So I have to share mine, because it just happened this week. We went back and forth with the tenant in our rental home but finally convinced them to move out without having to go the eviction route. When they did finally leave, it costed about 10k to fix the house up so it was move in ready again. We're showing it this coming weekend and are excited to find a better tenant, knock on wood. After we were just about done cleaning it up though, my wife decided to go over there on Monday to throw away some junk the tenant had left in the back yard. While she was tidying up the back yard she noticed a bucket filling up with dirty rain water. The bucket's lid had a big U shape cut into it for some reason. She kicked over the bucket to spill the dirty rain water out onto the concrete walkway beside the house. To her horror, she saw (and smelled) a whole bunch of human turds go rolling and oozing out onto the concrete. ... Queue the stunned silence. I guess our old outdoorsy tenant wasn't satisfied with the 3 (yes, THREE) perfectly good toilets in the house, and decided to make a DIY toilet in the back yard. For the next few hours she texted me some very colorful comments about our old tenants while spraying dish soap she had brought along all over the concrete and scrubbing it out as best she could. Needless to say, I picked up the expensive dinner tab that night and showered her with as much praise and gratitude as I could muster. This was only the latest head scratcher in a long line of oddities which led us to show this tenant the door OUT. I have a hard time believing other landlords could top the leftover DIY toilet in the back yard... but I kinda want to see if you can lol. Any of you have any hilarious or maddening tenant stories that you love to tell at parties?

Had a 'left behind girlfriend' once when my screened tenant left. She was acquired during his stay and seemed nice enough the couple of times I saw her. After he left she was ok for a couple months until she went off her bi-polar meds and resumed drinking heavily and smoking crystal. She was soon fired from the little grocery story and getting behind on rent. Weird noises started coming from her apt at night. Bangs and clangs and yelling. Things were being broken and she was caught by police twice outside the building screaming at herself. What the heck was she doing at night? Thankfully she was behind on rent and had given (with a nudge from me) notice, so I could declare her apt and tenancy abandoned if she left for 1 day. I checked the daily inmate list of our county jail until I saw she was incarcerated again. Every morning I'd check. I had a go bag at the ready when I saw the county had her. I immediately drove the 40 minutes up and posted the abandoned property and tenancy declaration on her door and commenced an old school move-out. Everything to 'the curb' (actually to a reasonably secure storage area). My maintenance guy and I had everything out and the apt re-secured in 2 hours. Nothing like the smell of an old school eviction in the morning! She had broken a couple windows and the front door glass, which I had to upgrade to tempered. After getting out of jail, sober, she apologized and I forgave her back rent and damage debt. Self-managing at its finest!

I think you owe me a sandwich... LOL.. Nasty $h1t. Reading this as I am having lunch...lol. I don't know how you prepare for that? Maybe next time as a part of your screening you can ask the previous landlord if the tenant is properly potty trained? lol

Inherited tenant, prime suspect in the deaths of two husbands and attempted poisoning of a third. Escaped charges of check fraud by checking her self into a looney bin at one point and was a known drug dealer. She terrorised all other tenants, in fact was feared by most in the township. She also had a large bull dog that never left her side and was highly trained to protect her. All tenants were so afraid of her that none would testify against her at a eviction hearing. Ended up taking 12 eviction hearings, nearly three years and two orders of rent rebates (harassing her) before I made her life difficult enough for her to decide to leave. Cost me about three grand and was peanuts compared to what it was worth to the rest of the tenants to have her gone. It was a personal challenge to get rid of her and a well worth while experience. I do not like having difficult tenants but reality is that dealing with them is a enjoyable distraction for me from the usual responsibilities of being a hands on landlord. Second most enjoyable job after cashing rent checks. Two statements from tenants that should make you take notice: ...I know my rights.... and....as long as I pay my rent I can do what ever I please.

Had a lady in a four-plex who stopped paying rent, and gave every excuse in the book why she couldn't pay on time. After the 3rd notice to pay rent or quit, I finally got fed up with her and decided to through with the eviction...or so I thought. She was a paralegal at a local law firm, and well-versed in tenant rights. I hired an attorney who specialized in real estate law in that town, and he said she was the most clever evictee he had come across. Took 5 months to get her on her way. As payback for me evicting her, she turned on the water in the laundry room, stuck the hose down the drain, and let it run...for 3 months.

I had once a makeshift dental office in the living room with a compressor hose out the window. The tenant had a full waiting room until I showed up and stopped the party.

Craziest Tenant Experience?

Albert Ng

Rental Property Investor · San Jose, CA · Member since 2015 · 401 posts · 221 votes

8y

I got a story to share. My first and long term tenant, lived in the house for 5 years. Everything was nice and smooth until she suddenly disappear. Came to find out that she was growing weeds inside the house. She also brought in a dog to guard the "farm". The house was reek with dog's urine, but that is not the worst part. Imaging as soon as you walk into the house, 100s of fleas jump onto you ... 50K damage ... live and learn!

