Things I've Learned as a Landlord

Nerak936 · 04-14-2007

It's been an interesting eight years since I inherited this place (where I also live).....

25-year-old single male tenants are slobs. 40-year-old single female tenants can be just as bad if not worse. One person’s idea of “clean” can differ greatly from another person’s version of “clean”. Writing security deposit refund checks without seeing the apartment in the light of day is a bad idea.
When a tenant starts paying her rent in cash including rolls of nickels and dimes, it’s time to start digging out the newspaper ad for that apartment.
A tenant who sues you for falling down a flight of stairs and breaking a hip after tripping over his own cat will not necessarily move after the suit is finalized. He just might still be living there 5 years later (because he knows you have no legal rights to kick him out). And that same tenant will refer to you as his “buddy” during the legal proceedings and still attempt to have jovial conversation with you, while you’re trying keep your blood pressure down so that your head doesn’t explode.
Tenants who are aware that dogs are not allowed (it's in the Tenancy-at-Will contract they signed) will think that this rule doesn’t apply when their cousin from Philly is visiting for the week and brings along his constantly-barking mutt. I don’t care if he’s “just a little thing”. It’s a dog. Find a kennel.
A tenant who slips and falls in your icy driveway the morning after a storm who is perfectly capable of walking back to her apartment to call you on the phone and scream at you about the icy driveway is probably not in need of an ambulance for her injuries.
The same tenant should also be informed that even if she does think that someone fired a paintball at the house because of her “single candle in her window for her brother in Iraq”, I can’t do anything about that. This town has a police department. Call them if you think someone’s out to get you.
A tenant who calls you and calmly informs you that part of her living room ceiling is now lying on her living room floor (due to a burst water valve in the unoccupied apartment above her) and who puts up with the mess and inconvenience of the repair surely deserves a large bouquet of flowers as a thank you. And applause and a good tip is surely deserved when a plumber shows up to take care of the burst water valve at 6 PM on the Friday before Memorial Day weekend.
A semi-bursting pipe in the wall of a second floor apartment which is now flooding out a closet and ruining a ceiling of an apartment on the first floor will surely only happen on a early December weekend during a massive blizzard when your plow guy is vacationing in Florida and has no backup. Thank your lucky stars that the plumbing company sent out a guy with a great sense of humor who didn’t mind trudging through thigh-high snowdrifts back and forth to his truck for supplies and who kept apologizing to you as he punched more and more holes in your ceiling and wall to locate the leak.
Tenants who live in studio apartments with an especially low living room ceiling will be surprised when you tell them, “No. You can’t install a ceiling fan.”
When you tell a tenant who’s moving from a one-bedroom apartment on the first floor to a two-bedroom apartment on the second floor that their queen-sized box spring will NOT make it up the stairway (too tightly configured), her jerk of a boyfriend will NOT believe you. He will try. And try. And try again. Then they will both get pissed at you because they had to stop in the middle of their move and go out and buy a two-piece queen box spring.
Be prepared to answer your door at 12:30 AM when a tenant (who doesn’t work and lives off the benefits provided by tax-paying people who do) rings your doorbell to ask why he has no electricity. Remain calm and non-sarcastic as you point out the multiple fire engines and police cars and ever-growing crowd of onlookers on the street who are all looking upwards at a transformer that blew up at the top of a pole. Calmly point out that if he looks around, he’ll see that there isn’t one light on anywhere within a ½-mile radius. Then slam the door in his face and go back to bed.
Place ashtrays in the hallway with a “sweet” note for a tenant whose ex-husband has moved in with her and whom you saw, as you were pulling into the driveway, flick his lit cigarette butt out toward the driveway, but instead it lands on the front lawn. After closer investigation, discover that his lack of aim and distance is apparently not uncommon. Also notify tenant that she is voiding her Tenancy-at-Will by having said ex-husband move in. Be very happy when she gives notice to leave before her ex burns the place down.
Leave an old coffee can on the outside steps of the doorway where another tenant’s daughter smokes her cigarettes, and although they are extinguished safely, feels it’s perfectly okay to just toss the butts into the bushes next to the stairs over and over and over…. Accompany this with another “sweet” note.
Remind all tenants that there are 8 large plastic trash cans available to them which are emptied by a private contractor on a regular basis. If the first trash can is full, try the next one. If that is full, try the next one. Stopping your search after the first full trash can and just tossing your plastic Hefty bag full of yummy dinner leftovers on top of an empty trash barrel so that it's easily torn apart by the cute little critters of the area to dine upon and strew all over the back yard is not acceptable. Your landlord has better things to do on a Saturday morning than pick up your personal garbage.
Tenants who lose their key and call you at work at 2:30 on a weekday will not necessarily understand that you can’t just jump up and leave to run home and open their door. Expect to get yelled at when you tell them they have to wait til 5:30 when you do get home from work.
Tenants who have heat included in their rent will see nothing wrong with opening windows wide to “let in some fresh air” when it’s 15 degrees outside while leaving their nearby thermostat set at a comfortable 76 degrees.
Some tenants believe the ground might open up and swallow them whole if they wash their kitchen or bathroom floor more than twice during a 5-year tenancy. Hey… it’s a rental. What do they care?
Tenants don’t care if you hang flowering baskets at the doorways or plant flowers in the garden. Do it because YOU like the way it looks.
Never EVER think you can paint a pair of louvred closet doors in less than 4 hours. And drinking heavily while you're doing it is probably recommended.
Never expect a tenant to pick up a piece of litter that's blown into the yard. They don't care. They don't own the place.

