lease. Tenant #2 moved out about 10 days ago. However, this tenant left personal belongings (mostly bags of baby clothes) in the house. I have been speaking with her case worker at the crisis center and she has been trying to get her to go get the remaining items but the tenant is being uncooperative and has refused. The case worker told her if it's not out by Jan 1 she will have to pay another months rent but she don't seem to care and I really don't think the crisis center will really send me another months rent and even if they did it would only be for her half. I think this is more of a scare tactic on the case workers part to try to get the tenant to cooperate. I offered to move the items to a storage facility and was told the tenant cannot afford that and not to do it (per case worker). As of today the case worker is going to continue to talk with the tenant and attempt to get her to remove the rest of the items by Friday and is telling her that if she doesn't the items will be discarded. This was the case workers idea and she has told me that if the items are not removed by Friday to go ahead and get rid of them and secure the house. So..... Is it OK for me to just get rid of these items if they are not removed by Friday per the case workers telling me to? Would I need something in writing from the case worker and/or the tenant? I don't want the tenant to come back later and claim I just got rid of her stuff but I also am not running a free storage facility and obviously cannot clean and rerent the house until her stuff is gone so this is costing me money. Since she has moved and left the items behind can I get rid of them based on her leaving/abandoning them? Any help is appreciated... Thank you!