Tenant cement vandalism

Tenant cement vandalism

Trevor , WI · Member since 2017 · 11 posts · 10 votes

We had the sidewalk and driveway redone on the tenant side of our duplex. Yesterday the concrete was poured. This afternoon I noticed that a smile, a pentagram and a third illegible mark had been inscribed in the now dry cement.

After speaking with our tenants, who told us they had nothing to do with it, we called the police and filed a report. Tonight a neighbor showed us video footage of our tenants daughter defacing the cement. 

After this discovery the tenant called asking if we had found out who did it. I told her we knew the persons name and we were discussing our options. Less than 10 minutes later both parents and the 23yo daughter came over to apologize. This is the first problem we have had with them.

We had the images rubbed out of the concrete by our contractor. The area that was defaced no longer has a broom finish to help prevent slips and looks drastically different from the rest of the work that was done. 

The driveway and sidwwalk as well as patio were re-done at the request of the tenants, whose daughter ironically was the one complaining about how she would fall in the winter time due to the un-level side walk. 

They are pleasant neighbors and good tenants, always paying rent on time. We don't want to evict them (they are month to month) because of the foolish mistakes of their daughter. We are trying to decide how to proceed. 

 We are worried that if we evict their daughter they may possibly leave. We had planned to renovate their side when they move out and this is not the ideal time for that to happen, having recently spent so much on the driveway and a new fence. 

My husband believes that we need to either have them pay for damage compensation or raise their rent. Any suggestions? 

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Rockledge, FL · Member since 2016 · 493 posts · 427 votes
8y

Lori,

Charge the tenant (or take it out of their security deposit) for the cost to rub it out. You could indicate that they could pay it over the next 3 to 6 months (depending on the cost).

Make it clear that any additional vandalism of the property will not be tolerated. 

I would be nice about it, but firm. 

Good Luck!

Jim

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  • Investor · Sugar Land, TX · Member since 2017 · 97 posts · 71 votes
    8y
    Originally posted by @Account Closed:

    @Thomas S. OK, fine. But you make them pay according to the scale of their stupidity and the real cost to repair the damage, not according to your inability to manage a property and ignorance of the upkeep and repair of basic building materials. This really is just a simple cosmetic surface patch job. The OP and several thoroughly silly posters on this thread have turned it into a traveling salvation show, complete with love offering collected in fried chicken buckets and some snake handling over in the small tent.

    Did your tenants wear out a hinge in your place? You charge them for the epoxy to fill the holes and reset the hinge, not for a new door and frame.

    They put a chip in your granite countertop? They pay to have the chip repaired, not to have the granite replaced.

    Smash a pane of glass? Pay to replace the pane, not put in a new window.

    Burned out a light bulb? You don't charge them to have the house rewired.

    To date, the OP has brought in the sheriff, filed a police report, collected video footage, played mind games on the tenants, brought back a contractor, practically whistled up a medieval herald to read a proclamation and cry a condemnation over the concrete, "Hear ye, hear ye..."

    The tenants are going to spend the next few days asking everyone they've ever met in person and over social media if all this was really necessary to get the concrete fixed. Sooner or later, just as the OP did, they're going to meet someone to introduce them to the subtle mysteries of cement patcher. And they're going to realize that the pitchforks and torches were all an unnecessary dog and pony show run by a ringmistress bent on extracting a great show of moral vengeance for doodling in wet concrete.

    And the predatory advice the OP has gotten here...

    Saw out a six-foot block of concrete!
    Punish the evildoer!
    Throw the baggage out on the street along with her family!

    What's next? Make her wear a scarlet V for vandalism for the rest of her days? Fifty blows on the corner with the cane dipped in ink to tattoo the welts into her back? Perhaps the amende honorable or some crispy auto-da-fé action?

    I admit it. I chuckled out loud when I read this.

  • Flipper · Pittsburgh, PA · Member since 2017 · 218 posts · 345 votes
    8y

    @Thomas S.

    There it is again, an ignorance of how things actually works, and this cheap Puritanical insistence that JUSTICE MUST BE DONE!

    For a busted window, no, you do not pull the trim and yank the buck. "New windows these days" are modular. Let's say it's a new double-hung window. You drop the sash, push one side down farther than the other, and the whole sash comes off. THAT's what a window repairperson will replace, NOT the whole window.

    If someone scratched my car, I would take it to my friend who runs an auto body shop and get the repair done for minimal cost, probably free. I have quite a few friends in quite a few places, including BiggerPockets.com, where a quick look at your profile shows you have just one colleague.

    So I'm sure you'd take the car to the auto body shop, where the guy would look at you with loathing and charge you the highest possible amount, and then you'd nail the bill to the tenant's front door and then charge him/her for someone to fill the nail hole later. The way the Chinese communists make your family pay for the bullet they execute you with.

    But even at the body shop, the technician fills the scratch and buffs the panel with color-matched paste. S/he does not replace the whole fender. That's what you charge the tenant for.

    But no, in your mind, if it's "less than perfect," then let justice rain down like water and righteousness flow like a might stream!

    Something tells me you've never read "The Merchant of Venice."