osuchic10 · 04-14-2007

This has me crackin up!! My grandparents owned a double for about 10 years that they rented out and man, would they have gotten a kick out of this list

Thanks for the laugh!! (Too bad it's true

)

Seakony · 04-14-2007

I only learned one thing. NEVER EVER AGAIN!!!

Nerak936 · 04-14-2007

Yep. All of it is true. There are six apartments, and I live in one of them. While working on a wall this afternoon (patching and painting the wall that was damaged during the "blizzard leak"), all of these things were running through my head, so I thought I'd put it into writing. I'm sure I'll think of more!

Luv2Dance · 04-14-2007

Wow, Karen. I feel for you. Looks like you have had some real winners as tenants. Luckily, I only have one rental to handle at the moment. I couldn't imagine having to juggle all that you do.

Nerak936 · 04-14-2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seakony

I only learned one thing. NEVER EVER AGAIN!!!

I hear ya, Rita. There's something going on in the wings as far as selling this place goes, but it's all very "iffy" at this point and will take over a year to complete if it does happen. But in the meantime, I've GOT to find/buy a single-family home for myself and get OUTTA HERE. Being an on-site landlord has its advantages at times, but being so "available" can be a royal pain in the neck too.

playabum17 · 04-14-2007

The litter in the yard thing hits a note with me. Nothing chaps my hide worse than seeing a piece of trash in the yard, like the beer bottle under the deck, that no one picks up EVER! I know this is a rental, but it's my home and I have pride in my home. I am constantly picking up the trash that no else does. Sometimes I leave it for a couple days as a test to see if anyone else will pick it up.

Last summer, I left to run a quick errand and the neighbors upstairs were on the deck talking and drinking beers...no problem. I come back and there was a beer can on my back porch.

I went off!

I'm sure they thought I was an A1 biotch, but oh well. I asked them if it was their's, they said, yes it just dropped. I said "Well, PICK IT UP! This is my home and I don't appreciate coming home to beer cans on the back porch!" They apologized and have always been civil to me, so I guess alls well that ends well.

SportyGirl · 04-14-2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nerak936

It's been an interesting eight years since I inherited this place (where I also live).....

25-year-old single male tenants are slobs. 40-year-old single female tenants can be just as bad if not worse. One person’s idea of “clean” can differ greatly from another person’s version of “clean”. Writing security deposit refund checks without seeing the apartment in the light of day is a bad idea.

That is tooooo funny

. One of my young male tenants moved out after 4 years. It cost almost $8,000 to gut and redo the place because I simply REFUSED to try and clean his bathroom and kitchen -- we're talking waist high mildew in the shower -- YUCK!

