I get laid into on this forum about collecting rents personally, doing yards, etc, and here is what happens when you run your investments at arms length.
Everyone wants electronic payments, charging for yard work to make sure the tenant does it, everyone is doing their level best to avoid their investment and their customer.
And then the tenant starts doing stuff that you don't know about and eventaully you get stuck with some huge bill and a huge pile of trash. Not only that, but the landlord now has the added hassle that the county inspectors will be on his back.
How on earth can you inhabit a place that has piles of trash which weigh as much as ten to twelve mid sized pickup trucks?
Not even considering the dignity aspect; but, medically, how can you not be subject to some crazy risk of disease and illnesses. If you're truly having trouble paying the trash bill but are otherwise on time with all rent/utilities, let me know and I'll take it over. It's like $8/month in SD.
You leave 50k pounds of trash on one of my/my clients' properties, I swear I will make it my sole objective in life to find you, make you come back to my property, and watch you clean it up piece by piece.
I had a neighbor like that once. Nice suburban house, couldn't tell anything was wrong on the outside except the yard was all weeds and dirt. One day they just left. The entire house was packed with garbage - floor to ceiling! I think they left because they ran out of room. The bank ended up tearing it down, it was less than 8 years old.
With that said garbage service is pretty expensive in Portland. Guess they need to add an allowance to section 8 for that...
You leave 50k pounds of trash on one of my/my clients' properties, I swear I will make it my sole objective in life to find you, make you come back to my property, and watch you clean it up piece by piece.
The sad thing is you can't hold them responsible. What are you going to do, keep their $400 security deposit? After that maybe you can sue them for the cost of cleanup, and that's a big maybe. IF you win, you won't collect anything but more garbage.
Been in houses like that before. Once went into a rental where the tenant had three mini horses in the dining room. The floor was covered up to the outlets. Don't k now how anyone could even think of living that way. Always will keep a close eye on what is going on and take nothing for granted...