Just for your reading pleasure... crazy entitled tenant

Just for your reading pleasure... crazy entitled tenant

Investor · San Diego, CA · Member since 2015 · 435 posts · 421 votes

Last March, at the beginning of the pandemic, one of our tenants didn't pay, and didn't answer our texts.  Finally, she contacted me.  Her husband had left her.  She had no food.  She had no dog food.  She had no money.

I packed her up two bags of groceries from our stockpile, and bought over-the-phone an enormous bag of dog food for her dogs that the store then loaded into my husband's van.  He delivered it all to her.  She eventually was able to catch up on the rent, and has paid mostly on time since.

Recently, on a Wednesday evening (snowstorm here), she called saying no heat.  Husband drove to her apt in the snow, got the heat up and running.  But Thursday, no heat again.  That afternoon, he brought her two oil-filled electric radiators, got in an HVAC tech.  They spent hours working on the unit, but were left with the risk of replacing a valve in an old gas pipe in the unit (which was old), so decided to do a replacement.  The HVAC tech and husband installed a brand new unit on Saturday.  Meanwhile, she had the two electric oil-filled radiators, and gas hot water, and gas stove.  She complained vociferously throughout.  She wanted the furnace instantly repaired or replaced, and she meant instantly.  She bitched that her electric bill would go up from using the electric radiators.  On Sunday, she called complaining that some of the vents were cold.  Husband ran down there - turned out that she didn't know the difference between a return and a heating vent, but new furnace was functioning perfectly.  On Monday, she complained that the programmable thermostat was broken.  He went down there yet again. Turned out that despite my husband having shown her, she didn't understand how to simply override the programmable thermostat by putting it on HOLD mode, so each time she put the temp up to her preferred temp (78), when the thermostat moved to the next time setting, it would drop back down to 68.  (She pays her own gas and electric).

We're furious.  Immediate response, temporary provision of electric radiators, and a new unit within less than 72 hours of the first problem with the furnace, and it's just not good enough for her.  And this is the woman that I gave my own stockpiled food to, and purchased dog food for, at a time when we didn't know how soon we could safely go into stores again.

She's on a month to month lease.  I swear, the minute the eviction moratorium is over, I plan to raise her rent by 20% (it would still be arguably within market rates in that town), and the second she is late, file eviction on her.

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

Invoke the Happy Clause.  "You're obviously not happy here.  With 30 day notice and a clean unit, you are welcome to move out and receive a refund of your deposit."  Something along those lines.

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  • Investor · San Diego, CA · Member since 2015 · 435 posts · 421 votes
    5y

    Just thought I'd give an update.  Tenant got through her bad time, finished her training certificate and got a decent job that is stable and secure.  The rent is getting paid regularly now.  We are going to raise her rent (along with everyone else's) quite soon, to just under market rate.  But since there is still an eviction moratorium on, not much else we can do.  Also, I honestly forgot all about it, as soon as she stopped bothering us.  And of course, the new heating unit is functioning beautifully.

  • Rental Property Investor · Centreville, VA · Member since 2019 · 1k+ posts · 799 votes
    5y

    Don't you love Real Estate Investing sometimes? It's amazing after been given so much leniency on rent, she still came back complaining for all those repairs. I would also evict her the day moratorium is lifted. 

  • Real Estate Investor · Tempe, AZ · Member since 2012 · 874 posts · 648 votes
    5y

    I can't be the only person on this thread who continues to wonder what an eviction moratorium has to do with non-renewal of a month-to-month lease......

  • Rental Property Investor · Boston, Massachusetts (MA) · Member since 2016 · 2k+ posts · 2k+ votes
    5y

    life is easier if you divorce any good deed you perform from its result. If you felt the right thing to do was bring groceries, then you did the right thing. Gratitude and benefits are nice and all, but they can't be the driver. Expect the worse, even, then be pleasantly surprised. Works with relatives too :)

  • Real Estate Investor · Tempe, AZ · Member since 2012 · 874 posts · 648 votes
    5y
    Originally posted by @Account Closed:

     Your comment: "I can always easily qualify for rental assistance through a local Lgbt organization"

    I wouldn't accept your rent. That's discrimination since I am not LGBT and therefore wouldn't qualify for the same rental assistance. I detest elitism and discrimination of any kind.

    Did you just publicly post that you wouldn't accept rent from an LGBT person because they may have access to funds pooled by their own community (and quite possibly others outside of their community) to support members that may be in need of assistance? Which rent would you not accept? Would you simply not lease to that person because he or she is LGBT, or would you not accept the rent payment in full out of suspicion that he or she may have received it from an entirely legal source? This is quite fascinating.

  • Member since 2020 · 17 posts · 4 votes
    5y
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