What is the weirdest thing tenants have left behind?

What is the weirdest thing tenants have left behind?

Real Estate Investor · Paramus, NJ · Member since 2008 · 64 posts · 4 votes

What is the weirdest thing your tenants have left behind in your property and how did you deal with it?

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Real Estate Investor · Indianapolis, IN · Member since 2009 · 13 posts · 4 votes
17y

I sold a house about a year ago and we manage it for the owner while we were rehabbing it the old owner that lost the house would come over and do some work like cut the grass pick up trash and it got to a point were we told him not to come around. Well we did not see him for a cpl of months moved the new tenants in and about a month later the tenant called complaining there was a racoon or something in the attic. We go up there with flash light and you will not beleive this the guy that lost the house had a bed, mini fridge, chair, electrical work, electric griddle, and a cat living up in the attic. I could not beleive what I was looking at we actually had to evict this guy from the property because of some BS mail that he had coming to the property.

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  • Real Estate Investor · OH · Member since 2008 · 4k+ posts · 1k+ votes
    17y

    Dentures and sex toys. I threw the sex toys away, along with the gloves I was wearing (nasty) and I kept the teeth on the shelf! I thought the teeth were quite funny!

    Another tenant left one of those giant wheel chairs for the obese. I gave that to a friend when he hit the big 50! (as a gag gift)

    Mike

  • Real Estate Investor · Paramus, NJ · Member since 2008 · 64 posts · 4 votes
    17y

    I woulsd have used a shovel on the toys, I probably would have kept he dentres as a curiosity conversation piece also, but I have to commend you on the excellant recycle of the obese wheel chair. I have never seen one, do they have extra wide wheels and hydrolics for seat support?

  • Attorney · Raleigh, NC · Member since 2008 · 4k+ posts · 1k+ votes
    17y

    Common theme here Mike. On one I got enough porn to start my own adult book store from one tenant. The dude could have afforded a house, car and private health insurance if we wasn't buying so much porn.

  • Real Estate Investor · San Jose, CA · Member since 2008 · 228 posts · 13 votes
    17y

    So far, it's a used pregnancy tester that was left on top of the medicine cabinet.

  • Rental Property Investor · Mercer Island, WA · Member since 2008 · 22k+ posts · 14k+ votes
    17y

    A gold tooth.

  • Real Estate Investor · Paramus, NJ · Member since 2008 · 64 posts · 4 votes
    17y

    I think I would have sent the tooth to one of the cash for gold sites.

  • Rental Property Investor · Mercer Island, WA · Member since 2008 · 22k+ posts · 14k+ votes
    17y

    I was talking to my dentist about that not long after this. He was complaining the gold guys gave him squat. He said they would only pay $25-50 bucks for a "bag" of old teeth.

  • Member since 2008 · 26 posts · 2 votes
    17y

    found shotgun shells, bullets, knives, 1/4 stick dynamite(stump blaster) and my favorite a tree climbing harness with leg spikes. This was all from one house.

  • Real Estate Investor · OH · Member since 2008 · 4k+ posts · 1k+ votes
    17y

    I'm betting she was pregnant. The lazy heathens are breeding at an alarming rate!

  • Real Estate Investor · Chicago, IL · Member since 2009 · 178 posts · 62 votes
    17y

    I used to work on the crew of a property management company and so I have seen some pretty crazy stuff. Once we found a loaded gun!!!!!! One time, someone left a incredible 60 inch tv that one of the guys took. But the other stuff we found in the house was pretty disgusting. There were so many unwashed dishes that I think was for months and there was poo in one of the bedrooms. Possibly human... It was obviously a sick cruel prank. Thats what happens when you don't charge a security deposit. I've seen leftover needles and obvious signs of drug use... sex toys...

  • Investor · Southlake, TX · Member since 2009 · 950 posts · 338 votes
    17y

    I should have known better than looking at this thread while eating lunch...

  • Attorney · Raleigh, NC · Member since 2008 · 4k+ posts · 1k+ votes
    17y

    Ok funny story. Couple years ago when I would do almost anything for cash, I painted a buddy's rental property in an area I was pretty skittish in at night and my only time to paint was through the middle of the night....so I took the shotgun with me while painting. I brought the shotgun home when the job was done.

    The place was tenanted and the tenant took off two months later. My buddy called me and told me he found a bandolier full of shotgun shells. I went over to look at it and recognized it immediately. So that's where I left it all this time - in the buddy's rental. :lol:

  • Real Estate Investor · North Carolina · Member since 2008 · 1k+ posts · 483 votes
    17y

    One of my tenants had a big boa constrictor that shed its skin, which he left.

    In a less-than-mature mood I threw the skin under the house... right before the termite inspector came.

    They've never worked for me since.

  • Real Estate Investor · Las Vegas, NV · Member since 2008 · 1k+ posts · 447 votes
    17y

    Previous tenant left a fully operational organ. Apparently it was too heavy to move. Another left a pickup truck cap that was in decent condition.