3 Reply

Ihe O.

Investor · Laurel, MD · Member since 2016 · 395 posts · 191 votes

8y

My tenants Boyfriend: This is my neighbourhood.

Me: This is my house.

0 Reply

Sean Ridlon

Contractor · Melrose, FL · Member since 2016 · 131 posts · 64 votes

8y

Originally posted by @James R. Copeland:

Originally posted by @Chris Grenier:

Cleaned a murder scene after she was stabbed to death

Wait... what?

In my head I always imagined the police somehow got that done... You seriously had to clean that up?

Nope! The cadaver is removed but everything that leaks out/gets sprayed etc is left behind for the property management or owner to deal with. Good news is that the insurance company handles all those costs beyond the deductible amount. The company in AK where I worked for 15 years did one a month or so.

1 Reply

Todd Dexheimer

Rental Property Investor · St. Paul, MN · Member since 2016 · 3k+ posts · 3k+ votes

8y

I had a tenant had custody of her niece. The girls mom had passed away and dad was in jail. Well dad got out of jail and found the house to get his daughter. When my tenant wouldn't let him in to get his daughter he poured gas around the house and lit it on fire. He also destroyed her vehicle. Luckily the guy was not a very good arson, because, just the grass was burnt! I received a call from the police telling the story and then saying that my tenant could not live there and could not go back and that they could not provide information on where she was going.

2 Reply

Todd Dexheimer

Rental Property Investor · St. Paul, MN · Member since 2016 · 3k+ posts · 3k+ votes

8y

I also had a tenant call me up to tell me there was water in the basement. This was strange, since the basement never flooded from rain. When I went to check it out, as I was walking through the basement that had 2-3" of standing water, I saw what appeared to be poop floating in the water. I asked the tenant to flush the toilet and sure enough water came rushing in from a waste line. We hired a company to come clean it up and they scooped 4 trash bags of poop out of the house after they pumped the water out!

The worst part is, when I asked the lady when it started, she said a few weeks ago. She had poop floating in her basement for a few weeks. Nasty!

3 Reply

Todd Dexheimer

Rental Property Investor · St. Paul, MN · Member since 2016 · 3k+ posts · 3k+ votes

8y

Ok, last one - I think. I had a city rental inspection on a rental house with a bad tenant that I was in the process of evicting. The first inspection went poorly. The tenant had a dirt bike parked in the living room, piles of trash all over and the worst, he had a dog locked in the closet that was literally standing in 4-5" of his own poop and pee. Needless to say we had to schedule a re-inspection.

In the mean time I got a call from the police dept saying that my tenant is being investigated for selling drugs and weapons and my cooperation would be helpful. I couldn't wait for eviction day, which came and the tenants told the judge all kinds of stories. The judge agreed to give them 2 weeks to move instead of the normal 7 days.

My 2nd inspection was happening in this time frame, so I notify the tenant and tell him what they need to do. We also had our maintenance go there the day before to check it out and handle thinks if needed. I show up for the inspection early to make a few minor repairs and move the dirt bike out of the house. When I went into the house the alarm went off, but since I needed to get stuff done, I went in and worked on a few things, as I walked out of the house 5 squad cars fly up to the house and officer jump out with guns pointed at me! "drop to the ground, hands behind your head." They approach me and ask me who I am, I tell them and say my ID is in my pocket. They take my ID and put me in the back of a squad car. Then they go into the house to search it. When they come back, they told me they knew I wasn't robbing the place, but since it was an active scene, it gave them the right to go into the house without a warrant to check for drugs and guns. Unfortunately they found nothing.

The last part of the story, is that after the tenants got removed from the house, I got notice that they where suing me for stealing underwear, bills, a dirt bike, etc. I had to show up to court to defend my self against these slimy people. Luckily they did not show up and the story ended.

Oh and I still love this business!

4 Reply

James R. CopelandPro Member

OP

Investor · Port Hueneme, CA · Member since 2017 · 73 posts · 34 votes

8y

Originally posted by @Todd Dexheimer:

I also had a tenant call me up to tell me there was water in the basement. This was strange, since the basement never flooded from rain. When I went to check it out, as I was walking through the basement that had 2-3" of standing water, I saw what appeared to be poop floating in the water. I asked the tenant to flush the toilet and sure enough water came rushing in from a waste line. We hired a company to come clean it up and they scooped 4 trash bags of poop out of the house after they pumped the water out!

The worst part is, when I asked the lady when it started, she said a few weeks ago. She had poop floating in her basement for a few weeks. Nasty!

