The Tenants from Hell - How to Deal? Help Me.

The Tenants from Hell - How to Deal? Help Me.

Dallas, TX · Member since 2012 · 3 posts · 2 votes

I am a total newbie in this forum so sorry if i'm writing about a subject that sounds like a broken record but i need some advice (and comfort!). My husband has been landlording for about 2 years and he recently asked me to be more active in the business, starting with tenant relations. I work in corporate marketing for a Fortune 500 and am good with people so i thought, sure, no problem.

We currently have a tenant who is a complete monster. He doesn't abuse the property, but he does verbally abuse us. When his lease is up in August, he wants to move out and let his brother move in. The advantage for the tenant is that he gets to leave his furniture in the house, he's basically just packing up his clothes and moving in with someone else, and his brother wants to move in right afterwards, with the furniture already there. Our response to that is, Ok, but that means the security deposit has to be surrendered b/c there's no way for us to do an inspection while their belongings are still there.

The tenant called me and verbally harassed me. He called me a motherf***, said he was going to sue our company, wanted me to burn in hell, and other threats that i cannot type here.

How do you handle the tenant from hell b/c i honestly feel like that's where he came from. For those of you who landlord over 50+ properties, how do you emotionally handle these kinds of situations b/c it tore me apart.

As a side note, we'll be sending him a notice that we're terminating his lease and that all future communication needs to be through email. Forget the brother, there is no way we're going to rent to him.

Another question - For those of you who run a husband and wife operation, do you hide that fact from your tenants - if they ask, are you honest? If so, does that hurt the credibility of your landlording?

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Investor · Middletown, NJ · Member since 2008 · 2k+ posts · 1k+ votes
14y

Welcome to BP, Joyce. You've gotten great advice from folks already. And as Jon K. pointed out, the corporate and landlording worlds are very different. I have a corporate background, and when my very first tenant cursed me out over the phone for something I can't even remember, I was shaking and shocked. I actually felt physically ill, since this was behavior I'd never experienced in an office environment.

Jon is right, you'll learn to let it roll off after you've dealt with it more than once. After 4 years of this, I don't take it personally when a tenant trashes a place or doesn't pay the water bill and threatens to sue when they don't get their deposit back. I stick to the facts and the law, and let my attorney handle what they're best at.

I hope you have an attorney who specializes in landlord/tenant law, that's a very important person to have on your team. Not an attorney who specialized in divorces or adoptions. Let them write your leases, since they'll be defending them in court.

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  • Lender · Tyngsboro, MA · Member since 2009 · 3k+ posts · 2k+ votes
    14y

    Welcome to BP, Joyce Y. You'll get lots of advice here, some of it wanted, some not, but Bp'ers are nothing if not frank and pointed.

    Steve Babiak was simply giving you advice, which you did ask for, and I don't think it was personal.

    I would agree with others that you should either develop a thicker skin, which may happen quicker than you would think, or hire property management. then you won't have to take it personally.

    Setting standards for your tenants and sticking to them will help avoid this kind of situation. Never allow a tenant to dictate to you. Telling you he was going to move his brother in would not be something I would even consider. All applicants apply using the same form and the same screening process, and they don't tell me who I'm going to choose.

    You've gotten a lot of good advice in this thread, please don't take it personally simply because the delivery is direct and to the point.

  • Investor · Central Valley, CA · Member since 2012 · 6k+ posts · 3k+ votes
    14y
    Originally posted by Jon Holdman:

    Hiring a property management changes the stories from tenant stories to property manager stories. Whoever decided to call rental real estate a "passive investment" was an idiot.

    Jon Holdman Agreed. When landlords deal with their PMs the same way they deal with their tenants, then the stories are the same. But for some LLs, I think distance from tenants can be a good thing.

  • Member since 2019 · 3 posts · 0 votes
    7y

    I have a house with 2 rental units - upstairs and downstairs - and I have a tenant whom I though was perfect and has lived upstairs for 10 years.  I just evicted this tenant because if discover that she had been  moving people into the house - not allowed in the lease - printing out a lease and having them sign it, then collecting rent from these rogue tenants!!!!!  

    For one couple, she demanded $500 a month in food stamps!  This has been going on for about 5 years of so I have discovered.  She has lied and when she wants to get her hands on the basement apartment, she harasses the tenant until they move or has fed me such a line of bull I have evicted them.  I live in another town and made her manager of the property because I trusted her and now all of this has come up.  AND you should see what she and her low life family did to the upstairs where she lived.  When they left they turned on all the lights, raised all the blinds, turned on all the burners on the stove and turned on the over, stuff the vents with trash, locked the doors leaving the keys inside so we had to break in.  The real rub is - the basement tenant whom she was harassing is her 5 year old great granddaughter and her father!  I paid the utilities so she got even with these nasty tricks, but, endangering child is ridiculous.  She even stole the child's vintage doll!  The grandma from hell and I think we should bring some charges against her.  Just wondering where to start,

  • Member since 2016 · 13k+ posts · 12k+ votes
    7y

    It all falls under the cost of managing long distance. Clean it up, re-rent and move on. You should be looking into hiring a PM to manage the property.   

  • Member since 2019 · 3 posts · 0 votes
    7y

    She was the PM!

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