Investor · Maui, HI · Member since 2009 · 13k+ posts · 3k+ votes
13y
I have a tenant that continually complains of being cold, and I need to do a better job of sealing her doors (which they are sealed fine.) I go over there- and her heat is off. "Well, I don't wan to pay for all that electricity! I just run it once in a while."
Investor · Austin, TX · Member since 2014 · 248 posts · 181 votes
8y
I just bought a home whose tenant has been there 34 years on a month to month lease.She was paying $750/mo which equates to about half of the market rent of $1550 which I am getting on two similar homes I own in the same neighborhood. I can't double the rent , but I can raise it to something "reasonable" i raised it 20% to $900 and sent her the new lease via her attorney (she lawyered up). The next month she paid $750. When I called her, she said she paid the old rent because she had not signed the new lease. I told her I was about to commence eviction proceedings. She paid the other $150 the next day. Luckily she is moving out in April at which time I can do my rehab (the place is a mess) and flip it.
Rental Property Investor · Cleveland, OH · Member since 2016 · 227 posts · 287 votes
8y
One from a couple months ago... not exactly dumb, I felt for the lady, but pretty hilarious since everyone's okay.
My tenant Mary asked me to rekey the locks and I agreed, but didn't have time to do it myself, so I sent a locksmith over and figured I'd pick up my copy of the keys sometime that week. (Never going to do that again.) That night, I get my first 3 AM call from the tenant on the other half of the duplex. Mary's smoke alarm is going off, all her lights are on, her car is in the drive, but my other tenant is banging on the door and Mary isn't responding. Oh my god. I call the fire department to meet me there, and drive over freaking out. ("Oh my god, Mary is dead, I have a dead tenant, oh my god, we're going to have to break in, the fire department is going to shoot her rottweiler, I'm going to be the slumlord all over the news in my town, oh my god I hope Mary is okay, I'm going to have to explain this to her father the pastor...")
We get there, the fire department breaks in the door because I don't have the new keys yet. Mary was asleep upstairs. She's okay and her dog is okay. Thank God. She had taken some painkillers for a chronic illness, then put spaghetti on to boil and passed out. All the water boiled off, filled the place with smoke. Poor girl woke up to chaos and cops in her bedroom. Oi vey. She is so embarrassed, a little scared, and so apologetic. She will absolutely get the door replaced herself, etc., etc. I'm just happy she's alive.
But when I'm on the way out, she picks up the spaghetti wrapper from the counter and says "And that was a whole brand new pack of spaghetti!" and finally breaks down in tears.
Investor · Ottawa, IL · Member since 2015 · 22 posts · 34 votes
8y
My stories...
A few years ago, the phone rings at 11:30pm from a tenant that has always been pampered by mommy, and frequently calls with inane questions. Of course, I let it go to voicemail, I'll call her back tomorrow. The phone immediately rings again from the same number, so I answer it, thinking it might be an emergency.
Me: Hello, is everything okay?
Her: Is it okay for me to put christmas lights on the porch railing?
Me: (smacking my head) Yeah, that's fine, but this isn't an emergency. Why are you calling so late? Why didn't you wait until tomorrow, or leave a voicemail?
Her: Oh, I was just wondering if it was okay. I'll see if my mom will get me some lights.
If it wasn't for the fact that her mom pays her rent on time, every month.... haha
Another tenant would always pay late, tried adding a bedroom in a damp, unfinished basement (painted the walls, added a ceiling fan, ran outlets with Romex), and got mad when I told him it was against code, then tore it all out and told him it violated his lease. He smoked in the house, and tried moving in buddies without adding them to the lease. He finally moved out without paying the last month's rent because his friend's mom was going to let him rent a vacant house they'd inherited. I was ready to kick him out, so I was happy to see him leave.
About 6 months later, he called me up and asked if his old house was still available because his new landlord (his buddy's mom) "just didn't understand him." I politely told him "no, there are new people living there, they moved in about 6 months ago, just after you left without paying." Then I hung up the phone and laughed to myself for a long time, glad I'd dodged that bullet.
Acworth, GA · Member since 2017 · 1 post · 4 votes
8y
I used to own three side-by-side townhouses in a low-income area of Northern Virginia. I became notorious as the 'guy who did a triple eviction'. Yup. I evicted all three 'families' from all three houses at the same time. There were a total of 42 people living in the houses when I served the eviction notices.