Jeeeeeeeeez. You officially win the "Most Poop Award" on this thread. I'm almost afraid to ask how much this clean up costed!

1 Reply

Dave Van HornPro Member

Fund Manager · Wayne, PA · Member since 2009 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes

8y

@James R. Copeland

Tooooooo, toooo many. But maybe not funny "ha-ha" more like funny bizarre.

- Once had a tenant grill in the hallway of an apartment I owned. That went over as expected.

- Also had a guy take apart an entire motor on the front lawn...in the middle of the winter.

- Had a tenant with TWO big screen TVs (back when they were physical behemoths, not flat screens) in a very cozy one bedroom apartment. The one TV took up two walls of the living room, probably taking up more than a third. The other one was in the kitchen.

Not exactly funny but definitely maddening.... I also had a tenant have a shootout with the SWAT team at one of my properties. Fortunately, no one was killed. But the SWAT team destroyed the place. If you ever wondered what tear gas does to an apartment...it's not good.

Podcast Guest on Show #273

2 Reply

Mark Webb

Rental Property Investor · Orlando, FL · Member since 2017 · 65 posts · 17 votes

8y

@James R. Copeland just curious you said you had about 10K in repairs. . .

was this damages from the tenant or general repairs that needed to be done?

also how long was the tenant in the property just wondering?

0 Reply

Account Closed

Downers Grove, IL · Member since 2017 · 366 posts · 165 votes

8y

Exhausting just reading this thread, sort of reminded me of watching an episode of "Shameless". I've been fairly lucky, foul cooking odors and cigarette burnt carpets biggest headaches. There by God's grace go I.

1 Reply

James R. CopelandPro Member

OP

Investor · Port Hueneme, CA · Member since 2017 · 73 posts · 34 votes

8y

Originally posted by @Mark Webb:

@James R. Copeland just curious you said you had about 10K in repairs. . .

was this damages from the tenant or general repairs that needed to be done?

also how long was the tenant in the property just wondering?

Yeah a bit over 10k actually. Some of it I can't really blame the tenant for, but I wouldn't have spent nearly that much if they had taken better care of the place. Carpets were stained with cigarette burns and dog pee, it looked like in the last couple months the dogs just peed inside in every room and the tenant made absolutely no effort to clean it up, it was caked and crusting... but the carpets were over a decade old anyways so I didn't shed any tears about replacing them. The walls all had cigarette smell soaked in, plus drink splatters, so I had to repaint the entire house. There was a couple rooms upstairs which had weird colors, so I would've been happy to repaint those anyways, but not the whole house... The broken inside doors, missing keys and garage door openers, grimy blinds, left over junk (a headboard, rusty bicycle, grill, firepit, chairs etc), disgusting toilets and baths, and a few other items were definitely not expenses I was expecting to cover though. Tenant was only in the property for about 14 months. If it had been 4, 5, 6 years or some such I would've been a lot more forgiving.

After reading people's posts about murder scenes and SWAT team break-ins though, I'm not complaining any more :)

All in all it could've gone a lot worse. The DIY poop bucket just really took us off guard, and I figured if anyone might be able to relate it'd be my Bigger Pockets homies :)

0 Reply

Filipe Pereira

Property Manager · Windsor Locks, CT · Member since 2016 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes

8y

Not my story, but I've heard of a tenant putting dead fish in a wall, and patching it back up. The landlord got it re-rented, and a few weeks later the place STUNK. Landlord was convinced it was the new tenant, but of course it wasn't...must have made that relationship tough as well.

In another instance, I heard about a tenant that put concrete down the drain...that's worth an insurance claim in my book.

1 Reply

Mike Dymski

Investor · Greenville, SC · Member since 2016 · 5k+ posts · 13k+ votes

8y

Hired a roofer one time where there crew would go #1 and #2 in the yard on the job site and the neighbors puppy rolled all through it and got it all of their house. Turns out the roofer hired parolees to help rehabilitate them and they were not permitted to enter houses or leave job sites.

Had the neighborhood association's attorney show up in my driveway one morning when I was leaving for work and reported that one of my resident's guests was found passed out on the sidewalk with their pants around their ankles.

Had a resident break through the dividing wall in the attic that separated units in a duplex and steal items from the neighbor. I can't remember the details...long time ago...but another neighbor either saw them leaving the unit or trying to get in the window beforehand; so, the police were called and the guy was arrested.

1 Reply

Diane S.

philadelphia, PA · Member since 2017 · 52 posts · 12 votes

8y

we when rented always left it better than we got it, but had a client that did get concrete in the plumbing and tried to show one house for sale that the tenant had dog(we hope) poop all over the house floors and walls, they said they didnt want it to sell and have to move

1 Reply

Chris Grenier

Flipper/Rehabber · Orlando, FL · Member since 2016 · 311 posts · 150 votes

8y

James R. Copeland yah man you would think the cops or whoever would clean up the murder scene...nope. They wanted something like $3K for the hazmat team to clean it up so we just bought a ton of bleach and rags and went to town. Well i didn’t do anything because i immediately threw up and pussied out while the other guys cleaned it up haha

1 Reply

Jamie N.