    The quality of mercy is not strain'd,

    It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

    Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;

    It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:

    'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes

    The throned monarch better than his crown;

    His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,

    The attribute to awe and majesty,

    Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;

    But mercy is above this sceptred sway;

    It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,

    It is an attribute to God Himself;

    And earthly power doth then show likest God's

    When mercy seasons justice.

  • Investor · Oxford, MI · Member since 2016 · 110 posts · 41 votes
    8y
    Honestly - Someone posted a question of how to handle. Many views. People are getting upset about different views. IMO. A total justice approach is a waste of your time. It is concrete - it is people - you are right - but being right is not worth your time. It just isn’t IMO. New concrete made your tenants happy - it got a smiley face.
  • Trevor , WI · Member since 2017 · 11 posts · 10 votes
    8y

    Thank you for all your advice. We have received the quote for the patch work, and have resolved this with our tenants. 

  • Deland, FL · Member since 2017 · 2k+ posts · 1k+ votes
    8y
    Originally posted by @Account Closed:

    @Lori C.

    Holy smokes.

    Wait out the winter.

    Get yourself a 4 or 4 1/2 in diamond cup wheel and mount it on an angle grinder. The rig will cost you less than 60 bucks.

    Grind out the offending area. Using a cold chisel, chisel down 1/2 in into the concrete. Clean the area thoroughly.

    Apply $5 of cement patcher to the area. Sackrete's stuff is better than Quikrete's. Broom finish it up all you want with a broom.

    If it's been ground out already as you seem to indicate, just chisel down 1/2 inch, apply the patcher according to the directions, and run a broom over it in the correct direction. Good as new. Will the repair still be visible? Yes. Are you planning on selling the place next week? No? Well, when are you planning on selling your viable rental property? Oh, in twenty years? SO IT DOESN'T MATTER, RIGHT? It just offends your sensibilities and outsized sense of propriety.

    You are really making a mountain our of a molehill because your basic property maintenance skills are lacking. You called a contractor back to fix a smile and pentagram. Did you give him an earful about the brazen little hussy next door?


    You have the moral high ground. Congratulations! Bravissimo! You can stop clutching your pearls now.

    It's a business. Tenants do stupid things. That's part of the reason why they're tenants.

    Just what are you going to do when the daughter gets knocked up properly and her 35-year-old boyfriend moves in with his pit bull, his gun collection, and his penchant for sitting in his beater jalopy with his shady buddy-of-the-week and smoking it up every afternoon? Go over there and lead with some pursed-lip condemnation?

    Maybe you shouldn't buy any more rentals, Lori.

     You have GOT to be joking

    Completely ridiculous. 

  • Deland, FL · Member since 2017 · 2k+ posts · 1k+ votes
    8y
    Originally posted by @Lori C.:

    Thank you for all your advice. We have received the quote for the patch work, and have resolved this with our tenants. 

     THIS is how it is handled. :)

    Not some delusional advice to become Mr/MS fix it for something a tenent is responsible for 

  • Flipper · Pittsburgh, PA · Member since 2017 · 218 posts · 345 votes
    8y

    @Michael Plante

    Since I am a registered and insured home improvement contractor in Pennsylvania, I guess I should just let that go. And I will, because that works more often than not than jumping up and down on one's high horse. Good luck to you. Let's both of us make money in real estate in this big free country.

  • Hartford, WI · Member since 2015 · 11 posts · 2 votes
    8y

    After reading the criticisms here I feel the need to respond. Lori is my wife and I am the one who originally had asked her to post the question to see what other investors would do. We were actually looking for legitimate advice, not a ridiculous anti-business socialistic lecture. 

    Keep in mind the daughter is 23 years old, not a young child. We only recently bought the duplex this past year and have made incredible improvements on the property for our tenants. They have been very appreciative of all of the work we have put into the property. An eventual increase in rent due to the added costs was already in the plans. It was this situation which prompted me to consider raising it sooner rather than later.

    On top of this, I work 60 -80 hrs every week doing very difficult and labor intensive work. My wife runs a business and takes care of our son. Almost all of our time is spent working. The small amount of time we get together is very precious. 

    When you invest money into a project, you are investing your time. When someone purposefully sabotages that project it represents wasted time and money. This represents more time and money I have to put in at a job to repair the issue and less time with my family. To say that I should just take it and be happy when an individual purposefully defaces my property is willfully ignorant.

    To compare normal wear and tear such as a burnt light, damaged carpet and other expected issues to carving a pentagram into the new concrete is either purely ignorant or represents an individual who is considerably biased against investor's property rights in favor of the tenants.

    I will say that every normal person I told the story to, our neighbors and the police all thought it was a big deal and that we should be reimbursed by some means. 

    Also, we only called the police after our tenants denied doing so. We had suspected that it may have been the neighbor on the other side of us who has multiple felonies and has been hard for anyone on the block to get along with. The police would not have been called if we had realized it was our tenant's daughter. 

    This is why we looked into our neighbor's video footage. There were also no mind games being played. The tenants called us and my wife did not tell the tenants outright that we knew it was their daughter because she had not spoken to me yet about how to proceed, since I was still working. We were never going to charge for a whole "new window" (i.e. new sidewalk). The reimbursement would have been for the patch job. I'm not sure where that comment originates.

