Tenant take advantage

[Gary B.]

Hi Fellows,

i have a new tenant, she works for adult care facility. From day one she is trying to trying to make up things to get free rent by giving empty threats. Following is sequence of events:

1. Tenant moved in 68 days ago, PM gave her the lock box code and she moved in two days before actual move in date.

2. Property was delivered clean to her in walk through with empty garage and we had pictures. 

3, she claims when she came in property was in mess, more junk in garage was there. She claims that she spend all day cleaning the whole house. Threatened to have pictures but never shared them. Garage had junk (not sure how it landed there) which we promptly removed. 

4. Next, Toilet rings was leaking and PM promptly fixed the issue

5. Next, she was getting mild electric shock from refrigerator. Moment she reported I replaced the fridge and later found out it was lose neutral issue which electrician fixed and installed grounding. she cancelled twice the appointment before we could get access to fix this.

5. its a 1950's build house so it does not have grounding, i needed to get into home to fix the grounding issue for all outlets. Month goes by and she gives and cancel appointment to  electrician.

6. Now, she say washing machine is pumping back dirty water in kitchen and bathroom. 

7. Then she reports that heater is not working and she went ahead and bough three room heaters for each room and lost the receipt but wants me to pay for it.

8. Then we get access to home after giving her 24 hour notice. 

Findings: Heater pilot light was off and we turned it on and it was up and working. We ran snake test on drainage and also tested washing machine - no dirty water coming issue discovered. Also, we grounded whole house.

9. Today she reports that house has dry mould and insulation issues and she is getting health issues with it. Baseless again, we getting experts to verify it this week.

10. She claims her mom (who is not on lease) pacemaker got reset with fridge electric shock and she facing health problems because of mold and she has missed work and risk of losing job. 

So settlement offer yesterday was that give me one month free rent or pay my medical bills. We did say no

Today she say return all my rent + security or pay my medical bills. with new story of mold and health issues + job issues.

11. bottom line i have all the email communication to show that she is trying to find a reason to make money from landlord. 

12. she has 10 months on the lease, can you suggest how can i get rid of this tenant. She is a young girl working for an assisted living facility and sort of passed basic background checks. We are also following up with her old landlord to understand more about her. 

I will highly appreciate any guidance here.

Best, Gary

[Nathan Gesner]

No offense, but it's a waste of time to comment on each item. This woman is clearly not a good tenant. You should give her a written notice that gives her two options: accept it or move out.

I include a clause in my lease that essentially says, "You were given the opportunity to inspect the property and agree to rent it in its current condition. Landlord makes no promises for additional cleaning, repair, or improvements unless agreed to in writing prior to occupancy."

The home clearly is not suited for her champagne tastes and she clearly doesn't respect your lease agreement. Tell her she can suck it up and accept it or move out.

And I agree with @Natalie Kolodij that you need to get rid of this PM. They should have handled this for you and they should be handling it right now with very little - if any - involvement from you.