Tenant From Hell Stories

Hi,

In the last newsletter I asked for people to send through their tenant from hell stories.

Here’s one I thought I’d share…

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I’ve had tenants from hell, only because I didn’t know what I was doing as a landlord. If I’d had the experience, they wouldn’t have got past the phone interview. As its sometimes said, good judgement comes from experience and experience comes from bad judgement!

The first was a young couple, planning to get married. When rent came late, or not at all, I took the we’re-friends, we-can-work-this-out approach. Things improved for a little while, but not for long. I sat down with them and was told point blank that HE put in his half of the rent, what SHE did with it had nothing to do with him. I blindly ignored the red flashing lights and alarm bells, and extracted a written agreement for the rent to be paid on time and the arrears at $20 per week.

After another couple of missed payments, I called around to find the house empty – sort of. There was furniture scattered about, but not enough to be livable. The missing bed was a clue that they’d moved out. The holes punched through the walls was a clue that it hadn’t been an amicable departure.

I eventually tracked him down at his parents house. I walked up after dark, knocked on the front door, and waited. I heard a rustling sound behind me and I turned around to see the biggest, blackest, most evil looking Rottweiler in the world, front legs braced on the step behind me and lips curled back in a silent snarl. It gave a low growl and visibly bunched up its muscles, ready to attack.

I was going to die. Horribly. Painfully. I did the first thing that came into my head. I stuck my hand in front of its nose.

“Gidday, pup! You being a good guard dog? Thats a great set of teeth you’ve got there. What a good dog!”

The Rottie stopped in mid growl, tipped his head to one side, and looked at me as if I’d just escaped from the loony bin.

The door opened and my tenant looked out, obviously surprised to see me. “Where’s the dog?”

“Right here,” I said, reaching behind and giving the Rottie a pat.

“Jesus! Are you nuts? Didn’t you see the sign and the bell push by the gate?”

“Nope. Anyway, I’m here about the rent and the damage to the property.”

Turns out they’d split up, he’d taken his furniture and left her to it. He paid me his half of the back rent and the wall damage took care of their bond. It took four weeks to find her and get her stuff shifted out. I had to promise her parents not to chase her for the rent otherwise they would leave her furniture there for another few weeks.

It was only then that I could clean and fix the property and get more tenants.

This time I was more careful. We let the estate agency vet them. We rented the house to a woman who had recently split up from her husband and who had a small baby. The rent wasn’t a problem because it was being paid by Social Welfare.

I paid a courtesy call a week later to see if she was happy and the door was answered by another woman. She was a friend who had also moved in, with a couple of small kids, to share expenses. Thanks for asking me!

All three children had colds and were coughing. The house was cold and damp, they hadn’t had the heaters going even though it was pouring rain in the middle of winter.

I’d bought a dehumidifier for my own house a few weeks before, on a 12-month interest free deal. I couldn’t see kids suffering like that so I whipped it around and got it going. At least I had the sense to add it to the chattel list on the rental agreement.

Sure enough, rent day came and went. I rang Social Welfare and they said it took a few weeks to go through, and it would be paid as a lump
sum. OK.

Two more rent days came and went. Social Welfare said its been paid. I said I hadn’t got it. “Oh, we pay it to the beneficiary, they pay it to you!”

I called around, since they hadn’t had the phone connected. No sign of my tenant, but the second woman and her kids were there. “Oh, she moved back in with her husband a couple of weeks ago.” We agreed to transfer the lease into her name and she would start payments as of that date.

Two weeks later, no rent, popped around to find the house deserted. Cleaned out. No furniture, no dehumidifier, no curtains. Even the light bulbs and 98c plastic light shades had gone. The back door had been kicked in, wrecking the frame and breaking the glass panels.

The police came and spread black fingerprint dust over everything, and said that was about all they could do. They phoned a day later to say that they couldn’t prove anything, but the word on the street was that the squatter had gone back to her husband, they’d taken everything out of the house and booted the door in to make it look like a burglary. Forget it.

It was kind of hard to forget it, when for the next nine months the electricity bill arrived with an amount added for the dehumidifier.

Once the door was fixed and the place cleaned, we found Tenant Number Three. Bad things come in threes, or was it third time lucky?

He was around thirty, and didn’t have any references because he still lived with his parents. I knew to make my own checks now, so I spoke to his mother and his boss at work. He was a good clean boy and a valuable sales assistant in the home appliances department. But he had a dog. A smallish, light brown medium dog, short haired – but clean.

I didn’t mind the dog, because we had two of our own, and he promised to keep it outside. And it was clean.

What he didn’t tell me was that it was the most vicious psycho ravening death bastard.

Because the rent was being paid on time, every time, and the outside of the place was tidy and the lawns mowed, I didn’t bother going around
until the six-month inspection was due. “Phone before you come round, I’ll put the dog in the garage.” “Sure!”

I wandered around and walked up to the gate. His dog was lying on the path sunning itself, maybe ten feet away. It lay there and looked at me and thumped its tail a couple of times. I leaned over the gate and had my hand on the latch when it struck like a cobra. It just exploded and came up at me like a ginger cannonball. I’d flung myself back but it still sunk its fangs into my hand. If I hadn’t moved it would have
been my face.

I stood there, white as a sheet, blood dripping onto the concrete. The dog casually walked back to its spot on the path, turned around twice and lay down.

It looked at me and thumped its tail a couple of times.

Just then the tenant walked around the corner of the house. “Oh, you’re here. I’ll just shut the dog away.” “Uhh, thanks, we’ve already met.”

With my hand wrapped up, I checked the grounds.

Lawn like a bowling green, zero weeds in the garden, not a single dog poo anywhere. We went inside.

You know there’s untidy-but-clean, normal clean, then there’s neat-freak clean? Well the inside of the house was scary clean, with just a faint whiff of disinfectant.

Not a speck of dust anywhere. None.

Not in the bedrooms. Not in the kitchen. Not in the bathroom. Not in the spare room with the leather gear hanging up on the wall, not in the
lounge with the huge rear-projection TV and surround sound and bookshelf full of accurately lined up porn videos.

I signed off the inspection and said I wouldn’t be doing anything about the dog, though he’d better put a warning on the gate. I couldn’t get
out of there fast enough.

The rent continued to be paid on time, every time, for the next three years until we sold the property to investors. As far as I know he’s
still there, quiet, clean, and a good payer… the ideal tenant!

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Do you have a tenant from hell story? Post it here!

Bye,

Steve McKnight

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Remember that success comes from doing things differently.
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