Dale · 04-14-2007

Been there, done that and sold all 33 units. People ain't what they used to be! All of that is very true!

Nerak936 · 04-14-2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by SportyGirl

[/list]That is tooooo funny

. One of my young male tenants moved out after 4 years. It cost almost $8,000 to gut and redo the place because I simply REFUSED to try and clean his bathroom and kitchen -- we're talking waist high mildew in the shower -- YUCK!

Oh, gawwwwd!! That's awful! I remember helping my dad redo an apartment formerly occupied by a young male. I think that slob peed more against the wall NEXT to the toilet than he did IN the toilet! GROSS ME OUT!

Your story just made me think of another one:

I had a tenant (a woman in her early 40's) once call me to tell me there was a "problem" with the tile in her shower. She thought it was "maybe falling apart". Since I'd encountered problems with deteriorating grout in another bathroom previously which ended up being a nightmare since water was getting through to the tileboard and making it fall apart, I was over to her apartment in quick order.

She wasn't home when I stopped by to investigate. All that was wrong was that she hadn't been cleaning it (she'd been living there for at least a couple of years)!! The mildew was BLACK around the tile. All I needed to do was spray a little Lysol tile cleaner and use a scrub brush with a little elbow grease and water washed it all away. I cleaned about 25% of it for her and told her to buy some cleaner and a scrub brush. She was absolutely mortified with embarrassment.

Seakony · 04-14-2007

Tenants can also make it very hard to sell the property. Buyers want to see it first, tenants don't want to move or any changes..and will say stuff to the potential buyers to discourage them. Always make sure you are with the buyers to make sure the tenants don't screw it up.
I kept reminding my tenants to step outside and not to speak to the realtor or buyers. I could not figure out why That house did not sell...finally I got them to move out and got lots of offers.

Nerak936 · 04-14-2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seakony

Tenants can also make it very hard to sell the property.

In my case, the potential buyer is only interested in the land, so the tenants won't be involved in any way. And they won't be told about it until I'm darn sure it's about to go through (don't want anyone bailing on me prematurely).

Nerak936 · 04-14-2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by playabum17

I said "Well, PICK IT UP! This is my home and I don't appreciate coming home to beer cans on the back porch!" They apologized and have always been civil to me, so I guess alls well that ends well.

Don't be too hard on them, Belinda. You never know when you might be invaded by another BAT and require their assistance!!!

playabum17 · 04-14-2007

I'm not sure, but I think the bat incident was after the beer can incident so they must have forgiven me, they are ususally pretty friendly to me.

And...thanks for not letting me live that little incident down..

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nerak936

Don't be too hard on them, Belinda. You never know when you might be invaded by another BAT and require their assistance!!!

tgd156 · 04-14-2007

Ihave learned as being alandlord in Massachusetts that you don't want to bea landlord in Massachusetts!!! If you decide tobe alandlord in Massachusttes, you NEVER want to have a couple with a baby as atenant. This will be your doom! Iwas unfortunate enough to have acouple with ababy as tenants. After not receiving rent for 3 months, iwent through the whole eviction process and it took me almost 8 months toget them out. In the meantime, they lived rent free...cost me over 5,000.00 in lawyers fees and it almost cost me a prison sentence when igot caught plotting to have the whole family murdered!