    There is no need for disrespect in this forum. It is my impression that people are here to learn from eachother, not point out (in this case invent) shortcomings.

    I could go on but I need to get back to work building a brand new fence for my tenants. Thank you to all who gave legitimate advice. 

  • Investor · San Francisco, CA · Member since 2017 · 303 posts · 327 votes
    8y
    @James K, please let me know when you should become a certified surgeon. I’ll have how-to questions for you for a brain surgery I intend to perform on myself. I know it’s not as simple as home repairs should be for anyone who gets into the business of being a landlord, but it involves tools, too. At least a drill, I imagine. So far, all the surgeons I’ve spoken with have been telling me it’s not a DIY project. I think they are nuts. Never thought of becoming a surgeon, James K? Too bad! I think you have the right bedside manners. - A (Certified) Landlord.
  • Flipper · Pittsburgh, PA · Member since 2017 · 218 posts · 345 votes
    8y

    Oh, it's like that, BiggerPockets censors?

    @Al D.

    Um, OK...I suspect that what you're TRYING to express here is that working competently with concrete requires some sort of multiyear professional training and/or insurance and/or God knows what to accomplish.

    I would post a 3-minute YouTube video on how to use cement patcher here, but the Oberkommando der BiggerPockets won't allow it.

    The specialized tools necessary to work with cement patcher are a margin trowel (cost 4 dollars), a bucket (cost, 2 dollars), a chip brush (cost, under 1 dollar) and cement patcher (cost, $20 per large bucket). And while I can say foregoing all modesty that I am pretty good at working with concrete because that's one of the ways I make money and cut down on operating expenses in this business, and while I do carry a million-dollar general liability insurance policy on my own work as a Pennsylvania home improvement contractor, I don't think it's an unreasonable expectation for every homeowner and landlord to understand the bare basics of what cement patcher is and how to use it instead of figuratively keelhauling silly tenants for what is ultimately a small, easily repairable bit of silly mischief.

  • Hartford, WI · Member since 2015 · 11 posts · 2 votes
    8y

    This year I've personally put new flooring in, electrical, new lighting, a new fence, new gutters, ran downspout extensions underground, fixed their central air conditioning and more. Im going to be finshing the basement on both sides as well. Knowing simple skills isn't my problem, it's time. After spending thousands on the concrete for them because they requested it I shouldn't have to get a trowel and patch it up the next day. 

    Not to mention, after we found out it was the tenant's daughter we called the police and told them we were not pressing charges. I'm not sure what "kneelhauling" you're even referring to. As of right now we haven't asked for anything from them other than showing more respect for our property. 

  • Flipper · Pittsburgh, PA · Member since 2017 · 218 posts · 345 votes
    8y

    @Robert Courtney

    You're right you shouldn't have to. No one could possibly dispute that right.
    Would I be offended if I were in your shoes, or your wife's? I certainly would be. Would it grate in my gut to pick up that margin trowel and fix what the girl did? You bet it would.

    If I were the parent of that girl, would she receive an ultimatum from me that it's either pick up that trowel and ask you to choose to give you the chance to begin to rectify her screw-up or get out of my house? Would I be beating my head against the wall at my own stupidity for raising such a low, ridiculous child incapable of gratitude and practically devoid of respect for other people's property, not to mention self-respect? I would.

    Imagine how grateful I would be to a landlord who forgave this injury and set things right quietly and without a fuss because he understood I had enough problems getting my overgrown woman-child to understand the facts of an adult life, not because he didn't want to cause a fuss or wasn't capable of doing it, but because he chose not to. I would owe that man a favor or three.

    This is also an opportunistic chance to expand a good home maintenance and improvement skill set in a basic area.  I have thankfully taken a number of these in the past, and almost all of them have paid off.

    Look, Robert, i understand that I've joked a great deal about what you and your wife have gone through over this in this thread, and it hasn't been funny at all for you. Not one bit.

    You paid thousands of dollars of money you both earned honestly to improve the driveway and the sidewalk, partly due to the prompting of this woman-child. Then she turned around and stabbed you in the back, hiding about it as you tried to document the problem, only admitting fault when she was sure you caught her out. And yeah, her parents were RIGHT IN ON IT. That shows a serious lack of integrity. The fact that you have this integrity is the main reason, I'll bet, that you own the duplex and your tenants do not.

    The deed is a straightforward, tangible sign of the value of character. Don't you pity these people for not having it? Don't you pity them in their weakness and vulnerability in situations like these because they don't have it?

    On a very personal (and perhaps sexist) level, don't you pity the father for obviously never having had the chance to learn how to play a man's part in a world that crushes those like him? My own father was a figure of unimpeachable integrity. I don't have to think far to get to an understanding of what the decent thing to do in any given situation might be. I suspect we're not far different. This woman-child doesn't have an example like that. Never will. Instead, she has the memory now of her craven father right in there ducking and covering with her when it came time to stand up and show his daughter how to behave. That's a memory she gets to go back to every time the hard choices come around in her life again.

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