Denied applicant won’t leave me alone

[Adriane Boggs]

Hey everybody

I just need to vent for a minute...

I’m a total newbie trying to rent my first apartment and I unfortunately have learned some very valuable lessons right out of the gate.

Basically I showed the apartment to a couple that I really liked and I did my best to prescreen and asked all the right questions. I encouraged them to go on to Cozy and apply for the apartment. They were honest saying credit wasn’t perfect(we have found that our minimum score is probably unrealistic 620 so are open to more of a scoring system) so I just thought the application would speak for itself. Well it did. One of the applicants had an eviction they didn’t tell me about. We decide to deny them and notified them through email and text.

For the last two days they have been calling and leaving lengthy voice mails basically begging that I rent to them. So I blocked them. This evening I’m getting calls and text from their “personal references” begging I give them a chance. I haven’t responded to anyone.

Can everyone please confirm with me the mistakes I’ve made with the first being giving my personal number and any solutions you may have to prevent this from happening again. I feel unsafe and worried that being a landlord could jeopardize my safety and the safety of my family!

Thanks in advance. Feeling discouraged and not cut out for this. UGH

[John Teachout]

You're fine, if you respond at all, just tell them there was an eviction on their record that disqualifies them. They've probably heard that a lot which is why they're so desperate. I don't think they're going to retaliate against you in any way as you didn't do any harm to them. Regarding your personal number, I only have one phone number that I use for everything.

One thing going forward is to have a tenant profile for the property which spells out the requirements such as credit score, criminal background, no evictions, pet rules, smoking, etc. Making all this known up front saves you a lot of time responding to people that wouldn't qualify. I probably send out our tenant profile to 100 people per vacancy and get one or two  applications. (I won't show a property until they've received the profile.)