    :cool:

  • Real Estate Investor · Oakland, CA · Member since 2008 · 63 posts · 17 votes
    17y

    My buddy had a tenant that left behind a coffin that he was building, that was pretty damn weird.

    Sick/dirty things a tenant has left behind - use your imagination, I've learned just about anything's possible here.

  • Real Estate Investor · Member since 2008 · 340 posts · 34 votes
    17y

    Most of the stuff mentioned above. But also:

    A box a bullets, which happen to be 9mm, so I kept those for myself.
    Some nice weights. Also, kept those for myself.
    Tools. Again, kept those for myself.
    Weed and not the type you find on your front lawn. Did not keep that for myself, but one of the workers was more than happy to take it for himself.

  • Real Estate Investor · San Bernardino, CA · Member since 2008 · 9 posts · 5 votes
    17y

    Back in the late 80s I was working for a maintenance/repair company, we were hired by a landlord to move the belongings of the tenant (the landlords stepson) who had disappeared two months earlier. The house was a complete disaster, after about 20 minutes of dragging out disgusting furnishings, the place was swarming with detectives. One of the bedrooms and a shed in the back yard were being used as a meth lab. Being young and naive it never crossed my mind when I saw all the strange bottles and containers. I will be able to identify that smell til the day I dye. The article in the paper the next day said there was enough chemicals to produce over a million dollars worth of speed.

  • Joshua D.Pro Member
    BiggerPockets Founder · HI · Member since 2008 · 16k+ posts · 5k+ votes
    17y

    There were never any "strange" objects left behind for me, other than TONS of trash. I actually had to evict a tenant who was using one of the bedrooms as her garbage dump/closet. The trash was piled on top of clothing and so on. It was unbelievable, and was time for her to go! This pic gives a vibe of what it was like after she was gone.

    That said, when I moved into one of my primary residence properties a while back, I did so in the winter, while there was a TON of snow on the ground. Buried under piles of snow, which thawed weeks after I moved in, was a keg (1/2 full), broken drug paraphernalia, broken beer bottles, cans strewn across the lawn, and the biggie -- somewhere around 100+ pounds of dog poo, which emerged little by little as the thaw came.

    It was a NIGHTMARE!

    Oh - and they left some nude photos (self) hidden in the cabinet.

  • Real Estate Investor · OH · Member since 2008 · 4k+ posts · 1k+ votes
    17y

    There was your chance to pay for the damage! If she was hot, you could have sold the pictures to some porn site. If not, you could have sold the pictures to another site like America's Funniest pictures. Better yet, you could start a website - BiggerFreaks and put her on that!

    Mike

  • Real Estate Investor · Milwaukee, WI · Member since 2008 · 1k+ posts · 671 votes
    17y

    Mike I hope I like people and real estate as much as you do when I get to be your age!

  • Real Estate Investor · Sugar Hill, GA · Member since 2009 · 11 posts · 0 votes
    17y

    The wierdest thing(s) I have seen are:
    1. A completely furnished house...beds, tv, pots, pans, clothes, etc. They finally called several months after the eviction and asked what happened to their items.
    2. Porn magazines. After reading several other replies it appears renters really like porn, lol.
    3. A cute family of pet roaches.

  • Involved In Real Estate · Mesa, AZ · Member since 2008 · 47 posts · 0 votes
    17y

    How about a dead cat in the freezer. She loved that cat more than anything and could not part. Except to move.

  • Real Estate Investor · the villages, FL · Member since 2008 · 5k+ posts · 3k+ votes
    17y

    In one of the bedrooms, there were cages with piles of excrement under them. In one of the pens was a dead Rooster. The guy had been raising Fighting cocks in the bedroom!! This was left in a foreclosure I bought. Rich.

  • Developer · Garland, TX · Member since 2008 · 8k+ posts · 4k+ votes
    17y

    "How about a dead cat in the freezer. She loved that cat more than anything and could not part. Except to move."

    I assume the power was on and the freezer was cold?

    I owned a home in a war zone for 11 years. My first tenant became my first eviction. The fridge and freezer were full, but the power had been off some time and it was summer. I can't say what all was in that freezer, but breathing was not an option while cleaning it out.

    Nude photos of tenant --Must. Shield. Eyes.

    And the freakiest thing, a memorial on the wall to a dead "gansta," a young man gunned down. It included his framed picture, obit, and newspaper articles about his murder.

    You can really put together the lives of a tenant who leaves all behind. It's fascinating how simple choices affect the quality of our lives,

  • Commercial Real Estate Broker · Birmingham, AL · Member since 2009 · 32 posts · 3 votes
    17y

    Hey Rich,

    I had a similar one. The kitchen was caged in, and they had chickens in it, and another one, well you dont want to know what was left there.

    Wayne

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