Anyway, one time I was doing a walk-around the townhouses and witnessed people knocking on the basement door of one of them, and then money exchanging hands, after which the people were entering. I could hear loud cheering and quite a commotion from inside. Curious about what was happening, I rang the front door and the tenant answered. I asked him what was going on in the basement and he gave me vague answers that didn't make sense. My concern was that there was cockfighting going on, and I didn't want to get caught up in that nonsense since the police had recently raided several nearby houses for that. He assured me that it wasn't cockfighting and that he no longer kept chickens in the house. Huh? No longer????
Yeah. This is why I got out of low-income landlording. Now I do middle-class suburban landlording.
Residential Real Estate Broker · Chicago Suburbs, IL · Member since 2013 · 1k+ posts · 594 votes
8y
So we have a PITA tenant...I just have to laugh at the latest email Monday, "We are not able to take a shower upstairs. The faucet is broken...we just take a shower downstairs which is not as accessible...the shower head does not stay so it takes us longer..." Turns out it's just a loose screw in the upstairs shower handle. And the "issue" with the downstairs shower is that the water pressure is lower, shower head points down not out, but its a handheld style so we tell her to hold it to get the water where she wants, "well then I have to wash my hair with two hands".
Rental Property Investor · Seattle, WA · Member since 2014 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes
8y
Had this couple tonight. Both look like trailer trash. Come to tour my 3/4 million dollar home to rent. She mentions she wants to turn it into a day care....Also turns out their lied, their combined income is less than the rent of nearly 4.5K a month. They figured with the day care money they could make it work. Turns out they are renting a room out of someone else's house currently.
Norfolk, VA · Member since 2018 · 15 posts · 8 votes
8y
Tenant: On May 31st you will receive rent and late fee for March and April.
On June 12th you will receive rent and late fee for May and June.
On July 23rd you will receive rent and late fee for July and rent in advance for August.
Me: 5-day Notice to pay or quit
Tenant: Overnights a cashier's check for full overdue balance
His rent for January was late, too, and his current lease ends on June 30. What makes him think we would renew it in the midst of that kind of situation??
Real Estate Investor · Audubon, PA · Member since 2009 · 13k+ posts · 8k+ votes
8y
"Unbelievable. Unconscionable. Shame on the tenant who agrees to make certain payments at certain times (otherwise known as 'paying rent') but then does not make those payments ..."
Investor · Valparaiso, IN · Member since 2011 · 103 posts · 65 votes
8y
I'm not sure if this fits, exactly... but I have a house-renting tenant who's been with me less than a year, and she'd been having trouble with consistency. Sometimes rent would be late (with late fee), other times she bounced a check. When she switched to paying online through cozy, I thought that would help... but then she paid almost 2 weeks late and claimed not to know why it hadn't gone through sooner (said she'd paid it on the 1st). She was running more than two weeks late the following month, and I'd added the appropriate late fees, making her balance $1,171... and then I got a text saying she'd made a payment... of $17,111.
Obviously, that bounced. I made her aware of her error right away, but there was no way for her to take it back. That's the downside to online payments! (She said, "I must not have had my reading glasses on when I did that last night.") It took her a while to recover from that mistake, since it created a domino effect of other checks bouncing, with more fees from her bank. That was a couple months ago, and she just finally got caught up with me this week. (With a paper check, at my request.)
Rental Property Investor · Upstate, NY · Member since 2012 · 3k+ posts · 3k+ votes
8y
Had my tenant call about an electrical problem he was having. It appears he built an 'industrial grade' extension cord for the TV & game central etc. It doesn't work because our (20amp 12/2) electrical circuits are a problem & need upgrading. He reminded me that he is college educated (liberal arts degree) so knows what he is talking about.
Aurora, CO · Member since 2017 · 52 posts · 19 votes
8y
First month my tenant move in (summer) called me and said AC is not working ( i just moved out couple days ago and its working fine). She set it down to 50 because she thought it will cold down faster :)
Winter time - called me and said the furnace is not working and she is freezing. I told her to take pic of the thermostat and send it to me. So she set it up to 80 and the fan is ON not AUTO. I said put it back to Auto, she said ithe furnace wont work if she do that :)) I came over and it was 70 degreee inside the house but she had her blanket cover her head but her kids was on their tank top and short.... i just need to light up the pilot. Problem solved!