Katy, TX · Member since 2017 · 6 posts · 2 votes

8y

My story is from a vacation rental I had. Couple with two young daughters, 3 and 5, check in on a Tuesday and are supposed to leave on a Thursday. Friday my housekeeper goes in and finds the parents passed out, unable to be roused, little girls are gone. She called me in a panic; I called the police and asked for paramedics. It turns out that they had found my three tiny cans of touch up paint in the closet and had been huffing paint the last few days. The place was a shambles with paint on towels and furniture, salt shaker in the shower, bite marks on the place mats, among other craziness. Fortunately little girls were with the grandparents. I sold that place the following month; had had enough of rental tenants. Another one cleaned fish in the unit and left the fish guts in the trash; when my housekeeper got there maggots were growing in the trash and the place stunk. And of course we had a bachelorette party of women checking in four hours later. :-(

0 Reply

Lisa V.

Golden, CO · Member since 2017 · 65 posts · 35 votes

8y

I'm speechless, @Jamie N.. Where do these people come from?

0 Reply

John D.

Rental Property Investor · La Quinta, CA · Member since 2014 · 1k+ posts · 779 votes

8y

"I'm speechless, @Jamie N. . Where do these people come from?"

And how did you vet them?

0 Reply

Jamie N.

Katy, TX · Member since 2017 · 6 posts · 2 votes

8y

Originally posted by @John D.:

"I'm speechless, @Jamie N. . Where do these people come from?"

And how did you vet them?

Well it was a vacation rental, so it was very difficult to vet the tenants. After that I switched to residential rentals for exactly that reason.

0 Reply

James R. CopelandPro Member

OP

Investor · Port Hueneme, CA · Member since 2017 · 73 posts · 34 votes

8y

Aaaaaand now I'm scared to own a vacation rental...

Has anyone ever done big picture looks at average return on vacation rentals, long term rentals, airbnb, etc? Why would short term vacation rentals be worthwhile? Isn't turnover a bad thing?

0 Reply

Myka Artis

Rental Property Investor · Arlington, TX · Member since 2016 · 706 posts · 611 votes

8y

@James R. Copeland The returns on a VR/STR are great. You can outsource the turnover. You can make up to 3-4 times your normal rent with an Airbnb depending upon your area. I don't know the Vancouver, WA market too well but I know people right across the bridge in OR that see great returns with STR's.

2 Reply

James Wise

Real Estate Broker · Cleveland Dayton Cincinnati Toledo Columbus & Akron, OH · Member since 2013 · 30k+ posts · 20k+ votes

8y

Craziest tenant experience??? I run a huge portfolio with 1,000's of tenants. Many are C-Class areas or lower. Or are deals where we take on problem properties from Landlords who have given up, so I've got TONS of these stories. I tell them on YouTube now since there are so many. Ohh let's see which one to choose. I suppose any of the following could qualify as the craziest.

Tenant pooped on couch in front of my business partner.
Tenant committed suicide on his bed by blowing his head off. His family then squatted in his unit for two months. When we finally got them out they were still using his blood & brain matter soaked mattress!
Tenant looked up me & my wife's personal house & tried to burn it down.
Tenant got so drunk every day he would poop himself. Apartment building started to smell so bad the USPS refused to deliver mail to it until we evicted him.
Tenants stole the hot water tank when they moved out of the unit. (that's happened multiple times)
Tenants firing guns in the air during Cinco de Mayo celebration (small city lot, pretty good tenants outside of that incident)
Tenants threw a couch through another tenants 2nd story dining room window.
Tenant found in their underwear, murdered, handcuffed & a bag over their head.
Brothel ran out of an apartment building. Off duty cops hired to control situation. A "Jon" who lived down the hallway of the brother actually invited one of the prostitutes to live with him. She then got him thrown in jail for the weekend a couple days later. Then she changed the locks & removed all of his belongings while he was incarcerated.

1 Reply

James R. CopelandPro Member

OP

Investor · Port Hueneme, CA · Member since 2017 · 73 posts · 34 votes

8y

Jeez... You had me at "pooped on couch in front of my business partner"

0 Reply

Harris Dy

Rowlett, TX · Member since 2018 · 16 posts · 3 votes

8y

These answers are worse than what I expected when I read the topic... lolz

0 Reply

Craziest Tenant Experience?

Craziest Tenant Experience?

Most Popular Reply

49 Replies