December 2022: I rented a garage stall unit (not at my house) to "Fred" - a guy in his 30's or 40's. He first filled it chock full of stuff to the ceiling, and then later in the spring likely lived in it for a short time. I didn't get proof of that - maybe he lived there a few days, or several weeks, or not at all, I don't know...it was just what another tenant said. My lawyer then gave Fred legal papers saying Ohio law forbids that, and I also agreed with my lawyer's suggestion to terminate the lease. Fred denied he had lived there, and he hasn't lived there meanwhile. I don't know where he lives now.
Spring 2025: I haven't go through with either court eviction or auction, because Fred kept promising he'd move his belongings out, and I was too busy with other projects, and I was sympathetic to his house foreclosure. I haven't collected rent on the unit since termination. Now I think terminating the lease went too far and was a mistake.
I don't have experience with storage unit auctions. I looked at Ohio's rules on storage units: yada yada and all that stuff. I just don't want to do that. Since I'm regretting agreeing with the lawyer to terminate the lease, I'm weighing the option of offering to re-lease the unit to Fred versus the hassle of auctioning off the unit's contents.
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Details:
Where: Ohio property with a rental house and a separate detached alley-facing 3-car garage with double-padlockable rollup doors, half an hour away from where I live. The 3 garage stalls are completely separated from each other, with this particular unit being 14x25. None of the garage tenants are residents of my rental house on the property. The rental and garage don't face each other. I don't have any commercial storage units anywhere else. I'm tired of being a small-time landlord. After 15 years, I don't like dealing with hassle anymore.
I rented that unit in December 2022 for $80 to Fred who had a truck full of junk. I don't require a credit or background check for renting the garage, just address, phone number, and a 1-page written agreement. It has a month-to-month tenancy with just some various rules for the unit. Initially Fred was mostly ok on paying rent although he started getting late a few times.
Fast forward 6 months to June 2023. Another garage tenant texted me one evening saying she's pretty sure Fred is living in his unit, with a barbecue grill smoking outside "...and he's got a potty bucket!" She sounded pretty confident he was living there but may have mistook him, I don't know. She offered to surreptitiously take some photos (no, not on the bucket). I texted back to go ahead, but she didn't take any pics (or if she did, decided she didn't want to give them to me). On research, public records showed Fred's house just had the foreclosure finalized, which means he got kicked out and the address on my lease paper was no longer valid. Messy divorce with “crazy ex”... cocaine conviction 10 years ago....
So in July 2023 my lawyer gave him a 30-day notice terminating the lease at the end of August. >>>Fred later denied by text living in the unit and I never had any solid proof of it.<<< He said his stuff was family and “valuable to him” but said he'd start looking for a new storage unit elsewhere. Earlier in May I first saw that the unit was chock full of stuff that looked like junk, not a lot of family valuables. After August 30 I double-padlocked the unit but later took it off so he could remove his stuff.
Since Fred was down on his luck in life, I was lenient because of his foreclosure and “crazy ex” divorce situation and kids, but I nagged him by text over the next year and he kept promising to move his stuff elsewhere. In the spring of 2024 he said he needs “a couple more months” to move the stuff out and offered me $200 in person for those 2 months, which, yes, I took. I asked him about his current financial situation and he said he was doing better financially in his life. Other projects elsewhere took most of my time so I sidelined doing much, but at the end of 2024 I texted him that otherwise I'm planning to send the unit to auction. “I'll get on it asap!” He hasn't done anything since.
So a couple weeks ago a local realtor referred me to their go-to realtor auction guy, who I called. That realtor auction guy I talked to on the phone didn't sound very competent. “I'd just break his padlock if it's got useless junk and throw the stuff away.” OMG. He said if I'd want to do auction then the lawyer needs to do more yada yada beforehand. But a delivery attempt of a certified letter would just go Fred's old foreclosed house address. He'd never get it. Would that create a legal issue if Fred wouldn't get the notice? He would get a text.
My lawyer would be shocked if I told him I haven't done anything with the unit for over a year. He doesn't know Fred still has his stuff there. My lawyer had not seemed familiar with Ohio's storage unit auction laws and he probably would want to to do eviction by court. Back in 2023 he had recommended that: eviction by court. I had told him I doubt court would be a good idea or proper venue for a garage unit and I declined. Maybe I should of done that after all, meh.
Now I don't want to deal with my lawyer or the auction company guy, and feel regret.
Should I just eat the long-lost rent and offer Fred a new lease in person? That way I would have his current address, now unknown. I'd make sure the lease is properly updated with new rules. I'd maybe require proof of income, maybe ask for some back rent, and have him pay to a property management company. Fred comes across as nice, nerdy, smart, and irresponsible. I wouldn't have to deal with an auction saga for his family stuff and he'd probably be happy. I'd avoid a legal issue on the certified letter. The garage is by a rear alley with no address of its own and I don't care to put the address of the rental house in an auction advertisement.
On the other hand, who knows how much an auction would bring. Last week I was able to peer over the garage rafters: the unit is still chock full to the ceiling of junky looking stuff.
Happy (!) landlording to all.