04-14-2007	#1 (permalink)
Nerak936 añejo Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: South Shore of Baahhstun, Massachusetts Posts: 23,229	Things I've Learned as a Landlord It's been an interesting eight years since I inherited this place (where I also live)..... 25-year-old single male tenants are slobs. 40-year-old single female tenants can be just as bad if not worse. One person’s idea of “clean” can differ greatly from another person’s version of “clean”. Writing security deposit refund checks without seeing the apartment in the light of day is a bad idea. When a tenant starts paying her rent in cash including rolls of nickels and dimes, it’s time to start digging out the newspaper ad for that apartment. A tenant who sues you for falling down a flight of stairs and breaking a hip after tripping over his own cat will not necessarily move after the suit is finalized. He just might still be living there 5 years later (because he knows you have no legal rights to kick him out). And that same tenant will refer to you as his “buddy” during the legal proceedings and still attempt to have jovial conversation with you, while you’re trying keep your blood pressure down so that your head doesn’t explode. Tenants who are aware that dogs are not allowed (it's in the Tenancy-at-Will contract they signed) will think that this rule doesn’t apply when their cousin from Philly is visiting for the week and brings along his constantly-barking mutt. I don’t care if he’s “just a little thing”. It’s a dog. Find a kennel. A tenant who slips and falls in your icy driveway the morning after a storm who is perfectly capable of walking back to her apartment to call you on the phone and scream at you about the icy driveway is probably not in need of an ambulance for her injuries. The same tenant should also be informed that even if she does think that someone fired a paintball at the house because of her “single candle in her window for her brother in Iraq”, I can’t do anything about that. This town has a police department. Call them if you think someone’s out to get you. A tenant who calls you and calmly informs you that part of her living room ceiling is now lying on her living room floor (due to a burst water valve in the unoccupied apartment above her) and who puts up with the mess and inconvenience of the repair surely deserves a large bouquet of flowers as a thank you. And applause and a good tip is surely deserved when a plumber shows up to take care of the burst water valve at 6 PM on the Friday before Memorial Day weekend. A semi-bursting pipe in the wall of a second floor apartment which is now flooding out a closet and ruining a ceiling of an apartment on the first floor will surely only happen on a early December weekend during a massive blizzard when your plow guy is vacationing in Florida and has no backup. Thank your lucky stars that the plumbing company sent out a guy with a great sense of humor who didn’t mind trudging through thigh-high snowdrifts back and forth to his truck for supplies and who kept apologizing to you as he punched more and more holes in your ceiling and wall to locate the leak. Tenants who live in studio apartments with an especially low living room ceiling will be surprised when you tell them, “No. You can’t install a ceiling fan.” When you tell a tenant who’s moving from a one-bedroom apartment on the first floor to a two-bedroom apartment on the second floor that their queen-sized box spring will NOT make it up the stairway (too tightly configured), her jerk of a boyfriend will NOT believe you. He will try. And try. And try again. Then they will both get pissed at you because they had to stop in the middle of their move and go out and buy a two-piece queen box spring. Be prepared to answer your door at 12:30 AM when a tenant (who doesn’t work and lives off the benefits provided by tax-paying people who do) rings your doorbell to ask why he has no electricity. Remain calm and non-sarcastic as you point out the multiple fire engines and police cars and ever-growing crowd of onlookers on the street who are all looking upwards at a transformer that blew up at the top of a pole. Calmly point out that if he looks around, he’ll see that there isn’t one light on anywhere within a ½-mile radius. Then slam the door in his face and go back to bed. Place ashtrays in the hallway with a “sweet” note for a tenant whose ex-husband has moved in with her and whom you saw, as you were pulling into the driveway, flick his lit cigarette butt out toward the driveway, but instead it lands on the front lawn. After closer investigation, discover that his lack of aim and distance is apparently not uncommon. Also notify tenant that she is voiding her Tenancy-at-Will by having said ex-husband move in. Be very happy when she gives notice to leave before her ex burns the place down. Leave an old coffee can on the outside steps of the doorway where another tenant’s daughter smokes her cigarettes, and although they are extinguished safely, feels it’s perfectly okay to just toss the butts into the bushes next to the stairs over and over and over…. Accompany this with another “sweet” note. Remind all tenants that there are 8 large plastic trash cans available to them which are emptied by a private contractor on a regular basis. If the first trash can is full, try the next one. If that is full, try the next one. Stopping your search after the first full trash can and just tossing your plastic Hefty bag full of yummy dinner leftovers on top of an empty trash barrel so that it's easily torn apart by the cute little critters of the area to dine upon and strew all over the back yard is not acceptable. Your landlord has better things to do on a Saturday morning than pick up your personal garbage. Tenants who lose their key and call you at work at 2:30 on a weekday will not necessarily understand that you can’t just jump up and leave to run home and open their door. Expect to get yelled at when you tell them they have to wait til 5:30 when you do get home from work. Tenants who have heat included in their rent will see nothing wrong with opening windows wide to “let in some fresh air” when it’s 15 degrees outside while leaving their nearby thermostat set at a comfortable 76 degrees. Some tenants believe the ground might open up and swallow them whole if they wash their kitchen or bathroom floor more than twice during a 5-year tenancy. Hey… it’s a rental. What do they care? Tenants don’t care if you hang flowering baskets at the doorways or plant flowers in the garden. Do it because YOU like the way it looks. Never EVER think you can paint a pair of louvred closet doors in less than 4 hours. And drinking heavily while you're doing it is probably recommended. Never expect a tenant to pick up a piece of litter that's blown into the yard. They don't care. They don't own the place. __________________ >^.,.^< >^.,.^< One week in Akumal; one week in Playa!!! Last edited by Nerak936; 04-14-2007 at 02:11 PM..