I finally found this thread again! I wish we could sticky this! =)
If you follow it, you can get to it from your followed threads list, plus you get emails with links that take you right to the newest post. That's what I did.... :)
Columbia, SC · Member since 2014 · 133 posts · 190 votes
7y
Reading the new stuff in the applicant thread and this one is more relevant - although I think there probably should be a thread specifically for "short term renter demands". I had a lady rent our beach condo from Sunday to Saturday (not the normal Saturday to Saturday we do and it was discounted accordingly and she knew this) and the cleaning crew came that Saturday to start doing the linens and such and they were all sitting there ready to go to the beach. She was confused and said they had another day and finally got to the point where I was called. Informed her again she was out that day and she said she refused - I told her short term rentals could literally be kicked out within the hour and she backed off. She then told me I should split the difference on finding them a place for the last night of their trip since I had "inconvenienced" them! My property manager, out of the goodness of his heart, found another of his units that had a vacancy and moved them there (not a dime paid by me) and of course the police were called because they were shooting fireworks at all hours of the night in the pool.
Rental Property Investor · Upstate, NY · Member since 2012 · 3k+ posts · 3k+ votes
7y
Long term tenants with low income employment wanted to sit down & talk about how to buy a home. But they are only available after 7pm each evening & weekends is their quiet time together so no visitors.
I wrote a detailed letter explaining what they need EMD, closing costs, DTI, escrow/month, mortgage pmts etc etc & all requirements to qualify for conventional financing. But they text me & said "we have no money saved so you buy house we pay rent & then we own it".
I have a feeling they will be with us a few more years, but I have to admire their Chutzpah !!!
Augusta, GA · Member since 2014 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes
7y
Have a tenant who moved from Michigan to Georgia in the early spring. Over at her place with the HVAC tech doing routine twice a year cleaning maintenance on her unit. She complains "it's so hot here; is there anything you can do about this?" I ask "do you mean your unit is not cooling adequately?" Oh no, she says; the HVAC unit is great. It's just so hot outside.
Can I do anything about the outside heat? Ummm; sorry..no. Welcome to the deep south.
Accountant · Saint Louis, MO · Member since 2017 · 409 posts · 362 votes
7y
@Gail K. That's similar to one of my tenants who when their AC went out, instead of telling me about it, they tried just cranking the thing up cause "if we set it to 70 it only gets to 77, so we set it to 60 to try and get it to 67."...That's not how that works.
Then when they finally tell me about the issue, I tell them we'll send a tech out, (we have a 24hour max delay with our service agreement) the tenant complains the next morning "when is the tech going to get here cause it's hot and I can't have my kids in this heat all day." Like what am I supposed to do? Force the HVAC company to get there immediately? (the high for the day was only 80 anyway). my response "They'll be there between 2 and 4pm. If you're not there when they show up, then they won't be able to fix the unit."
@Gail K. That's similar to one of my tenants who when their AC went out, instead of telling me about it, they tried just cranking the thing up cause "if we set it to 70 it only gets to 77, so we set it to 60 to try and get it to 67."...That's not how that works.
Then when they finally tell me about the issue, I tell them we'll send a tech out, (we have a 24hour max delay with our service agreement) the tenant complains the next morning "when is the tech going to get here cause it's hot and I can't have my kids in this heat all day." Like what am I supposed to do? Force the HVAC company to get there immediately? (the high for the day was only 80 anyway). my response "They'll be there between 2 and 4pm. If you're not there when they show up, then they won't be able to fix the unit."
I hear you. Last week I had a plumber out at a rental doing some minor upgrades to get things up to code. He mentioned that there was water all over the basement floor and he thought it was related to the AC. This rental is actually my old house and right near my day job, so I checked it out. The AC was working great when I lived there last summer...
I guess there was some kind of issue and it wasn't working well. The tenant cranked it down to 44. Seriously?! 44 degrees! and the temperature in the house was 81. She never bothered mentioning the issue to me, just set the HVAC system to rip itself apart. There's a baseball sized ball of ice on one of the pipes in the basement. I told her that and she said "Oh no... that might be my fault..."
Accountant · Saint Louis, MO · Member since 2017 · 409 posts · 362 votes
7y
@Gwen Fyfe yeah, our AC had ice build up at every turn of the piping going from the condenser outside to the A-coil. They didn't think that was a problem.
@Gwen Fyfe yeah, our AC had ice build up at every turn of the piping going from the condenser outside to the A-coil. They didn't think that was a problem.
Oh my god. Lovely.
Was it an expensive repair? I'm dreading the quote from my HVAC guy. If this tenant wants it done she can pay for it herself, but I know she won't be able to afford it, and eventually I'll have to pay for it myself.