04-14-2007	#2 (permalink)
osuchic10 way into it Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Columbus, OH Posts: 127	Good Stuff This has me crackin up!! My grandparents owned a double for about 10 years that they rented out and man, would they have gotten a kick out of this list Thanks for the laugh!! (Too bad it's true )

04-14-2007	#3 (permalink)
Seakony añejo Join Date: Aug 2003 Posts: 16,152	I only learned one thing. NEVER EVER AGAIN!!!

04-14-2007	#4 (permalink)
Nerak936 añejo Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: South Shore of Baahhstun, Massachusetts Posts: 23,229	Yep. All of it is true. There are six apartments, and I live in one of them. While working on a wall this afternoon (patching and painting the wall that was damaged during the "blizzard leak"), all of these things were running through my head, so I thought I'd put it into writing. I'm sure I'll think of more!

04-14-2007	#5 (permalink)
Luv2Dance añejo Join Date: Feb 2006 Posts: 25,603	Wow, Karen. I feel for you. Looks like you have had some real winners as tenants. Luckily, I only have one rental to handle at the moment. I couldn't imagine having to juggle all that you do.

04-14-2007	#7 (permalink)
playabum17 naughtiest chica Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Kansas, land of Ahs Posts: 16,486	The litter in the yard thing hits a note with me. Nothing chaps my hide worse than seeing a piece of trash in the yard, like the beer bottle under the deck, that no one picks up EVER! I know this is a rental, but it's my home and I have pride in my home. I am constantly picking up the trash that no else does. Sometimes I leave it for a couple days as a test to see if anyone else will pick it up. Last summer, I left to run a quick errand and the neighbors upstairs were on the deck talking and drinking beers...no problem. I come back and there was a beer can on my back porch. I went off! I'm sure they thought I was an A1 biotch, but oh well. I asked them if it was their's, they said, yes it just dropped. I said "Well, PICK IT UP! This is my home and I don't appreciate coming home to beer cans on the back porch!" They apologized and have always been civil to me, so I guess alls well that ends well.

04-14-2007	#9 (permalink)
Dale life=playa Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: Where the Ashley and the Cooper Rivers come together to form the Atlantic Ocean Posts: 898	Been there, done that and sold all 33 units. People ain't what they used to be! All of that is very true!

04-14-2007	#11 (permalink)
Seakony añejo Join Date: Aug 2003 Posts: 16,152	Tenants can also make it very hard to sell the property. Buyers want to see it first, tenants don't want to move or any changes..and will say stuff to the potential buyers to discourage them. Always make sure you are with the buyers to make sure the tenants don't screw it up. I kept reminding my tenants to step outside and not to speak to the realtor or buyers. I could not figure out why That house did not sell...finally I got them to move out and got lots of offers.

04-14-2007	#15 (permalink)
tgd156 life=playa Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: albany, massachusetts Posts: 885	Ihave learned as being alandlord in Massachusetts that you don't want to bea landlord in Massachusetts!!! If you decide tobe alandlord in Massachusttes, you NEVER want to have a couple with a baby as atenant. This will be your doom! Iwas unfortunate enough to have acouple with ababy as tenants. After not receiving rent for 3 months, iwent through the whole eviction process and it took me almost 8 months toget them out. In the meantime, they lived rent free...cost me over 5,000.00 in lawyers fees and it almost cost me a prison sentence when igot caught plotting to have the whole family murdered!

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